I ordered my Smokette from charcoalstore.com and received it four days later. Not bad coming from Minneapolis to Montana. The unit was in excellent condition. The overall quality looks to be superb. Everything is well put together. I have been curing it for the last three hours and the temp came right up to 199 and stayed there for about 30 minutes. As the heating element cycled, it did drop about 25 degrees, which is to be expected. It does seem to be heating a little to the cool side. As of yet, it has not climbed about 185 since the initial heat up. (I am using a Maverick remote probe). I suspect that this fluctuation is due to the fact that the only thing in the smoker is the recommended pan of water. I have a small fatty pork butt just waiting to go in and then we will get a better look at how it is going to perform. On initial look, it appears to be an excellent machine, built in the US (which is becoming a deal breaker for me anymore!). Thanks cookshack.....

Congrats Dale on getting the 008, you'll be amazed how easy and fun it is to smoke with a cookshack!

What temp setting do you have it set at? It shouldn't have any problem getting well over 200*. By chance do you have the smoker hooked up to an extension cord as that can cause some issues.
Don

No, no....the book says to cure it at 200. That is what I had it set at. The drop to 170 is normal considering the element is either full on or full off. The recovery to 185 or so has me a little puzzled. However, it is not that far off. I think it is one of those things that will require a few cooks and a lot of monitoring to learn the unit. After that, it's Miller time.

I am now cooking a small butt roast so we shall see. I am setting it a little over 225, just based on what it was doing. This thing is a real cadillac. Sigh, now I wish I had bought the bigger one...LOL

The folks on this forum have been wonderful. I have been lurking on here for several weeks and the information and helpfulness is unbelievable. Between this forum, the Bradley forum and BBQ Brethren, I am loaded for bear. mmmm would you mesquite for bear?

quote:

Originally posted by Dale_MT:
Sigh, now I wish I had bought the bigger one...LOL

You're in luck. Cookshack has a 30 day return period and I was able to get Donna on the phone before the dock guys left for the weekend. They shipped out your new SM360 this afternoon, and they'll pick up your 008 when they deliver it. Just box it up and have it ready for them Wednesday when they get there. Lucky for you they were able to get your credit card info from your previous order. Just squeaked it in under your limit.

Lie still my beating heart....

That would keep me going for a while...even with a whole bear!

I am beginning to wonder if there isn't a problem of some sort though. I am now into hour 4, with one small pork butt roast. I have the thermostat set up full and it has not gotten above 210. It is spending most of the time below 200. I will have to see. There may be an Amerique in my future. This "low ball" end of the cooking range seems to be a problem that has cropped up recently. I will have to give them a call on Monday.

Actually, I would have room for that beast....after my wife divorces me, I could knock out her closet, put in a fan exhaust and put that puppy in. Not sure what I would do with 60 chickens but what the hey!!!!!!

Geez, now I feel like I am talking to myself. However, I found another post dealing with what seems to be the same issue I have...I will try it tomorrow with the grates out, etc and no wood and see what it does. After curing it, and loading the pork butt, my hands smell good enough to eat. Pass the sauce!

I am responding to my own posts so that somebody else does not have to tell me to read the danged threads...

Well, it is 0300 (3:00 AM). It is hour 10 and I finally give up. I have no extension cord, a 4.25 lb pork butt and some really sleepy eyes. The butt is up to 165 and the smoker hovers around 200 with the thermostat set to 250. Back to the old "Mr. Smoke" for tomorrows rib feed. I will have to call Cookshack Monday morning.

My portable thermapen confirms the meat temp so into the oven it goes to finish it up. On the bright side, it has a beautiful bark, the flavor is great (I couldn't resist a little nibble!) so.........we'll see what the folks at Ponca City have to say on Monday. I'm going to bed.....

Have you fully cooked anything in it yet?

A 4.25# butt is tiny and offers little thermal mass to hold heat, especially if the door is being opened to check temp from time to time.

165* is where the plateau starts, and it wouldn't be uncommon for the meat temp to stay within a very narrow range for several hours as the meat renders fat. During this plateau the cookshack acts like a closed thermal system, while the interior temp may seem low as the meat absorbs and then wastes heat in the form of rendered fat.

Do this. Buy a real butt, a 7-8# at least. Put it in the smoker at 225-250*. Set your therm to 190*, then walk away. Yes! You heard me; step away from the smoker! Just forget it! Don't open the smoker. Don't look at the smoker. Don't think about the smoker. Don't check the therm. Do nothing! When the therm alarm goes off, then decide if there's a problem.

