Help!

Well there have been some issues with that. I am no expert with these things but some of the issues that you have. Looks like they have covered. Some people have had to change out the controller board, probe. But we have also found that power can also be an issue when running to hot. Meaning that you might have clean power or weak power coming into th unit. One of the many things I had learned at the CookShack class was Eddy uses a volt meter ( you can get at a travel RV store) to see what kind of power it coming into the smoker. Weak or to much power can make the unit run hotter or slower.

We have just found out that running the unit off of a battery and an inverter. The unit runs better for us at contests. Try this out and see what your volts and amps are running at. I am sure someone better at this than me will chime in here to help you out. I would call CookShack on Tue I am sure they will fix your problems......

Good luck,

Craig
FireHouseBBQ

It doesn't sound like the smoker has issues, if you've replaced everything.

Have you tried opening the door and letting some of the heat out?

When you first start it, it will actually go higher for a while because there are a lot of unburned pellets in the pot that need to burn down.

As mine starts, when they get to a high temp I just open the door and let heat out.

Or, I start it long enough for it to stabilize.

I have the same results with my new FEC100. It will hold temp at 180 or 245 but not 225. I still get good results when I have a full smoker. Ribs fall off the bone. I open the door when it runs hot and often spritz with a mop mixture. It would be nice to leave it for a few hours and not worry.

Once my temp stabilizes, it remains pretty constant. I put brisket or butts on before bed, and the temp stays between 245*-250* all night. I cook mainly on the notch between 180* and 275*. When I do ribs, I cook at 275* and the temp is constant.

If you are hitting over 300* when set at 180* provided it has run for a while, that's to me is not normal. Mine does not sit exactly at 180* or 250*, but just a few degrees off like FF notes above. As for having to open the door to regulate the temp, yes maybe on occasion as it starts up but if you are doing this all the time you lose a big benefit of this cooker and might as well get a WSM and tend it all night.

Not sure how to correct, but mine does not act like that at all.

What makes you think you would have to tend a WSM all night? I get twelve and sometimes 14 hour burns out of mine at 250 degrees lid temp. If I cook Minion and the wind is nominal, it will run longer.

whatever, you get the point

I do get the point, you meant ECB. Anyway, this is what is scaring me about this cooker. After reading the success stories, I was ready to take the plunge. Now I am getting a bit nervous, I have read damn near 20 posts where people's temps are all over the place. I don't think I can deal with that, someone tell me a good story and rebuild my faith.

Just got mine a few weeks ago. Used twice and I have monitored the temps pretty close. No issues at all so far.

I had some of the same concerns before I got my FEC100. I have had mine for about 4 months, and it has never been far off temp, nor has it ever failed to start quickly. As with any pellet cooker, stick burner, (I have had two Lang 84's)WSM, (I have two of those now, as well as three other types) you will have to spend a very short period of time learning the ins and outs of your particular smoker, and how it cooks; no two cook the same way. You will be very happy with an FEC100. Even my wife brags on mine. I will tell you this though, they are very addictive....Good luck..John

I have two FEC 100's and have no problem with them at all. I cook at least once a week at home if not competing. My temps vary = or - 5 degrees up or down. Some of my cooks are for 12 hours steady. I am very pleased with the units along with the customer service.
Smoky Mountain Smokers

quote:

Originally posted by Dean C.:
[qb]... someone tell me a good story and rebuild my faith. [/qb]

I've competed this year, for the first time by myself, with 2 FEC 100's. Considering I've won about 20 ribbons in 6 contests(for a top 10 finish) and a bunch of cash, it's a DAMN good smoker. And that's just me. Read through the posts in the FE Contest forum and see how many are winning Grand's and lots of placing with an FE, that should give you some insight.

For the record, I don't work for CS as the moderator, I'm just a volunteer.

For me, a lot of the "all over the place" posts are people expecting too much. It's a smoker. The controller isn't guaranteed to a particular temp and hold it there at that temp. There are exceptions and without exception CS stands by the smoker and helps with making it right.

You buy a stick burner and it won't hold the temp any better UNTIL you learn how to use it. The more I use my FE, the better I am with it.

