My lovely wife bought me a iGrill with 4 probes for father’s day this year and last week I purchased an Auber WS-1500 PID temperature controller.
My smoker is an old MES 30” Gen 1, I have smoked a ton of meat, sausage, fish, pastrami, butt, brisket, cheese, etc. and I like it allot, but the temp swings on the MES control really leave much to be desired.
Yesterday afternoon I ran a test of the Auber without any meat to see what it would do. I only programmed the temperature and time. My first setting was 225F and my second was 200F.
I drilled a small hole in the back of the MES between the water pan and the bottom food rack, which is where I inserted the Auber thermocouple for temperature control.
I already had a hole on the left side to monitor temperature between the bottom and next rack.
I have a ¼” steel plate that sits above the heating element, the plate can be moved around to even the heat flow, I was surprised to learn how much difference in temperature there is above the plate just by moving it a half inch from front to back.
The position of the iGrill probes are as follows:
Probe 1: Back wall next to the Auber PID temp control
Probe 2: Left wall between the bottom and next rack up
Probe 3: Front near door between the bottom and next rack up
Below are results from the testing.
Auber TI inserted from back
I am very pleased with how wall the Auber controlled the element, the iGrill blue tooth works good too.
I have read there is a "learn mode" you can program into the Auber to really fine tune the temperature control, I might play around with that soon.
Thanks for looking!
My smoker is an old MES 30” Gen 1, I have smoked a ton of meat, sausage, fish, pastrami, butt, brisket, cheese, etc. and I like it allot, but the temp swings on the MES control really leave much to be desired.
Yesterday afternoon I ran a test of the Auber without any meat to see what it would do. I only programmed the temperature and time. My first setting was 225F and my second was 200F.
I drilled a small hole in the back of the MES between the water pan and the bottom food rack, which is where I inserted the Auber thermocouple for temperature control.
I already had a hole on the left side to monitor temperature between the bottom and next rack.
I have a ¼” steel plate that sits above the heating element, the plate can be moved around to even the heat flow, I was surprised to learn how much difference in temperature there is above the plate just by moving it a half inch from front to back.
The position of the iGrill probes are as follows:
Probe 1: Back wall next to the Auber PID temp control
Probe 2: Left wall between the bottom and next rack up
Probe 3: Front near door between the bottom and next rack up
Below are results from the testing.
Auber TI inserted from back
I am very pleased with how wall the Auber controlled the element, the iGrill blue tooth works good too.
I have read there is a "learn mode" you can program into the Auber to really fine tune the temperature control, I might play around with that soon.
Thanks for looking!
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