My guess is if you follow my directions, assuming you put the meat in around 11:00pm, that around 8:00am you will be awakened by the sound of your therm beeping. Then go pull and wrap and cooler for lunch, assuming you don't want BBQ for breakfast. Then, go upstairs and jump on your wife smelling like BBQ screaming Soooooeeeeee Piggy, Piggy! Soooooeeeeee Piggy, Piggy! You can figure the rest out for yourself, but this way even if there is a problem with the cooker(unlikely), the weekend won't be a total loss.

Todd,

I will certainly be doing that. As far as last night, the door was never opened. I use a Maverick with a dual probe so I was monitoring the meat and smoker temp (with the probes through the vent hole). I do realize the thermal mass of the 4# roast is small. So not panicking yet, for sure...just a little puzzled. Right now, I have emptied everything out and will crank it up and test the temp again. No big deal and I am sure if there is a problem, the CS people will know how to fix it. It was just a surprising long sleepless night..LOL.

I will continue to experiment.

I have cooked quite a few pork butts and am well aware of the plateau so that was totally expected.

More to follow...I still love the smokette.

And that's why we say, do your first cook during the week. Not that you'll HAVE to call CS, but if you want to, they're there to answer your questions.

Realize, and I'm sure you do, that it's electronics. As such they build, install and ship your unit.

quote:

I suspect that this fluctuation is due to the fact that the only thing in the smoker is the recommended pan of water

Does it say add a water pan somewhere?

I don't work for CS, so I'm free to say what i can and I don't recommend any waterpan. It's simply a VERY moist environment without a WP ever being used.

I would set it on 250, empty. Let it run and see what you get. Take the temp, say once an hour for a long period of time (hours). What's the AVERAGE?

The heating element cycles and as such, if you hit it on the low end, it will read low, but you should see some overshoots, above your set temp.

If you never get to 250, there is an issue.

Keep asking the questions, happy to try to figure out what's going on.

The units and company have been in busines for many years, so the units must work. I can say, in the 8 years I've been on the forum, I've heard, personally, of less than 5 units being returned. I'd say that's an awesome policy and proof it works.

We'll get 'ya there.

Smokin'

How will it work at your home is the 100% proof that you need to find out.

I'm going to have to read more documentation:

More on the continuing sage...following the advice from another thread, I took out everything (racks, etc) cranked it up to 250 and plugged it in. I dangled the smoker sensor into the unit and let her rip. The unit is heating up fine. Right now it is at 275. (it has been running for three hours and I just woke up to really start tracking what it is doing. I calibrated my Maverick (made in China )

I am no physics major but for the life of me I do not understand the whole thermal mass thing as far as reaching the maximum temperature. I do understand it in regards to temperature fluctuations and how the little teeny pork butt does not help in that regard.

Anyway, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, I am eating some decent (although a little dried out from the marathon cook) pork butt and life is good in the Flathead Valley.

We will see how the ribs go. I am sure they will be fine. It is amazing how little wood it takes. That is one of the reasons I chose the CS over the Bradley (you have to import those litle bisquettes of wood and that just seems sort of unnatural somehow)

Hi Smokin Okie...

we must have been posting at the same time. Let me clarify...the water pan was only used during the initial curing. That does come from the documentation that came with the unit. On page 6 of the Operators manual it says..

Place 3 pieces of properly sized wood in the wood box.

Place a container of water on one of the grills in the smoker to insure even heating of the unit during seasoning.

Set temperature control knob to 200, etc.

I am a retired airline pilot and so I am sort of wired to read the manual and follow it.

I understand the undershoots and overshoots due to the either full on/full off of the electric element. I guess with the thermostat set at 250, I was expecting to see something like a low of 220 up to 280. What I saw was a fairly constant 200 to 210.

Anyway, with it empty it is heating up quite nicely. I am going to have to think about why the small load keeps it from reaching temp but observation proves it to be true.

I am taking readings every 15 minutes and right now the range seems to be 225 to 270 or so and that is probably right on regarding the specs for this unit.

Thanks again. Big cook coming up in a couple of weeks and I am counting on this little puppy to wow these yankess with real pulled pork...

Todd,

I reread your post regarding the plateau and I just realized the essence of what you are saying. (at least I think so). During the plateau period, the internal temp of the meat stays relatively constant and this lack of heat exchange in the meat causes the smoker temp to stay low as well? Is that what you are saying or am I reading too much into it? I ask this more for idle curiousity now. I know you certainly don't have to understand all of the mechanics of this to make it work. Again, though my airline training jumps in and makes me have to ask....

quote:

Originally posted by Todd G.:

quote:

Originally posted by Dale_MT:
Sigh, now I wish I had bought the bigger one...LOL

You're in luck. Cookshack has a 30 day return period and I was able to get Donna on the phone before the dock guys left for the weekend. They shipped out your new SM360 this afternoon, and they'll pick up your 008 when they deliver it. Just box it up and have it ready for them Wednesday when they get there. Lucky for you they were able to get your credit card info from your previous order. Just squeaked it in under your limit.

