Pit Boss 820

[G-Rod]

Thanks for the response and added info. That's great news to hear it is continuing to hold temps! The company that makes that PID is now advertising that it holds 5 degrees +/- but honestly, I would be thrilled if it can keep within the 5-10 as well. Much better than what I had to deal with the past weekend. Was ready to take the PB back, bite the bullet and buy a Rec Tec but by getting this controller instead, saves $910 ($1000 for the RT pellet grill + 85 for the cover). That can buy a lot of brisket, ribs, pork shoulder, etc. :)

I'll do my part and post about my install experience as well.
Thanks again!

 

[speedj]

Thanks for the response and added info. That's great news to hear it is continuing to hold temps! The company that makes that PID is now advertising that it holds 5 degrees +/- but honestly, I would be thrilled if it can keep within the 5-10 as well. Much better than what I had to deal with the past weekend. Was ready to take the PB back, bite the bullet and buy a Rec Tec but by getting this controller instead, saves $910 ($1000 for the RT pellet grill + 85 for the cover). That can buy a lot of brisket, ribs, pork shoulder, etc. :)

I'll do my part and post about my install experience as well.
Thanks again!

For sure, that's a lot of smiles you miss out on if you take that leap into that price range. I personally feel like the quality is there of the much more expensive smokers with just changing out the controller with this one. Overall for something that takes not that long to install and produces the results it does I'm definitely not complaining. That's not even mentioning the cost of the controller being so reasonable for what you get from it.

J

 

[G-Rod]

Agreed! Thanks again! :)

 

[G-Rod]

So I wanted to contribute on this post and share my experience in converting my Pit Boss 700FB's controller to the Pellet Pro PID controller. The reason I wanted to convert to a PID controller?

This:

As you can see, it is set to 200 degrees but the temp is at 290.

I was trying to smoke a brisket at 225 and the temps kept running up towards 300. So I reduced the temp to 200 and even after about 30-40 minutes, it was still running up towards 300 degrees. I tried the smoke setting and adjust the P settings and even then, the temps swings were 85 to 90 degrees. I will note that I had good luck maintaining temps on it at higher temps but I bought it primarily smoking low and slow. So I was ready to take it back and spend a considerable amount more for a pellet grill with PID when I happened upon this forum and speedj's post regarding a similar issue and how he addressed it by just replacing the controller with the Pellet Pro PID.

So again, many thanks to speedj for his awesome post with pics which I ended up using during my install yesterday as the PID controller didn't come with installation instructions and the wire colors didn't match up for all the connectors.

The only thing I did differently was that I didn't lay my grill down so I didn't have to remove the insides or pellets. Figured there was plenty of room to get underneath and so I just laid down a mat and climbed underneath it. Here's what my bottom plate looked like:

And after removing the 8 screws and bottom plate:

After removing the zip ties, it was pretty easy to get to everything:

And the connects that didn't match up identically were just as speedj cited: Yellow from the smoker goes to Green/White, Red goes to Blue/White and the Braided leads for the fire pot go to the Red/White on the controller.

BTW - I too removed these two wires for the probe and used my existing one already in my Pit Boss Grill

Note: On the back, those two wires are secured in by two small screws. I didn't pay attention to how the ends of the wires were in when I loosened the screws and pulled out the wires. When I put my existing ones in and retightened the screws, the wires were still kind of loose. They have to go into their side slots a certain way. Sorry I didn't think to take a pic of that, but I would recommend looking to see how the ones already on the new PID controller are in before you loosen and remove them so you can put the existing ones in those same spots. After a quick adjustment on how those wire ends went in, I tightened again and they were in there securely.

Anyway, a nice benefit to doing this without laying it down, was after I connected all the wires, I was able to plug it in and test right away before closing it up.

It started right up but I initially wondered if I did something wrong because it was so much more quiet than what it was before. But it makes sense as it comes to temp and then adjusts the fan and auger speed to maintain that temp. Much more efficient! Shortly after starting it up, I noticed that lovely look and smell of smoke and then I closed the lid and let it come to temp. I only tested if for about 45 minutes as we were getting ready to head out but it held temps like a champ. I set for 225 and it would keep between 225-228, once hitting 230 before slowing going back down. I (and my brisket) can roll with that!

After turning it off and letting it do its 15 minutes burn off and cool down cycle, I unplugged it again, zipped tied up the loose wires and closed it all up.

