update! i received brinkmann element today installed it.couple of questions?
56 degrees out little breezy fired it up took 28minutes to reach 180 and 50 minutes to hit 220 and from there just kinda sat at 220.is that about right time period to heat them up?
so know wondering if 30 degrees out if i will be able to maintain 180??
Also dont know much about adjusting pid but is it normal for it to wonder from 175 to 185 when set at 180?
It flicks on and off alot just for short 1 maybe 2 second burst any setting adjustment that would help this i did auto tune.
So help with my questions and any opinions on if it will hold 180 when colder out and what could be done to help it i have installed tile around heat chamber.up higher wood was pretty hot the ones that hold drip pan what is combustion degrees for pine?lol
Mike,
Did you add the ceramic tiles, cement board, or other "mass" to the smoker? I remember you talked about adding tiles. Any of those adds mass and in addition to providing protection to the wood from the heat, it will also help moderate the temperature in the smoker. Think about a brick wall that stays in full sun on a sunny day in the fall. After the sun goes down, you can feel the warmth of the wall for hours if you put your hand on it. Tiles, concrete, bricks and other "mass" items perform the same function in a smoker. The absorb heat as the smoker heats up, and if the smoker cools down, they release some of that heat back into the smoker. The "mass" naturally wants to stay at the air temp, but since it has "mass" it also can store heat. That is why it may take longer than you expected to get the smoker up to temp when first started.
And Stan is dead on about auto tune. Let the smoker run for a while until you are certain the mass is at "equilibrium" with the desired temperature. Then do an auto tune. What auto tune does is basically "learn" the performance of your smoker so the PID can anticipate how it should respond to slight changes in temps. This lets it hold temperature very closely to the desired set point.
If it still seems to wander too far from your set point, most PID's have a user adjustment in the software as to how tight they work to the set point temperature. If you bought the PID off E-bay, someone might have set those values a little wide previously. We can look at that setting if we need to, but do the "up to temp" auto tune first.
Oh, and if you want to mostly smoke at 225*, I would do the auto tune cycle at 225*. It will still be tuned for other temps, but do it at the temp you use most.