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12 replies

Blowing Circuit Breaker

FM Former Member
Got a good trial run or three of my new FE100 this weekend. First cook was just one corned beef brisket with no problems. Second one was two butts, which had no problems until near the end of the cycle when it starting tripping the CFI breaker on my garage outlets. Third try, I plugged into the outlet for Christmas lights (a separate circuit, but with a CFI reset switch on the breaker). I cooked a brisket, some sausage, and two racks of ribs. Worked fine again until the end of the cook when it started tripping the breaker.

Near as I can figure, I don't start opening the door until near the end of the cooking period and maybe opening the door does something to the thermostat that kicks in something that overloads the circuit. For the life of me, I cannot figure what that would be as the auger and fan are working pretty much the entire cook, right?

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. Does this sound normal for the FE100 that it drains extra energy when the door is opened or do I have something going on that needs to get checked. Note--both breakers are set at 10 amps, which I thought would be plenty.

I would like to figure this out before calling an electrician to install a dedicated line, which I will do regardless but would want to know what to tell him my exact requirements are for that circuit.

Thanks for your help.
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R ribdogMember
Keep in mind that if you are using a setting of 240* or higher, the circuit board runs based on the thermostat. So if you open the door, cold air rushes in and tells the augur to start pumping pellets in to make up for the heat loss.

On the Smoke or 180*, it is based on a fixed setting such as 1 minute of feeding pellets and three minutes of no augur movement. As such, when I open the door during the cook, I turn the setting to 180*, open the door and do what I need to do, close the door and then increase the setting back to whatever higher setting I had it at. This way, you are not getting a load of pellets fed in while the door is open.

BTW, I agree completely with Okie on calling customer service!

John
FM Former Member
Hey Duck
I don't think you have too much to worry about for quite a while. My co-workers think my BBQ is the best ever, I thought it was a little drier than I like.

cooking with the FE is so much different than the WSM. For one thing, it is a drier heat, at least when the FE is nearly empty. That may change when I fire it up for 12 butts next weekend.

Does anyone put a waterpan in the FE
FM Former Member
I am still experimenting. While I understand the basic operating part of the FE, the temp readings sometimes baffle me with the spikes.

What I do is heat up the unit using the prescribed on/off directions, then set it at 300 degrees to get it warm. I then turn it down to smoke when I add the meat for the first two hours or so, then turn it back up to the 225 setting until done.

I have not yet tried the higher temps when meat is in the unit, next weekend may do that. But first, I need to figure out this blown circuit problem

Note I did hear back from CS customer service and they suggested disconnecting the heating element to see if I am getting leakage from that. We'll see

Thanks everyone for your help. I owe you some BBQ when we see each other. Smiler
Smiler
FM Former Member
The heating element, if I understand the process, is used to ignite the pellets and only runs for the first few minutes after you turn it on. I disconnected the wires to that unit (per instructions from Cookshack Customer Service) and ignited the pellets using some stermo gel. took a couple tries to get it right, but about a tbl of the gel, lit, mixed with the pellets creates a good fire to start. Be sure to get it going strong before you turn on the thermostat as the fan will blow out a weak flame.
FM Former Member
I had the same problem on my first cook on my FEC100. From what Stuart told me the ignitors can be a pain sometimes. The are not hard to change and make sure to tie a string to the plug when you pull the old one out. I do have to say that I'm glad I learned to light mine the hard way in my driveway instead of at a comp. I also got to learn how to clean pellet crete out of the auger that day. Not much fun when you are wanting BBQ.

Mark

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