All in all, the install was very quick and easy. I actually spent most of my time trying to find the right screws within my collection of screws at home to secure the plate and control pad back on the grill. The two screws that had secured my old controller were now too short due to the plate needed for the Pit Boss retrofit and the ones that came with the new PID for the actual controller were too small.

Afterwards:

There is the slight gap on the sides of the controller plate but I'm not too concerned about it as I always keep the cover on it when I'm not using it. And when I am using it, I keep it under my covered porch so I don't currently see the need for adding a gasket or weatherstripping. Visually you can't even see the gap unless you're looking for it and get close to it. :)

Needless to say, I'm chomping at the bit to try it out. Probably going to do ribs as that is a 5-6 hour cook I do during the day and and will be able to monitor for any issues during the cook.

Hope this helps someone. Cheers!

 

[jbottorff]

Nice! Thanks for the feedback, and please follow up with what you think after you've cooked with it. I'm tempted to do this, but I wish it had built-in WIFI to sweeten the upgrade a little.

 

[G-Rod]

Thanks man and will do. I'm already on the lookout for some St. Louis style ribs and will do that cook this weekend. One thing I noticed during my test (and had read about), is that there isn't as much smoke production at the lower temps so I bought a $9 smoking tube (actually a rectangle) that I'll use to keep a nice smoke going throughout the cook.

As far as the WIFI...yeah, that's a pretty sweet feature on the nicer pellet grills. That said, I do have a wireless remote temperature gauge that can handle two probes. You can use both probes to keep an eye on internal temps of two different meats OR it also came with a probe that fits on your grate and monitors the temp of your heat. I can also set alarms on both so they go off once they reach certain temps. It's not WIFI but the range of it is pretty good.

Anyway, thanks for the comment!

 

[philh]

My 820 cooks really well but I would like more control of temperatures.

I'm going to buy the Pid controller mentioned above. But I had a question?

Would it be better to buy the whole upgrade kit with the fan, motor, fire pot, adapter plate and the Pid Controller?

Or does everybody just buy the Pid Controller with the adapter plate?

I was thinking with the full kit a person would have spare parts if the motor or fan eventually went out.

Thanks

Phil

 

[G-Rod]

Hi Phil,

I wondered if I should buy the whole upgrade kit as well but after reading speedj's experience and reaching out to him to confirm that it was still working as intended. I decided to just buy the controller. My install and initial test seemed to work well but I'm going to do my first cook with it this weekend on some ribs and I'll look for any issues during that cook.

Good luck!
G

 

[philh]

Thanks for the reply.. I talked to Dan over at Smoke Daddy today. He was a very nice person. He answered all of my questions. My main concern was that the Smoke Daddy Pid will reduce the smoke flavor I am getting now. I talked to the wife & she didn't like that.

I read that the Savannah Stoker Pid doesn't have that problem. I'll find out as I have ordered that one. The V 4.5 model.

I'll post pictures of the new unit when I get it.

Thanks

Phil

 

[G-Rod]

Awesome! That is the other controller I was looking at so I'll interested to hear of your experience. I too read that reduction of smoke could be an issue which makes sense as the feed of the pellets is greatly reduced and slowly fed in along with reduction of fan speed to maintain those lower temps. To compensate for that I bought a pellet smoker tube on Amazon for around $9. Supposed to provide around 5 hours worth of smoke but we'll see this weekend. :)

Good luck on your new PID controller and I look forward to hear how that works out for you. Cheers!

 

[G-Rod]

Just wanted to follow up on my first cook with my new Pellet Pro PID controller after installing it on my Pit Boss 700fb. SUCCESS! I'll detail my cook in its own thread but the long and short of it for this thread is that I did a 5 hour cook with a couple of spareribs and while I did have a couple temps swings of 8 - 10 degrees (which is nothing really). The majority of the time the controller kept temps with 3 - 5 degrees. So far so good. Looking forward to doing a longer brisket cook soon. Cheers!

 

[jbottorff]

Good to hear! Thanks for the update, and I look forward to your post on the details of the cook.

 

[philh]

That sounds great G-Rod. My Savannah Stoker PID controller is at the Post Office just waiting for me to pick it up.

Wouldn't you know it, it is raining cats and dogs here today. :eek:

I'll get it installed tomorrow & let you know how it works out..

 

[G-Rod]

Good to hear! Thanks for the update, and I look forward to your post on the details of the cook.

My pleasure!

 

[G-Rod]

That sounds great G-Rod. My Savannah Stoker PID controller is at the Post Office just waiting for me to pick it up.

Wouldn't you know it, it is raining cats and dogs here today. :eek:

I'll get it installed tomorrow & let you know how it works out..

