Pit Boss/Smoke Daddy FUBAR

[RCAlan]

I tried the frypan but must have done it wrong. I put it right over the burner and it sent all the smoke back to the pellet hopper. This Pit Boss/Smoke Daddy has been an expensive frustrating experience. My advise to ANYONE who wants precision control is NOT to try to save a little money with a Pit Boss. I especially would warn against retrofiting the Smoke Daddy PID controller. Spend the money for a smoker that has PID as standard equipment.

Sorry to read about your frustration with your Pit Boss pellet grill and the upgrades you’ve tried. It’s always best to do your research first and ask for advice, before you go and spend your money on something that may not work for you. I upgraded my PB Austin XL with the SmokeDaddy 35 lb. pellet hopper and PID controller combo and have yet to have any issues or problems with it. It took me all of 15-20 mins to swap out the old PitBoss pellet hopper and put in the Smoke Daddy combo unit. I posted a how to tread here to help anyone interested in upgrading their pellet grill this way. I wanted rock solid 5*-10* degree temp control from my pellet grill and I get that with the Smoke Daddy PID Controller. I also wanted more smoke flavor from my pellet grill and not just more pellet smoke... but real hardwood smoke flavor. That goal was a little more frustrating. I’ve found that a lot people want to help, but a lot of advice given is bad advice. Don’t put a skillet over your burn pot... Don’t put a charcoal basket inside your pellet grill to burn extra wood and coals... Don’t put wood or charcoal on top of a heat diffuser... All bad advice and you’ll never have reliable temp control within your pellet grill doing that, let alone good quality smoke. If you want extra smoke for your bbq and you don’t mind extra pellet smoke, then buy a pellet tube. If you want a smoke flavor profile like a real off-set stick burner, then buy the SD Magnum P.I.G Cold Smoke Canister. All the other stuff is a waste of time, effort, money and perhaps your food. A lot of PitBoss owners like the stock non PID controller and can deal with the temp swings... It’s manageable, but in the end I prefer rock solid temp controller within 5*-10* degrees of my set point and I get that all the time now with my Pellet Pro Austin XL setup. My heat diffuser is a 10g steel heat diffuser... PID Controller or not, a proper 10g steel heat diffuser is a must have for proper temp control. I tried using both the stock heat diffuser and the SD heat diffuser and the SD 10g heat diffuser was way more effective then using the stock one in controlling/diffusing the heat from the burn pot. One covers the burn pot properly and one does not... Don’t give up in your efforts, but it always best to research first and take sound advice from people who know and have been down the same path as you. And as for the advice for potential pellet grill buyers... Yes, if you can afford the little $$ upfront, buy a pellet grill with a PID controller standard, it’ll save you from the temp swing frustrations. I posted a link in my earlier post to help anyone interested as well. Good luck.

Pellet Pro Austin XL and a few more mods. In SoCal and Always... Semper Fi

 

[bill1]

I tried the frypan but must have done it wrong. I put it right over the burner and it sent all the smoke back to the pellet hopper...has been an expensive frustrating experience...

Sounds like you had too much air pressure drop where the pan was. You didn't put it directly on the burner crucible, did you? Then where would all the combustion gases go, if not back up the pellet feed and into the hopper? That is a very dangerous place to be--a hopper has a lot of fuel to start burning all at once!

You want the pan close enough to the burner pot that the infrared solid angle cone from red hot pellets subtends mostly just the pan bottom, but far enough away (.4-.5 inch) that the smoke and air (from the combustion fan) freely flows around the bottom of the pan up to your meat.

ANY mod to a commercial product involves some risk to either your time, pocketbook, and sometimes your health. A key part of this forum is to discuss things enough that we look out for each other safety-wise. But otherwise, as they say, "not all improvements are".

Also, "improving" one feature can cause another feature to degrade...the law of unintended consequences. "Upgrading" a basic feedback controller to a PID makes sense if temperature stability and repeatabilty are important to you. But then separately burning pellets (for more smoke flavor) is going to fight against the temperature stability goal. The pellet manufacturer uses air speed and fuel feed rate to control the temperature via the controller but the controller (regardless the architecture) can't "learn" to do it very well if you have another uncontrolled fuel source in there, whether it's a small tube burning end-to-end or an entire pan of pellets smoking away.

