FEC 100 Questions

The unit you are speaking of should be NSF approved but not UL approved. The only UL approved models I know of is the IQ4 model. You can John Shifflet at the Cookshack office and he can confirm this for you.

I have both an IQ4 model and a pre-ramp model. Both are excellent for my needs. I use them for comps, cooking at home and some light catering. So no need to worry about UL approval for me.

As to the hood question, I would suggest you do a "Find" search above. I know there have been threads on cooking under a hood.

But a lot has to do with you local health dept. codes and the inspectors.

And on the issue on thinking you are cheating because of all the sleep you get with it, I got over that the first night I used it. Once you understand the unit, there is no cheating to it. Just good old ingenuity on how it was designed to work thanks to Eddy and everyone at Cookshack.

John, thanks for the info! Any commonly failing parts that I should keep an eye on for an older unit such as that? Like controller or auger etc? Just anything in general?

I have not had anything go on mine. Never had to repair a single part on the old one.

I did have to replace the thermistor in my IQ4 but I think that was because it was damaged in shipment. Otherwise, it has been fine also.

You can tell and NSF by those that have a ramp. The ramp was added as part of the NSF testing. Straight through augers won't be NSF.

Hood or no hood is a HD question. If they don't require it, then it depends on the airflow. More smoke is out the vent but some will come out the door. You can vent the smoke outside, but some places require a vent over the door (don't remember, but there's a term for it) so that when you open the door, the smoke gets vented. HD will NEVER understand, smoke in a BBQ restaurant is just advertisement.

quote:

I've been a wood pit cooker for about 5 years now, and have sold myself (after many sleepless nights.. kinda feels like I'm cheating!)

It's not cheating. Have a real good freind opened a restaurant never having cooked on an FE. He said the PB's and Brisket he's making now are SO much better than his fast method. He loves Low and Slow on his FE.

Smoking on a gasser and calling it BBQ is cheating. LOT of Q restaurants use gas and don't tell their customers.

Reliability is something you'll just have to experience. You can read through the forums, but don't count most of those "I have a problem" as the standard. People tend to post more questions needing help than ones saying... I don't have a problem.

On a FE, not too many things to go wrong.

1. The seal: ONLY if you let the grease collect (say from a full load of chicken) AND you're cooking on very, very high temps has this been as issue. 5 years now, I haven't replaced a seal.

2. The igniter: This is one of those, get it for a month or so and it works, and keep the pot clean after use, it will likely keep working. Had to replace one once, but that was very early with that cooker, first month or two. Some theories about letting the ash collect around the auger and get packed in. I just clean out the pot after every use.
3. The auger: There is a shear pin and it will shear when somehow the auger gets stick. I've not had this happen. But it's by design. It's like a 10c piece. Just keep sawdust from building in the bottom of the hopper and do NOT let them get wet and dry...it's called Pellet Crete for a reason. It's like concrete to get out.

4. The controller: In the 2 years or so, I haven't heard of 1 IQ4 going bad. That controller has been used by CS long before the FE, so it's pretty reliable.

Hope that helps.

Russ

I want to thank both RibDog and SmokinOkie for their abundance of great information. As of yesterday evening.. I'm now the happy owner of an '06 model FEC100.

I can't wait to actually sleep at the next BBQ competition!!

Thanks again for the all the information, I'll let you know how it goes!

You learn something new every day. I thought the ramp had been added on in preparation for the UL approval process. My mistake. Thanks for pointing that out Russ.