I have been looking for a controller to use on my Oklahoma Joe's Longhorn for a few years now. I even put a post on here looking for input. Nothing really caught my eye or at least pushed me to make the jump. Either fear of complexity or price or whatever I just kept doing it all by hand. I have old tired knees and a bad ankle so after a day of smoking and going up and down porch steps it all takes a toll on me. A toll I gladly pay for the delicious meat produced. I have an electric smoker which doesn't require the attention of a stick burner but my passion is mastering the use of my Joe's. I don't get as obsessed with wanting my smoker temp to set at exactly my desired temp. My stove in the house doesn't function like that. My meat doesn't care. Why should I? Of course I'm talking about small fluctuations. I just want to not be as married to the smoker as I have been and to save wear and tear on my body. I along with most smoker/grillers am a thermometer junkie. I moved up from lesser cheapo units and have been using an igrill2 and a nice Chiefs red Thermopen MK4. It has done just fine for me but the perpetual probe failure of the igrill2 irked me. Plus Bluetooth loses signal in my office and of course has limited range. And I still wanted a controller.
Enter the Fireboard. 6 channels? So I could run 4-5 in the meats and 1 or 2 ambient? And it can run a blower? Whattttt???? Of course now I'm interested deeply. And they are a KC company. KC knows bbq! But all this cloud app mumbo jumbo stuff worried me. And of course price. It's not a sub $100 gizmo. But the more I read and compared it to others the more I liked it. The price is comparable to other wifi enabled controller units. Did I mention 6 temps? I dug around and found a stack of gift cards I haven't used and had the thought to jump on the purchase. I had to kick in a little bit to cover the drive cable and the blower but now I could experiment!!!!
I set up my account earlier in the week and read up on the instructions in my evenings and felt ready. I cut out a steel plate, pie wedge shaped, with the required rectangle hole in it. I bolted it over my air inlet using some leftover BGE felt I'd used previously to seal the 2 halves of the cooking chamber together. This way I can remove it and go back to normal manual shutter operation by re-installing the original plate.
My first use of it went so smooth I was shocked! It was so easy! My temps pulled up on my phone and my desktop computer. Nicely laid out and understandable. I plugged the drive in along with the blower and it was recognized and displayed. I set temp to 250 deg and sat back and watched. The unit runs the fan at variable speeds not just on or off. All this is displayed on the phone/computer or in the small window on the main unit. I will need to get "dialed in" on the wood needs of forced air intake vs natural draft like I had been doing forever. As in size of splits and bigger or smaller sized chunks. I played with that aspect as my day went on and could see changes in how much the fan had to run after adding wood. I think the density dictates that too. Hickory vs pecan vs oak etc.
I was concerned about that little bitty display on the face of the unit. I liked the large red LED display of the igrill2 and ease of seeing it and scrolling through the different temps. Let me tell you the smaller back lit display on the Fireboard is easy to see and gives you a lot of info. It scrolls through the 6 temp channels. Or pushing a button scrolls it manually too. It shows battery level. (mine stayed fulled charged as powering the fan via the 12v adapter on the drive cable charges the unit) It shows the fan speed. I had no problems seeing it outside day or night and it was easy to read.
Before I completely write a novel here I'll wrap this up. My smoke completed sooner than I expected when comparing it to one I did 2 weeks ago. Of course not having exactly the same weight of cuts factor into this but having a steady temp and not dropping low low as I scramble out to give it more air helps. I had to take a friend home who lives 20 minutes away. I could seamlessly keep monitoring all of my temps and the blower knowing it was spot on while heading home. (glanced at long traffic lights of course) I would like some options as far as mounting it vs having it just laying there subject to being knocked off the table or smoker shelf. That is my only complaint. I will find a way to do that. And I'll explore options available in the display and saving of the info available.
Enter the Fireboard. 6 channels? So I could run 4-5 in the meats and 1 or 2 ambient? And it can run a blower? Whattttt???? Of course now I'm interested deeply. And they are a KC company. KC knows bbq! But all this cloud app mumbo jumbo stuff worried me. And of course price. It's not a sub $100 gizmo. But the more I read and compared it to others the more I liked it. The price is comparable to other wifi enabled controller units. Did I mention 6 temps? I dug around and found a stack of gift cards I haven't used and had the thought to jump on the purchase. I had to kick in a little bit to cover the drive cable and the blower but now I could experiment!!!!
I set up my account earlier in the week and read up on the instructions in my evenings and felt ready. I cut out a steel plate, pie wedge shaped, with the required rectangle hole in it. I bolted it over my air inlet using some leftover BGE felt I'd used previously to seal the 2 halves of the cooking chamber together. This way I can remove it and go back to normal manual shutter operation by re-installing the original plate.
My first use of it went so smooth I was shocked! It was so easy! My temps pulled up on my phone and my desktop computer. Nicely laid out and understandable. I plugged the drive in along with the blower and it was recognized and displayed. I set temp to 250 deg and sat back and watched. The unit runs the fan at variable speeds not just on or off. All this is displayed on the phone/computer or in the small window on the main unit. I will need to get "dialed in" on the wood needs of forced air intake vs natural draft like I had been doing forever. As in size of splits and bigger or smaller sized chunks. I played with that aspect as my day went on and could see changes in how much the fan had to run after adding wood. I think the density dictates that too. Hickory vs pecan vs oak etc.
I was concerned about that little bitty display on the face of the unit. I liked the large red LED display of the igrill2 and ease of seeing it and scrolling through the different temps. Let me tell you the smaller back lit display on the Fireboard is easy to see and gives you a lot of info. It scrolls through the 6 temp channels. Or pushing a button scrolls it manually too. It shows battery level. (mine stayed fulled charged as powering the fan via the 12v adapter on the drive cable charges the unit) It shows the fan speed. I had no problems seeing it outside day or night and it was easy to read.
Before I completely write a novel here I'll wrap this up. My smoke completed sooner than I expected when comparing it to one I did 2 weeks ago. Of course not having exactly the same weight of cuts factor into this but having a steady temp and not dropping low low as I scramble out to give it more air helps. I had to take a friend home who lives 20 minutes away. I could seamlessly keep monitoring all of my temps and the blower knowing it was spot on while heading home. (glanced at long traffic lights of course) I would like some options as far as mounting it vs having it just laying there subject to being knocked off the table or smoker shelf. That is my only complaint. I will find a way to do that. And I'll explore options available in the display and saving of the info available.