If you really need to know, you need to visit someone with an FE and try it before you buy it.

Dean, you're in KC and there are a lot of owners there. Go out to some of the contests and ask them, they'll be happy to show you.

Dean,

Do me a favor and put you temp probes in you oven at home and see if there close enough for you liking. They ussually vary 25 degrees.

Oh and don't forget we do something not like other smoker company's do, A 30 DAY MONEY BACK GAURANTEE!!!!!

How can you go wrong??????

FYI, I'm in KC also. ( well ussually, right now I'm in England till the 18th of july working with our distibutor over here)

I am well aware of the temp variances in smokers and ovens, it was the dramatic ones that concerned me. It appears that practice or in the rare occasions mechanical issues were the problems, thanks for all your responses.

Good pork at your restaurant Eddy, I really enjoyed it. Be careful over there.

dean,
something that wasn't touched on but helped me fine tune my fec100 to my style of cooking is pellet choice, both the type of wood and manufacturer.
normally i like to go really low on smoke temp and found by mixing oak pecan and cherry pellets i can hold all day at 145-165f in my unit (and that i think is the key since everything i have ever cooked in varies and that includes 2 vulcan convection ovens made the same day with sequential serial numbers).
now if i want really high temps like for chicken i just use an all oak pellet and 475f is no problem at all.
it will take some experimenting around and it will require that you keep good notes but in the end it will make your product better
hope this helps some
jack
ps. you wanted one thing said to restore your faith in fec. i sleep right next to mine every friday in the rig. it has always done what it should do and i have complete faith in both fast eddy and his product and cookshacks guarantee.
pps. if you go to the us agriculture's site you can pull up the btu's of about any species of trees. it helped me alot

I was not looking to start a battle, but truthfully,I am still having temp issues. I will call CS or contact Eddy we gets back home.

In the meantime, I am not knocking the cooker, BUT if those of you who think there is nothing wrong with the unit would be willing to help me overcome my 120 degree diffrence between the temp setting and the actual temp, I would appreciate it. maybe I was naive, but I expected better temp control then what I have.

Craig,

Mine works very well. When I set it to Smoke, I get 135 to 155 once the meat is in. There is definitely something wrong with yours and CS needs to do something about it. Don't wait for Eddy to return. Call and talk to Tony in customer service. Do it tomorrow!

John

And I wasn't trying to pick a fight, theres no doubt in my mind that this is an awesome cooker. I've cooked on the comp circuit for two years and the FE's have gained far more calls and GC's than I ever have with my WSM's, I was just playing devil's advocate and expressing some worries before I parted with about 3 large. Good luck LI Craig, please let me know what the problem was in case I ever run into it. I plan on purchasing my FEC in January.

Hey, Dean, have you checked your power? My FE "ran away" in Memphis at the contest. Briskets were done, really done, at 2 in the morning. Temp was running 100+ higher than where it was supposed to be. Next time I used it (at home) temp was right on. I put a probe on a polder right next to the temp probe in the cooker. Not a 5 degree variance between them. Had to be the power. Before my next outing, I'm setting up a battery/inverter power filter. You'll laugh...Johnny Trigg told me what to buy last weekend in Shannon! Trolling battery and a cheap inverter from Walmart.

Candy Sue,

Look for the Marine "deep cycle" batteries. Not sure if that's the same as a trolling battery, but I've been running both my FE's on them and they run the whole contest no problem.

I definitely don't trust the power at contests, weird stuff happens on some of that power.

Russ

It's kinda hard for me to justify spending the money for the inverter/battery thing for contests. I swiped my brother's generator (Honda 3000 with an inverter built in), I don't want to give it back! Takes no time to switch from contest power to Honda power and it's not noisy. I practice cook on the generator here at work. Why do I need a battery/inverter setup???

The only thing a battery pack would give you is an uninteruptable power supply. If you lose power while you are napping your FE cooks on. With the charger plugged in, the battery should be charging faster than you are consumming. Power fails and a fully charged battery continues to supply the Cooker.

Craig, just to be clear, are the temps you're getting readings from the display on the unit or from an aftermarket digital?

