First few cooks, how should cooker heat up?

Welcome aboard Ivan.
Have you checked your grate temps to see if it is reading right?
Probe dirty?
I'm thinking along the lines of a bad probe. But I'm no tech.
Best bet is to call CS customer service tomorrow. They are great people, regardless of whether you bought it from them or not.

Thanks. I will be calling CS. It seems its holding steady now that it has come up to temp. I think the large volume of meat had it cycling a lot but now it has stabilized. I dropped the temp setting to 225 and I'm going to let it go the rest of the way at that temp. Hoping to pull in the am.

I usually start mine at 200 and let it run consistently and then bring it down later.

Yes, volume matters with meat. A cold fec is warming up a couple of hundred pounds of metal, as well as the 12 butts you put in. Once they come up to temp, it'll probally be fine, as a FEC cooks better with a bigger load, I think, because it has a greater mass.

Good Luck.

Welcome to the forums Ivan.

Couple of questions:
Is your FEC new or used?
Did the pellets fail to ignite with the igniter?
Are your pellets dry?
Door seal...not perfect in what ways?
Is the smoker outdoors? What was the ambiant outdoor temp during your cook?

A full load of meat will require extra time to achieve set temp but in your case I suspect a problem with the thermocoupler, igniter or both. Bill or Tony (Cookshack tech support) will work out the problem(s) and get you fixed up.

I would caution you not to use a blowtorch when lighting pellets...it can damage the igniter. A small amount of alcohol based hand sanitizer mised with a handfull of pellets is a better alternative.

Traeger pellets...use them if you must but there are a number of tried and true alternatives from Cookshack, Fast Eddy and BBQ Delight.

Good luck. Let us know the follow-up.

Is your FEC new or used? It is used

Did the pellets fail to ignite with the igniter? Igniter is broken, I was aware of this when I bought it

Are your pellets dry? Brand new bought off shelf earlier yesterday

Door seal...not perfect in what ways? Leaking smoke but not terribly, I'm planning to change it as soon as I place an order from Cookshack. I want to bundle some things to save on shipping.

Is the smoker outdoors? What was the ambiant outdoor temp during your cook? In the 40's

I think it's working properly, it holds temp within a few degrees. It just needed to settle in I believe. It's burning more pellets than I think it should but I think the seals will help with that.

As far as pellets go Traegar are the only ones that are readily available as far I know so far. I am looking. I travel the whole state of Virginia if there are other sources available please let me know.

The first few cooks have been great. I'm looking forward to learning this smoker. I just threw on some Johnsonville brats and chorizo just so I could use it.

Loading a FE with that much meat mass will take a fair bit of time to come up to temp. They'll be absorbing a lot of the generate heat.