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I have a smokette elite 025. I do have a heavy duty 6 to 8 ft extension cord running to my smoker. Also a have 20 amp screw in type fuses in my garage. It seemed to work fine the first few times a used it, but now it seems to be going crazy the last couple times a have used it. I like to do alot of jerky and smoked nuts, so is there an issue with a light load for the smoker? Today, for example, I wanted to smoked some jerky. About 3 lbs worth. Wanted the smoker set at 140. It kept climbing and climbing to 270. What the? Any help would be great! They say in the forum here that the smoker will run full boar and then settle down to the right temp. So, I should start it and then wait until it settles down to a temp close to what I have set it for?
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Yes, you will need to dump the heat a few times as the smoker is rising and has peaked out.

I'm not a person that questions another cooks method, but 140* seems a little low for drying nuts or making jerky in the CS smoker, but that might just be me. Most of us will also dump the moisture a few times during the drying process.
I haven't been at this a long time but I'm with Cal - I do a lot of jerky (anywhere between 3-5 lbs a run) and I set at 165. Yeah my old SM008 also likes to peak up a bit at first, but it levels out. I'm reading the smoker temp with a Maverick 73 and I get great results. I dump the moisture about every hour - and when I do the temp drops, then goes up and then stabilizes.

Good luck, keep plugging away at it - I find the more I "practice" the better the product gets.
By design, it goes hot early so it can ignite the wood. Yes, you have to wait for it to settle down if you're trying to hit 140 (but it's not really designed as a low temp / cold smoker.

Have a peak in the jerky forum and see how they're doing things. It's a bit of a cycle on/cycle off OR a set at a temp like Cal said (165)

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