In my pre-purchase research I was told to expect temps at a given setting to vary within a range around the setting. As explained to me, the FE is a wood cooker and as with any other wood fueled cooker, as fuel is added and ignites and burns down there will be variations in temps. This is exactly what I've found to be the case. NOT saying you don't have a problem with yours, in fact I think you do, just making sure you're not expecting home heating/cooling thermostat performance from your cooker. The display on my unit shows far less variation than does a digital reading the pit temp. I'm not sure if this is due to the close proximity of the sensor to the wall of the smoker or if software buffers the readings, but that is how mine works.
I started out with the Traeger pellets that were easier to find, frankly I don't like them, not the alder base nor their thermal qualities.

Took the FE camping over the 4th of July holiday armed with some pure wood pellets (cherry and pecan) and saw vastly improved results. The variations from the "set temp" were much less than with the traeger pellets and the flavor of the food was infinitely better than with the alder based stuff.
We cooked pork loin, turkey breast, breakfast sausage, bacon, biscuits, pizza, bread and prime rib all in the FE and it was all awesome. Most impressive was cooking 3# of bacon on 2 shelves and every slice was identically done, no hotspots anywhere!!

Dean, feel free to e-mail me(vjssac@aol.com), I'd be glad for you to come have a look at the FE and see how it cooks. I had a sincere desire for a big black cooker and went with the FE for portability, fuel convience and ease of storage, I couldn't be happier with my choice. The more I cook on it, the better I get with it and the more I like it.

Candy Sue,

You are talking about a $1200-1400 generator versus a $150 inverter battery setup. Major difference for most people. The end result may be the same but getting was two different roads to me.

John

candy,
i knew there was a reason i liked you.
anyone with the good sense to "steal" a honda eu3000is is aces in my book
jack
ps. just remember to change the oil every 100 hours and past that they run like champs even in the pouring rain and man have we had some of that

ribdog,
i couldn't help but notice that in your area a honda eu3000is goes for $1,200 to 1,400. could you please send the name of the the place where you saw these for??? it would be well worth my while to drive there as i have been thinking of getting a 3rd one and running the parallel kit to give me 6000 watts on one leg.
thanks in advance for the help
jack

I didn't steal it, Jack!!! He knows right where it is. John, the inverter Fred recommended is well over $150...he told me not to waste money on the cheap ones. I'll probably get one just for redundancy...kind of why I carry spare parts for FE in the trailer.

Scott in KC -- everybody who makes pellets calls them "pure wood" which they are. Are you sure your pellets were pure cherry? I've used pure cherry and pure pecan, only difference I saw was more ash build up. Plus, I got tired of ripping into 1# bags! Makes better smoke in smoke mode, but I don't really think it makes much difference when you cook at temp.

Jack,

It was a Honda EB3000 generator that I was referring to. If I used the wrong generator in my example, then that is my mistake. If I ever find an EU3000is for that price, you willbe the first to know.

John

Candy Sue, instead of pure, perhaps I should have used the term "non-blended" pellets. These were from Epp Farms in Newton Kansas, 40# bags.
What I liked better about them was that range of temps at a given setting ran in a narrower range (as read by probe therm) than with the traeger pellets. 275 with the traegers runs 240-275 for me, with the unblended pellets it stayed between 250-280.
There were several other variables in play, might have been the pellets, power, ambient temp or something I haven't considered. Either way I will continue to buy other than traeger pellets, alder tastes awful.

Yep, fuel does affect temperature swing. I use apple for that reason. I can consistently maintain 235-250 at the 250 setting with apple. These are blended with oak. Made the mistake of putting 100% apple in the hopper. Fire ran but no heat. I've bought Weldon's pellets (sounds funny for someone who works at a pellet factory). I've not tried peach in the FE yet though.

Candy Sue,are you cooking the Birmingham,Al. contest?If so would you bring me some pellets?
Thank's
Joe McFaden
Meridian,Ms.

Joe, I'm cooking Nashville & Lebanon. I'll probably be at Birmingham, TBing for EJ's. So, yes, pellets can be delivered to B'ham. If not by me, Ed can bring you some.