24 lb whole pork shoulder

Sounds good. I am still awaiting my FE100. So in the meantime I did 6 racks of babybacks and some chicken over the weekend on my Smokette. I was still very pleased with the outcome.

The only thing I am REAL envious of is that my FE100 will not come with a 225 setting. Only 180 and then bam! straight up to 240. I am so used to 225 on the Smokette that I will have to learn how to smoke all over again. I have been taking notes however by watching this forum and will hopefully not ruin too much meat in the process. <sigh> there's always brunswick stew I can dump my failed "tests" in to.

240? I believe mine is 250 degress.

When your cooking your meat to 200 degrees (plus or minus), cooking at 225 is less of a temperature differential. When the internal temperature of the meat is sitting at 160 degrees, I would rather have the temperature differential be 65 degrees rather than 90 degrees. I prefer to bring the temperature of the meat up slowly, through this phase of the cooking process.

The point is this, the FE100 is a smoker. Not a grill, but a smoker. Whether you cook at 225 or 275, one would think that the smoker would have greater control at these lower temperatures, not at the higher temperature. Give me the 25 degree settings between the temperature range of 175 to 375 with a single 450 degree setting, not between 250 and 450.

Furthermore, if the unit 'actually' cook at 250 degrees, it wouldn't be as bad. But 250 on the dial, is 290 in parts of the smoker.

Don't get me wrong, I like the design of the smoker, just hate the controller.

K.D., come down to Mollala on the 4th of July and lets play! I love my 225 set it and forget it setting. I am sure I could learn how to use the smoke setting and then finish on high temp but I am to old and like to sleep. Come on down to the cookoff and lets cook a little pig.

Where's the cookoff, and when Duck??? Sounds like fun. And as for too old? Hell I'm 58 and counting and my wife STILL teaches me things I never knew I needed to know.

Its more of a habit with me concerning the 225 setting, its how I cook on my smokette. As I stated I am more than willing to learn the nuances of cooking with the FE100.

I echo Ducks thoughts. One of the principle reasons I wanted an FE100 was because I thought I could set it and forget it (as advertised). The reality of the situation is that somewhere in between your total cook time you will in fact have to visit the pit and adjust the temperature on item's such as shoulder and brisket.

For the sake of supporting my reply lets take an 8# butt and the cook time involved.

2 hours smoke
8 hours 180*
4 1/2 hours at 250*

That's 3 times you have to visit the pit. Not quite "set it and forget it" in my book.

Make sense?

Last point..what would it hurt if a 225 setting were available? You folks that like to visit your "set and forget" FE100's multiple times could still do so and the folks that want to use it as advertised could at last "set and forget".

By all means you can just put it on 250 and get a wonderfull product. You should try it. It works well at that. If your looking for competition thats a little differant. The lower settings get used to intensify the smoke produced.I do catering and do operate the FE cookers at the set it and forget it procedure, and get tons of compliments!