Nice! Looking forward to your update. :)

 

[speedj]

Just wanted to follow up on my first cook with my new Pellet Pro PID controller after installing it on my Pit Boss 700fb. SUCCESS! I'll detail my cook in its own thread but the long and short of it for this thread is that I did a 5 hour cook with a couple of spareribs and while I did have a couple temps swings of 8 - 10 degrees (which is nothing really). The majority of the time the controller kept temps with 3 - 5 degrees. So far so good. Looking forward to doing a longer brisket cook soon. Cheers!

That is awesome to hear! It makes life so much easier doesn't it? The only other thing I would always suggest is to put a nice nomex gasket on the lid I do that for all my smokers. It helps to seal the chamber up so your smoke goes only out the stack and not out the lid. I haven't really noticed a huge loss in smoke flavor but I have been thinking about adding an A-MAZE-N smoke tube to the mix, I'll give a shot out after summer time (which is when I smoke the most) and update everyone. Really glad it worked out, and loving the pictures, it all helps folks to make this conversion one that you ask yourself why you don't do it.

I'll have to check out that savannah stoker sometime but I can't tell you enough how satisfied I am with the pellet pro.

J :cool:

 

[G-Rod]

That is awesome to hear! It makes life so much easier doesn't it? The only other thing I would always suggest is to put a nice nomex gasket on the lid I do that for all my smokers. It helps to seal the chamber up so your smoke goes only out the stack and not out the lid. I haven't really noticed a huge loss in smoke flavor but I have been thinking about adding an A-MAZE-N smoke tube to the mix, I'll give a shot out after summer time (which is when I smoke the most) and update everyone. Really glad it worked out, and loving the pictures, it all helps folks to make this conversion one that you ask yourself why you don't do it.

Thanks SpeedJ, I'm glad I came across your post and pics when I did as it was key in my decision to go that route. And I'm checking out that gasket now. Haven't really noticed too much smoke escaping but I honestly haven't paid that close attention to it. But shoot, for $15...that's a no brainer. Leaking smoke is never a good thing, not to mention, if you're leaking smoke, you're also leaking heat. Thanks for the tip!

 

[philh]

I have a Pit Boss 820DLX.. Love this pit but we have had some wild temp swings. It also was a little light on the smoke flavor. Also on long smokes the meat just didn't achieve the dark rich brown or black that a stick burner has.

I purchased the Savannah Stoker PID Controller. Best thing I ever did. Now my briskets & pork butts have the same smoke flavor that my Oklahoma Joe Longhorn has while burning Oak wood. I now have a dark smoke ring and my last brisket was a dark mahogany brown.

This controller is a true PID controller where you can change all values in the controller. It even has a auto tune feature that will fine tune the PID logarithm to match your pit. Just like it was custom made for your pit.

The feature I really like is the 3 step program cook feature.

1st step is between 160 and 180 degrees. You set the amount of time to run at your set temp. You can even adjust the fan speed for this step. When the time runs out on the first step it automatically goes to the 2nd step.
2nd step is your cooking temp. I set mine up for 235 for my brisket. This controller has a temp probe. I told the program to cook until my brisket hit 203. When I hit my target temp the 3rd step will take control.
3rd step is the hold step. I told the controller to go down to a temp of 160 to keep the brisket warm if I wasn't at home. It did exactly this when I went out to the store. It even told me that the brisket was on warm cycle for 77 minutes when I got home.

This controller has many more features. The owner who sells this PID even gives you his personal cell phone number in case you have any problems.

Phil

 

[bconrey]

Thanks to all who have shared their experiences with an 820 on this thread. I'm in the middle of my first cook on my 820 and while the temp was SOLID at the smoke setting, the 225 setting has seen temps between 210 and 255 based on the controller's reading and even wilder based on the two probes I'm measuring via my ThermoPro. A controller upgrade is in my future, either the Savannah or the Pellet Pro.

 

[philh]

Here are some pics.

As you can see it's easy to change out wires if need be.

You get a new RTD. I just used my old one as the pit was only 4 months old.

The food probe also comes with the controller. It has a very long cord. I mean long!

I purchased the optional offset mounting box for the controller. The Pit Boss has a controller that is recessed into the side of the hopper. This offset box cures any mounting problems. Extra long screws were included.

As you can see the offset box makes a super clean install. the box is very thick steel & is powder coated. Matches the pit nicely.

As you can see the controller does hold a temp.

Thanks for viewing my long post.

Phil