Another first

I was rubbin my meat for the last couple days also. Made about 15 lbs of summer sausage. MMMM.....

What did it start out as? A brat! Summer sausage is on my least after Christmas with the venison trimming.

Sauced,

If you notice a few other threads, folks up north are using their smokers just fine. Remember, that 1000 degree insulation also insulates from the outside (except when you open the door)

Plugged it in and left it go for over an hour over lunch. Checked it before I came back to the office and found out the breaker had blown. It was a ground fault so I hope that was the problem, not the fact that the 15 amp circuit won't handle the 55. Before I left I used an extension cord and put it on an inside circuit without the GFI. Next step would be to move the smoker and run the cord from one of the garage outlets which are 20 amp circuits. Haven't given up yet.

The model 50 should work fine on a 15 amp circuit, it pulls right at 10 amps. There could be a couple of reasons that it trips a GFI breaker. One would be that the actual breaker is bad, the other is that the heating element in the model 50 could be leaking a little current. UL has us run a test on every unit to make sure that they do not leak voltage, however the test is really hard on heating elements. So, every now and then we have one that after we run the test they will start leaking a little current. Let us know if you continue to have problems.

Thanks Stuart I'll check it when I get home, as stated it is on another 15 amp circuit so if the breaker is tripped again I may have the answere I need. There is a GFI outlet (not the one I was plugged in to) controlling the outside circuit. It may also have been for some other reason such as moisture in the outlet that tripped it. House is less than 2 years old but that doesn't mean anything either.

Stuart,
You are great about coming up with ideas and solutions to problems. Just wanted to thank you.
Peggy

Hi Sauced! Good luck with the first cook! I did my first butt last weekend when the temp was right at zero. The only problem i had was that the trasnmitter on my wireless thermometer (Radio Shack) stopped working! I tried to warm it with no luck, so I finally opened the door and stuck in the probed for my wired thermometer and had to go outside to check the temp of the meat!

Stopped in the office to give an update - no computer at home cause I'm by it all during the day. No problem with the CS, must of had a little snow on the plug and when it turned to moisture in the outlet it tripped the breaker. Put the butt on at 10:00 last night - right on schedule, internal meat temp was 37 after 2 hours on the counter and it was -9 outside. This morning at 7:00 it was -7 below and the meat temp was at 161, at 8:45 it was up to 170. Taking temps off the lower butt, using the 2nd and 4th racks. Had additional thermometers on my X-mas list and didn't want to disappoint anyone if I bought 2 for the first smoke. Still haven't opened the door, I am going to go by the meat temp the first time and hope it is close. I would have had the lid open on the grill about 25 times by now. I disconnected the thermometer from the probe during the night because it was so cold. Plugged it in for the update and each time gave it a couple minutes to give me a new reading cause I heard about the cold maybe affecting the function of them. I left it plugged in now so when I get home from last minute male Christmas shoppig I'll see what happens. I did stick the shipping box around the CS 'cause it was so cold (kind of anal the first time), don't know if it helped but it didn't hurt anything that I know of. I proped it up off the snow about an inch and folded the flaps in leaving about a 4 inch gap accross the middle. If the butt doesn't turn out (which I'm confident it will)the shipping box will smell really good. Havin' fun for the Holiday and am anxious to open that door for the first time.

I figure the box added about .0346 degrees of additional insulation to the CS's 1000 degree insulation. Can't hurt.

Heck, the first week I had mine, I did everything but wax it.

I have one of the Taylor electronic thermometers that I normally use for keeping track of the meat temp while cooking. I also have a long stemmed taylor analog thermometer that I use with my turkey fryer. It's as accurate as my electronic in that they both read the same on internal checks. I normally use this thermometer to keep track of the internal temp of the box while cooking. However, right now I only have the one electronic.. so, when I want to monitor temps of two roasts.. I simply position the other butt under the vent hole and put the long stemmed analog down thru the hole and into the heart of the meat. Works like a charm.. and a lot less expensive than the electronic ones.

Maybe one of these days I'll break down and get a dual probe Maverick.. they have sold out of the ones at Overstock.. but, I thought I saw someone on this forum or another that said Maverick was coming out with a new dual probe that had about triple the range.. something like 300' vs 100'

Turned out great for my first attempt, had about 4-5 oz of hickory and wasn't any too smokey. Got anxious to take them off when the lower butt hit 190, could have waited a bit longer cause the upper one was only at 165 and because it was so cold out I turned the convection oven on 250 to heat it up a little more while I pulled the first one (after opening the door of the smoker I figured it would take too long to get back up to temp). Put a couple cups of apple juice and some more rub on the meat in the crock pot to keep warm and served later that night. It was a fun 17 hour smoke for the 2 butts at 225 with out any negatives thanks to this site. Oh, and pulling them was really easy, being a Minnesota fan I was able to rip my frustrations out on the meat during the fourth quarter.