split smoking

I'd get someone on why the power failures.

You're freezers, fridges, etc will be affected but more importantly, frequent power failures tend to have BAD consequences over time to the electronics.

What kind of electric smokers? If they were FE's, I'd say get battery back up.

I'm not a fan of partial cooking as you have to cool them quickly (being foodsafe) then heat up the full way.

I'd suggest fixing the problem, especially if you're paying someone else rent.

Power failures are a real problem. You say 8 hours one day and 8 hours the next day but in reality you don't know when the power will go out. I would get a back up generator to keep the smoker working. Too much chance of food temp problems with stopping and starting the cooking process when you don't have contr

quote:

Originally posted by PorkQPine:
Power failures are a real problem. You say 8 hours one day and 8 hours the next day but in reality you don't know when the power will go out. I would get a back up generator to keep the smoker working. Too much chance of food temp problems with stopping and starting the cooking process when you don't have contr

The problem is that you'd have to run the smoker off the generator full time if you want to cook overnight because even with a generator that starts automatically, the cooker would already have turned itself off or gone to hold mode. I've spoken to CS about this several times, and while they've been nice and they mean well, they don't get it. I'd have a couple of CS commercial smokers right now if they'd offer a fix. As it is, I'm looking for an old, pre digital, knob type CS on eBay.

You might also look at a battery back-up that takes over when the power goes out and until the generator kicks on. That may be the long term solution. I'm not an electrical guy but I bet there is one near you that can come up with a solution.

Todd,

Battery backup is the fix. Plenty of High Technology companies can't afford for their PC's/Servers to die so the BBU is the solution.

There are commercial solutions that basically put a BBU in the circuit. I run my FE's on just that item (in my trailer) and they work fine on BBU

I actually offered CS several solutions:

1) Run the electronics and the heating element off of separate cords. The electronics cord could be plugged into a UPS, while the heating element goes into the wall. A UPS large enough to run the heating element would be huge and VERY expensive.

2)A PCB mounted 9v battery that would retain settings during a power outage, just like any cheap alarm clock. Cost less than $1 per unit at mfg level.

3)Old style knob control.

First two they shot down because they asked what would happen if power went off for 4 hours, and then the cook restarted? Possible food safety issues they said. Then I pointed out that every cooker CS had ever made prior to ~2004 did exactly that, see suggestion #3. Silence.........

Todd:
Thanks for the info. I have one of those 'oldies' and it cooks like a charm.
I always think about a power failure when I cook thru the night, (Im in bed of course). You have eliminated one more worry. I love the old smoker I have, love it even more now.

Todd,

There's more to it than that, I think while you think it's a simple approach, there's more to it.

I'll trust Stuart if he has reasons for not doing it.

The dial controller is not available anymore, so option 3 is not an option.

Your backup generator will work if you add a battery bank and inverter charger auto switch

While I can't see how you would justify the cost it's actually easy to do. The electric is always supplied off e batteries and the batteries are either charged by line current or your auto start generator in e event of line failure.

These are common systems for home backup but you can plan on spending 10k plus