twilliams He says it is tripping the GFCI.

Correct. It tripped the GFCI receptacle not the circuit breaker. My patio is on a dedicated 20amp circuit.

I am used to pellet grills tripping the GFCI when the hot rod goes bad so I reached out and was told by Pro-Smoker to use the cheater plug. They also suggested a larger gauge and shorter extension cord but I was plugged directly into outlet. Basically saying “don’t use the PK100 on a GFCI circuit”.

Also pinged my electrician and he said the cheater plug would be fine. Once I use it enough to know where I want to plug it in, will likely have that receptacle swapped for non-GFCI.

Jamieson22 look at the tech data placard on the back of the unit. Look to see how many amps it’s drawing on both burner settings. 120v unit will draw much more amps than my 220v unit and I believe I put in a 30 amp breaker and that’s the only thing running on it. How many other appliances you have running on that circuit with your outdoor kitchen? You need to add up all those amperages as well to figure out how many peak amps your running.

twilliams He says it is tripping the GFCI.
A GFCI won’t trip on over current. A GFCI is designed to trip on leakage current to ground.
If he was tripping the circuit breaker for his outdoor outlets, then he might have an over current condition from too many appliances being run on the circuit, but that is not what I understand him to be saying.

I leaned something I wasn’t aware of during my initial burn-in: The PK100 trips GFCI outlets. My outdoor kitchen is all in a dedicated 20amp circuit but all receptacles are GFCI. I called Pro-Smoker and they recommend a none GFCI circuit or the use of a cheater plug to bypass the ground.

Anyone else have this issue?

I have seen this with some other smokers as well. In every case, the tripping was the result of the heating element absorbing tiny amounts of moisture and subsequent current leakage that causes the GFCI outlet to trip.

You can try to plug the smoker into a non-GFCI outlet and powering it up so it turns the element on and it begins to heat for 30 minutes or so. This dries out the element.

After the heat cycle, Move the smoker to a GFCI outlet and see if it still trips. If it still trips, then you may have a bad element or other problem.

I would not recommend modifying the plug or doing anything that removes the ground connection from the smoker cabinet.

twilliams Seriously, it was in the laxative aisle?! Yes, I am a child! Jamieson22 Don’t forget to join the PK100 group at https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/groups/pk100

You ARE a pup! snicker, snicker, snort, snort, lol

Anyone else have this issue?

Don’t forget to join the PK100 group at https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/groups/pk100

Joined!

before you do anything #1 read the booklet thoroughly, #2 before heating it up go to a store and get white oil/mineral oil. It’s in the laxative section in my home Walmart. Coat the rubber/foam seal around the door. Do this before and after each cook….very important. I know your excited but be patient. That’s a lot of money and precision piece of equipment.

Thanks for the input - much appreciated. I do have some mineral oil under sink for cutting boards but also have a food-grade silicone spray, white oil, and lubri-film. I do remember seeing that gasket likes to stick so def plan to lube it up a bit.

I did read the manual a bit this eve but also have been smoking for 25+ years (holy crap I feel old now) so generally pick up on this stuff pretty quickly. This PK100 is joining my Pitts & Spitts Maverick 1250 smoker to serve my sub-180F need for sausage/bacon and maybe some cheese though I kind of don’t like smoked cheese.