Finally, pellet grills/smokers, in particular, have a significant amount of engineering in them with a large effort put into making them "set and forget". There are (occasionally?) good ideas on this forum that can enhance a certain feature (e.g. meat smokiness) but they (almost?) always come at the price of the set&forget feature.

 

[Smkryng]

I tried the frypan but must have done it wrong. I put it right over the burner and it sent all the smoke back to the pellet hopper. This Pit Boss/Smoke Daddy has been an expensive frustrating experience. My advise to ANYONE who wants precision control is NOT to try to save a little money with a Pit Boss. I especially would warn against retrofiting the Smoke Daddy PID controller. Spend the money for a smoker that has PID as standard equipment.

In a year or so basically all pellet grills will be PID controlled. Pit Boss is a budget brand and lags behind, but the Platinum line at Walmart has it. Only a matter of time now.

Even being a budget brand at lower temps my Austin wasn’t really a bad pit, it just wasn’t a great pit. After I installed a Savannah Stoker it became an excellent pit though. And still even with the PID I’m in just under $800 so still considerably lower than a lot of other brands that come with PID standard, especially for the pit size. I don’t regret the purchase of either the Pit Boss or the Savannah Stoker. I really don’t know much about the smoke daddy controller or it’s customization but I will definitely look into it. I agree that PID will probably become standard at some point but I’ve also seen a lot of complaints on Facebook from people that have the newer PID controlled Pit Boss cookers. To each their own though.

 

[Smkryng]

Sorry to read about your frustration with your Pit Boss pellet grill and the upgrades you’ve tried. It’s always best to do your research first and ask for advice, before you go and spend your money on something that may not work for you. I upgraded my PB Austin XL with the SmokeDaddy 35 lb. pellet hopper and PID controller combo and have yet to have any issues or problems with it. It took me all of 15-20 mins to swap out the old PitBoss pellet hopper and put in the Smoke Daddy combo unit. I posted a how to tread here to help anyone interested in upgrading their pellet grill this way. I wanted rock solid 5*-10* degree temp control from my pellet grill and I get that with the Smoke Daddy PID Controller. I also wanted more smoke flavor from my pellet grill and not just more pellet smoke... but real hardwood smoke flavor. That goal was a little more frustrating. I’ve found that a lot people want to help, but a lot of advice given is bad advice. Don’t put a skillet over your burn pot... Don’t put a charcoal basket inside your pellet grill to burn extra wood and coals... Don’t put wood or charcoal on top of a heat diffuser... All bad advice and you’ll never have reliable temp control within your pellet grill doing that, let alone good quality smoke. If you want extra smoke for your bbq and you don’t mind extra pellet smoke, then buy a pellet tube. If you want a smoke flavor profile like a real off-set stick burner, then buy the SD Magnum P.I.G Cold Smoke Canister. All the other stuff is a waste of time, effort, money and perhaps your food. A lot of PitBoss owners like the stock non PID controller and can deal with the temp swings... It’s manageable, but in the end I prefer rock solid temp controller within 5*-10* degrees of my set point and I get that all the time now with my Pellet Pro Austin XL setup. My heat diffuser is a 10g steel heat diffuser... PID Controller or not, a proper 10g steel heat diffuser is a must have for proper temp control. I tried using both the stock heat diffuser and the SD heat diffuser and the SD 10g heat diffuser was way more effective then using the stock one in controlling/diffusing the heat from the burn pot. One covers the burn pot properly and one does not... Don’t give up in your efforts, but it always best to research first and take sound advice from people who know and have been down the same path as you. And as for the advice for potential pellet grill buyers... Yes, if you can afford the little $$ upfront, buy a pellet grill with a PID controller standard, it’ll save you from the temp swing frustrations. I posted a link in my earlier post to help anyone interested as well. Good luck.

Pellet Pro Austin XL and a few more mods. In SoCal and Always... Semper Fi

I think this is all pretty solid advice.

 

[Smkryng]

An old cast iron fry pan may work too. If it fits right side up, you could consider throwing some chips in there as well.

I think a frying pan right side up on the burn pot would be a bad idea. Aftermarket heat deflectors have a inch or two of airspace to allow the heat out of the burn pot. A pan directly on top of the burn pot would leave nowhere for the heat to go but back through the auger assembly of possibly smother out the fire.

