mdl 50 THermostat problems

You're not alone in concerns with the temperature controls. There's plenty of conversation here about them. I recently bought a Smokin Tex and have had similar results with wild temperature swings. The CS and ST must have similar if not identical controls. Starting off at lower temps and working up seems to work OK. I've also put a cardboard box over it to reduce the effects of drafts and outside temperature.
Of more concern to me is that the control doesn't really turn the cooker off! If you store it in the garage, it'll still come on if the temperature gets low enough (~40 degrees). They replaced the unit but the second one does the same thing. It also gets harder to turn the control to the off position after use. This I REALLY don't understand.

I cut/pasted a post from Stuart at CS. It explains the heating in a CS, and by all means if you have problems call CS customer Service, they are the best. Here is the post:

Stuart
Moderator
Member # 24
posted July 03, 2001 08:50 AM
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Sorry I didn't get something put together on this post sooner. I started a couple of times and kept getting interupted.
All Cookshack Smokers and most smokers in general have temperature swings. On most items you cook it doesn't matter.

The Smokette and the Model 50 use pretty standard bulb and capilary style thermostats. These style thermostats are very relaible and hold up well in smokers. However, bulb and capilary style thermostats react a little slower than we would like.

Also, in the equation of temperature swings is the location of the probe and how much heat the woodbox retains. We have tried to minize these, however in the Smokette and Model 50 you will see temperature swings. The more food you have in the oven the less the swing will be. In an empty oven (worse case) with set point at 225 you will probably see temperature swings of +30 and -20 degrees. This will depend a bit on input voltage, humidity and ambient temperature.

I have cooked just about everything you might ever want to cook and have never found the temperature swings to be much of a problem. A good example of this is the restaurant chain Houston's, they use our Smokette to smoke their salmon. They smoke it at 160 degrees and never have any problems. It is a great product.

I have cooked scallops and crabs in a smokette at 150 degrees and the end product is always good. So, we don't beleive that it is a problem to worry about.

However, on the other side of this issue, about 5 years ago we decided to go through a bit of a design change in our larger smokers. In this change we designed our own controller. In the design of the controller, we added some techonology so the controller is looking at the rate of rise in temperature. This way we are able to slow it down a bit when we start to get close to set point. The controller then looks for the temperature to start to drop and then starts pulsing energy to the heating element to keep the unit from crashing way below set point. So, if you want a smoker that is has more accurate temperature controll, we would recommend the Model 75 or 150.

Bottom line however is that the Smokette and Model 50 work great for most people. And the cost of the electronic controller is more than a lot of people want to pay for a home use smoker.

Hope this makes sense, let me know if you have further questions...

Stuart

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Stuart


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Hey Rick,

You should get the thermostat in your unit replaced as they should have a positive off. Don't know for sure what thermostat SmokinTex is using, but it should turn freely and off...

Thanks Stuart. They've already sent me a replacement cooker but it does the same exact things (comes on at lower temps and binds when turning off after cooking). I'm not too worried about either as long as it cooks well which it appears to do. Wish CS had offered the casters and handle a couple of months ago!