DIY smoker remodel
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Ha, Ha, I still have my beer on hand.
I do remote monitoring. I have 3 different thermometers that remotely report what’s going on. (But I usually only use one of them at a time.)
But now I sit at the computer, or TV, and watch the temperatures.
But I’m not one to go traipsing off shopping for underwear or other items while cooking.Beer is an important safety accessory for BBQing. It is important to have a “cold one” on hand in case of burned fingers.
You can immediately grab your cold can of beer to take the heat out of a burned finger.
Beer has natural anesthetic properties, and can have a numbing effect before the actual accidental burning. So there is that two-fold advantage of cold beer in hand.
A side effect of Beer at the BBQ is it can make you more entertaining to your guests. Especially if they, too, imbibe.
So the next time your spouse complains about having beer with your Bar-B-Que, point out the safety advantages of cold beer on hand.
To me, being safety conscience, it was important enough to put my Curing/Beer Fridge at my Outdoor Kitchen. Because I find my beer has a tendency to evaporate. So having more on hand where it is apt to be needed quickly made sense.
And the little fridge is a good place to put my smoked Bacon to age after smoking to mellow out. Having a ballast of 12 ounce mini kegs for temperature balance, the mini kegs also take on the wonderful aroma of smoked bacon.I think having separate monitoring is better because if it fails, replacing the thermal probe, or the entire thermometer is better than fiddling with built in sorts of units.
pauliedmondsjr I think I will print this reply and post it at our next bbq!
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rhjbarney nice! That is a cool use of technology. I usually sit by my smoker and watch it for 8 hours with a case of beer.
deplorablenc1 The only way!
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rhjbarney That is an awesome set up! Do you have dampers on either side of the top of just one central damper? Meat Cigars, nice thick old snack sticks?
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Looks really nice… What are you using for smoke generating?
woodchuck777 the original 110 VAC heating element is still in there with a pan that sits over the top of it .it was meant to put water in to keep food moist but i fill it up with wood chips and turn it on when ready for the smoke.
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woodchuck777 the original 110 VAC heating element is still in there with a pan that sits over the top of it .it was meant to put water in to keep food moist but i fill it up with wood chips and turn it on when ready for the smoke.
Interesting. I ripped the guts out of my two Masterbuilts because the gap between the chip pan and the element failed to keep the wood chips smoldering.
But going to a modification has allowed perfect smoke control, and perfect temperature control.The word Perfect being used very ambiguously here. Nothing is perfect, that is why engineering spec sheets are nice. It gives you the tolerances outside of middle of the broad brush strokes.
Most “Consumer Grade” anything is going to be ballpark at best. And bare in mind that ballparks have fields of room for errors. -
Interesting. I ripped the guts out of my two Masterbuilts because the gap between the chip pan and the element failed to keep the wood chips smoldering.
But going to a modification has allowed perfect smoke control, and perfect temperature control.The word Perfect being used very ambiguously here. Nothing is perfect, that is why engineering spec sheets are nice. It gives you the tolerances outside of middle of the broad brush strokes.
Most “Consumer Grade” anything is going to be ballpark at best. And bare in mind that ballparks have fields of room for errors.pauliedmondsjr 10 4 Ck out FireBoard.com is the remote thermometer i am using as the brains of my smoker.
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pauliedmondsjr 10 4 Ck out FireBoard.com is the remote thermometer i am using as the brains of my smoker.
rhjbarney
But does it actually control the heater element? I think the Fireboard’s do that. But like asking an owner.
I use a PID for the temperature, then one of 3 thermo units to watch the temperatures.
(Unless I’m doing Bacon slabs, in that case I have one in each slab, and one or two “grate” probes going. If any probes go hooey, it’s a simple fix. Which I’d imagine is an easy fix for you as well.) -
rhjbarney
But does it actually control the heater element? I think the Fireboard’s do that. But like asking an owner.
I use a PID for the temperature, then one of 3 thermo units to watch the temperatures.
(Unless I’m doing Bacon slabs, in that case I have one in each slab, and one or two “grate” probes going. If any probes go hooey, it’s a simple fix. Which I’d imagine is an easy fix for you as well.)pauliedmondsjr
the fireboard does it all up to 6 probes and whichever one you designate smoker you go into the drive settings and set your max temperature down to the tenths of a degree and when temp is below the drive comes on and whe temp reaches set drive shuts off. Fireboard is designed to control a fan for wood or charcoal smokers but the wheels in my head started to turn and instead of the drive cable controlling a fan i connected the drive cable to a relay which switches my heating element on and off.and if you set a max temperature on the meat probe fireboard will send you a txt and email when it has been reached absolutely no baby sitting my first test smoke ran flawless.
The green bars on smoke graph show when heating element was on and how long. -
That’s a sweet set up, was thinking of doing the same type of thing. Do you have any pictures of the relay setup you have? I have easy access to electromechanical relays instead of SSR’s and am curious as to whether one of those would work just as well. My smoker runs off natural gas but I could tie the relay into the thermostat terminals on the gas valve and should achieve the same goal.
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Any more info on this? I’m hoping to do the same thing but I know I’m missing a step. Unsure how to wire up an SSR to the heating element. I get how the Fireboard drive cable can switch the SSR, but most diagrams are using an Auber PID that handles the main voltage.
Do you have another device that handles the main voltage from the plug to the heating element?
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Any more info on this? I’m hoping to do the same thing but I know I’m missing a step. Unsure how to wire up an SSR to the heating element. I get how the Fireboard drive cable can switch the SSR, but most diagrams are using an Auber PID that handles the main voltage.
Do you have another device that handles the main voltage from the plug to the heating element?
Adam Greer said in DIY smoker remodel:
Any more info on this? I’m hoping to do the same thing but I know I’m missing a step. Unsure how to wire up an SSR to the heating element. I get how the Fireboard drive cable can switch the SSR, but most diagrams are using an Auber PID that handles the main voltage.
Do you have another device that handles the main voltage from the plug to the heating element?
An SSR is just a relay switching device. Two of its terminals are wired between the power source and the heating element. The other two terminals are the control terminals that are connected to a PID or other control device that tells the SSR to turn on or off.
Here is a generic diagram that shows how the SSR connect to the element in the smoker I recently built. The SSR is at the bottom.
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That is it!! I vote to ban Paul and Barney. I can’t look at those posts without the urge to drive around the country side where they normally dump defuncts appliances. Gotta love Louisiana
Dr_Pain said in DIY smoker remodel:
That is it!! I vote to ban Paul and Barney. I can’t look at those posts without the urge to drive around the country side where they normally dump defuncts appliances. Gotta love Louisiana
That’s the spirit!
No home is complete without a repurposed appliance smoker, preferably proudly displayed on your front porch next to the ice chest full of refreshments and a couple of sleeping dogs.
Got the mental image yet? lol -
I forgot to say, proudly displayed, with your wife’s permission. At least that’s how it works at my house.
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Any more info on this? I’m hoping to do the same thing but I know I’m missing a step. Unsure how to wire up an SSR to the heating element. I get how the Fireboard drive cable can switch the SSR, but most diagrams are using an Auber PID that handles the main voltage.
Do you have another device that handles the main voltage from the plug to the heating element?
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Adam Greer
I use a solid stat relayrhjbarney so is it just a matter of plug to SSR? Nothing in between them? Then the Fireboard to trigger the SSR?
Assume you complete the circuit for the SSR. Do you have an earth on the cabinet itself?
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