Todd! It was supposed to be a surprise!

I hear the UPS truck now!!!! Jumping for joy!

thank you thank you thank you...

Dale_MT,

I have learned something new -- the Operator's Manual does say to put in a pan of water during seasoning. Evidently that is a recent addition to the manual because I don't recall it and I edited those manuals for years. I will call this to the attention of the tech guys at Cookshack because I suppose it is possible that the humidity from the pan of water had something to do with the smoker not heating up properly. (As you can tell, I am way out of my knowledge base here.)

I am glad it is working for you now. Once again the great folks in the Cookshack forum come to the rescue!

hmmmm my wife has the yellow pages out and it is turned to the Attorney section. Wonder what that means?????

Season that smoker properly with a large bone-in pork butt, untrimmed. Cook it at 250* until the probe says it is at least 195*. You will then be happy and not wanting to microanalize.

quote:

Originally posted by Dale_MT:
Todd,

I reread your post regarding the plateau and I just realized the essence of what you are saying. (at least I think so). During the plateau period, the internal temp of the meat stays relatively constant and this lack of heat exchange in the meat causes the smoker temp to stay low as well? Is that what you are saying or am I reading too much into it? I ask this more for idle curiousity now. I know you certainly don't have to understand all of the mechanics of this to make it work. Again, though my airline training jumps in and makes me have to ask....

I understand the curiosity. I'm the same way, and as ridiculous as it sounds to my friends and other non-BBQ geeks, the plateau to me is really fascinating because there's a lot going on for something that most people would never think about. My engineering school days are long behind me, but if I recall correctly the laws of thermodynamics (entropy) apply here. (That's a sentence you don't see on many BBQ forums) The cooker will attempt to produce heat, but the butt can(will) absorb more heat than the cooker can produce, resulting in an apparent drop in temp, an actual drop also, but not one caused by a reduction of heat energy being applied, but rather by it's absorbtion and subsequent transformation into melted fat. Hence my reference to the rendering of fat as a heatsink. When the fat renders sufficently or entirely, the heat in the cooker will have no route of escape, and your temp will once again rise in both the cooker and the meat.

I've never checked, but I suspect that if you took frequent accurate readings of the meat and the ambient temp inside the cooker(CS), you'd find that the plateau ends when the two different temps match, however briefly. My guess is this would happen about 176-178*, then shazam, before you know it, you're at 190* and it's time to eat. The dynamics are slightly different for other types of cookers based on their heat production, but I think the process is basically the same.

And my earlier post was made without knowing your level of experience. A lot of new users report problems that are traced back to their inability to leave the door closed. I even admit to opening mine on occasion back in the day. Sounds like things are mostly straightened out though. Good deal.

For the record, I usually cook at least two butts at a time. I buy the twin packs from BJ's around 16-18#. They tend to cook in about 7.5-8.5 hours with cooker set at 225*, but I've had one butt go for 12 hours before. FWIW, I don't see any significant change in cook times between two and four butts either. I think the lack of mass just makes the temp fluctuations more drastic than the small heating element can compensate for in an 008. But if the element were bigger, the control on the thermostat would have to be much tighter and that would just drive up costs and most likely wouldn't save much time on an average cook. I think the 008 is a great example of the KISS principle. Low tech engineering that just works.

Also with a bigger element, you could just power through the plateau, and keeping it from doing it's job of breaking down the colagen in the meat. Sadly, this would mean no more tender meat. If you need proof, throw a butt in the kitchen oven at 400*. Set a meat therm for 195*. You're going to hit your temp pretty quick, and the meat is definitely "done" from a cooking standpoint, but I bet you don't want to eat it. Can you say chewey?

Two things that could affect your temps.... one has been mentioned:

1) Don't run it with a long extention cord (or one not rated for the amps) lest the unit not get the proper power.

2) Not mentioned yet: Make sure that the rack/meat you have in the unit is not touching the temp probe on the back wall. This kind of sounds like your problem because it would probably tend to keep the heat cycle on a shorter cycle.

3) Look for the probe to be touching something else like the back wall.

When I got my 055, it cycled from 185 to 265 when set to 225. That puts 225 right in the middle and I haven't looked at it since. So don't get too hung up on the cooker temp - it's the resulting product that counts. Or as a fellow pilot, "get your head out of the cockpit".

quote:

Originally posted by GLH:
Season that smoker properly with a large bone-in pork butt, untrimmed. Cook it at 250* until the probe says it is at least 195*. You will then be happy and not wanting to microanalize.

I agree GLH, but I wanted to apologize. If you read my post about the plateau, you probably shot yourself.

Yep, you get the crown for micro-anal-izing !