 

[Smkryng]

Sorry I missed this post some how before I commented about the pan being a bad idea. If there was a big enough air gap the the pan would pretty much be just like a heat deflector for sure but just by looking at the burn pot in my Austin it would pretty much be flush with the top of the burn pot. Either way I’m off this post till tomorrow because for some reason they aren’t showing up in order so I’m afraid I may have missed some important info. I’ll check back later

Sounds like you had too much air pressure drop where the pan was. You didn't put it directly on the burner crucible, did you? Then where would all the combustion gases go, if not back up the pellet feed and into the hopper? That is a very dangerous place to be--a hopper has a lot of fuel to start burning all at once!

You want the pan close enough to the burner pot that the infrared solid angle cone from red hot pellets subtends mostly just the pan bottom, but far enough away (.4-.5 inch) that the smoke and air (from the combustion fan) freely flows around the bottom of the pan up to your meat.

ANY mod to a commercial product involves some risk to either your time, pocketbook, and sometimes your health. A key part of this forum is to discuss things enough that we look out for each other safety-wise. But otherwise, as they say, "not all improvements are".

Also, "improving" one feature can cause another feature to degrade...the law of unintended consequences. "Upgrading" a basic feedback controller to a PID makes sense if temperature stability and repeatabilty are important to you. But then separately burning pellets (for more smoke flavor) is going to fight against the temperature stability goal. The pellet manufacturer uses air speed and fuel feed rate to control the temperature via the controller but the controller (regardless the architecture) can't "learn" to do it very well if you have another uncontrolled fuel source in there, whether it's a small tube burning end-to-end or an entire pan of pellets smoking away.

Finally, pellet grills/smokers, in particular, have a significant amount of engineering in them with a large effort put into making them "set and forget". There are (occasionally?) good ideas on this forum that can enhance a certain feature (e.g. meat smokiness) but they (almost?) always come at the price of the set&forget feature.

For some reason I’m not getting my posts in order and just seen this after I replied to an earlier post that you made. I may have misunderstood your earlier. I thought you recommended putting a CI pan directly on the crucible. Sorry for any confusion!

 

[bill1]

Just to be crystal clear...putting ANYTHING directly over a crucible/burner pot to choke it off is extremely dangerous!!! The combustion fan will (!!!) force the fire to go the only way out it then has...through the auger to the hopper--a huge fuel source. This very well can burn your house down. Smoke in a hopper is always a danger sign. I apologize for making a passing reference to something, that if implemented incorrectly, could be so dangerous. When I do this myself, the pan sits atop two thick 6x6 bricks, with a half inch gap pan-to-crucible. I took great pains to ensure, that even in a seismic event, the bricks could tip but couldn't fall so that the BAD thing (the pan choking off the crucible) wouldn't happen.

 

[Airsick]

Yes I put it directly on the firepot. In retrospect, kind of stoooopid on my part! Anyway, a bonafide heat diffuser is on it's way.

 

[RCAlan]

Yes I put it directly on the firepot. In retrospect, kind of stoooopid on my part! Anyway, a bonafide heat diffuser is on it's way.

If you ordered a SmokeDaddy Heat Diffuser, request from them if possible to have them trim off 1/2 inch from the base of the heat diffuser and trim the top of the diffuser so that it’s flush. Every brand and type of pellet grill comes in different sizes and dimensions. I realized that one size does not always fits all... I had a machine shop locally trim my SD heat diffuser for me and the job took all of 5 mins. Just wanted to give you a heads up, so that you’ll know what’s required for a proper fit for your pellet grill. Good luck.

Pellet Pro Austin XL and a few more mods... In SoCal and Always... Semper Fi

 

[bill1]

Yes I put it directly on the firepot. In retrospect, kind of stoooopid on my part! Anyway, a bonafide heat diffuser is on it's way.

We all have days where the thinking lags the doing. Keeps our guardian angels out of trouble. :-)

 

[Airsick]

Well, I asked Smoke Daddy to mod the diffuser to fit my machine, and they did NOT, but per Dennis' suggestion I just squashed the curved drip pans a little and it fit right in. I also made a bracket to move the RTD away from the left side to more in the middle. Result? To quote Etta James, "AT LAST..." It was dead on at 160, and 200, and very close at 275 and 400. I hope my journey has ended. The only downside is that now I can't justify getting the Masterbuilt Gravity smoker. Many thanks to all who helped me with this.