The perfect Traeger thermostat controller

That would be pure heaven. Then I wouldn't have ANYTHING to do to produce great BBQ except sit in my chaise lounge and have a good cigar!

It should also have a built in electronic timer so you can start and stop the cooking process. LOL

I'd be interested....I have heard of PID controllers; they are computerized and can 'learn' how fast a thing comes up (or down) to temp and adjust the on/off times accordingly.

So do the current temp controls have 'notches' rather than a range of settings? You can't choose midway points on 'em?

A PID controller, proportional, intergral, derivitave is probably not needed. More of a pure proportional only, which is like on and off would be good enough. The time latency that it takes to get to the setpoint and drift is large. It should be easy to set it at any temperature and adjust the feedrate accordianally over time.

Craig

I would be very interested in this as well. Has there been any progress on this?

David

We discussed the "perfect" controller a bit last year. Glad to see it is coming back around. I like the idea you have Duck. I am most interested. Only thing missing is a lead running to the pellet hopper to augment the "smoke and hold" feature. It would alert the bonehead that there is not enough pellets in the hopper to hold!" LOL. Seriously though, that may not be a bad idea.

You should contact Shotgun Fred the BBQ Guru. Website address is bbqguru.com His device uses a digital controller that probes meat temp and probes cooking surface temp, as well. The guru temp controller. The controllers are available with temp alarms and remote craigw@two-llc.com

Any of you guys taking in to account how the burn system actually works?
There is no way to make quick temp changes, there will always be swings because of the fuel delivery, and there must be a certain amount of fuel delivered for it to stay lit, and to keep the fire from burning up the tube.
Then there's the issue of cold meat misleading the thermostat.
Some of us think it works pretty good right now. Learn to cook on it instead of trying to reinvent it.
How was the food me and Eddy made? We used stock cookers that had never even been lit before.

can't resist adding my 2 cents on this.
there is one thing i dont like about my fec100. it drives me crazy that after keeping good notes i have to leave the unit alone and let it cook. thank god i got a maverick remote for christmas it lets me play around and let the unit cook. i like the thermostat that comes with it but was having a problem with the heat on smoke setting being to high for me and don't ask me why i like smoke setting to be from 145-165 degrees but that is where i want it. so after reviewing my notes i knew it had to be the pellets so i switched from trager to bbq'ers delight and bingo got just what i wanted both on the smoke end and on the high end. but it sure wasnt the thermo that made me realize what was needed it was my notes.
so i guess what i am trying to say is i agree with drbbq (and his response agrees with a drubbing a stick burner gave me in another forum) keep notes, learn your equipment and for gosh sakes have fun.
i hope that i did not offend anyone and again this is just my 2 cents
jack

I thought that the pellet delivery system was such that auger was on for a certain time and off for a certian time and was not being controlled by a thermostat, but a simple timer that delivers the right amount of pellets for the right temperatures.

Am I wrong?
Troy

Good question!

I guess the card could be calibrated to guestimated timing to deliver fuel for guestimated temperature. But then, what is the smoke setting calibrated on?

I have a pellet-fire system that works exactly like you say. Except you have control over auger speed for pellet delivery and fan motor, no thermostat. I've not noticed any difference in fan in the FE, have y'all?

Troy,
On smoke it's running strictly on a timer. Any other setting utilizes the thermostat.

There are older versions that have only three settings. Smoke, medium and high. Smoke meant the auger was on for one minute, off for three. Medium was on two and off two and high was on full time. The fan always runs.

The simple four minute cycle has been changed over thye years to make it more consistent. But it's just never going bto be like a gas burner or an electric element. It's a live fire and if it's hot, it needs to burn off the fuel before it can cool down.

Now my old homemade cooker uses a traeger 75 feed system set up with the four minute cycle. I actually like this for when I fill it up with butts. I set it on medium and the temp will be low to start out, but there will not be any extreme fire trying to get the temp up to meet the needs of thermostat. As the meat warms so does the cooker temp. Eventually it will finish at 275 without ever touching the controls.

I like the new thermostats but I feel you need to understand how the thing works toi use them properly.

One more issue, when the fire is blazing to get the temp up, there is virtually no smoke flavoring happening.

Before I start, I want to blame all of you and the Beverages I have had for me gettting involved in this Thread.

Rule 1... Traeger makes the burn system. The system meets their needs and They are not going to spend dollars on improving it.hen their patten expires Pellet technogy will improve.

Rule 2... Stuart says that an improved controller is on the way. Ray, if the present controller is so good, why is Stuart working on a new controller?

Rule 3...The next real leap in pellet technology would be a variable speed auger motor. It could eliminate the temp flux and flameouts. Refer to rule 1.

candy, my experience is the fan stays same speed no matter what.
i still like the thermo that came on my fec. hope if they make a new design they still offer the old one as an option when i get my 2nd fec
jack

The system Candy refers to has an adjustable combustion fan. The concept is that I can increase pellet flow, but can reduce combustion air to create more smoke.

That's what I thought, Jack, fan runs at one speed. Personally, I don't have a problem with the current thermostat either. After the "burning learning" curve on that other pellet-fire system, FE is a piece of cake. Heck, it even lights itself! Other one lights manually, you tease the fan and hope the pellet drop is right. Did I mention that it consumes vast quantities of pellets? Burnt over 60# in Effingham at DrBBQ's class in April, cooked maybe 12 hours.

Dr. BBQ is right about clean fire=minimal smoke. Toss a handful in the pot if'n you have to open the door. Instant smoke til it catches fire.

If memory serves me right, for the newer FE's with the POT (? help me on this one Craig) on the board set on 1, you have 15 seconds of feed time and 55 seconds of idle time when the unit is not calling for heat. In the smoke setting, the unit never calls for heat, it just runs in this mode. For the other temperatures, the auger runs continuously until 5 (10?) degrees below the "set" temp then reverts to the idle mode until the temp drops enough to again call for heat.

As Ray said, to achieve the higher temps, you get a very efficient burn, so very little smoke/smoke flavor.

With any cooking device, there is variation in temperature throughout the unit and throughout the cycle. Your oven does the same thing. A saute pan does the same thing. A pot of boiling water does the same thing. The thermostat for your furnace does the same thing.

The point is that every cooking device has it's own nuances and perfomance envelope. Heat sources are analog. You can try to control them to the nth degree with digital circuits but you reach a point where a very precise control isn't achievable given the other variables. There is always going to be variation around an average. Kinda like driving your car, you can't just hold the steering wheel in one place and expect the car to follow a rigid path.

Dang Fred, 2 posts before I even got one off. Those beverages must be doin their stuff tonight (or I need to be drinking more).

Questions about the variable speed duct fan. Slowing down the fan speed gives a less efficient combustion so more smoke. Wouldn't that drop the temp also? And, would you run the risk of having a "pellet overload" if the system continued to feed pellets with less efficient burning?

Finally, I think that Stuart et al are working on another controller for a variety of reasons. Even if it would make no difference (and I don't know that for sure), the perception is that it would and perceptions sell products.

I haven't talked to Stuart about this, but my feeling is that he is a customer service guy, and if all you guys want a different controller, then he's going to try to get you one.
I'm just a guy who cooks on them, and I don't think a diffferent con=troller will make my food any better. I also don't think leaving your cooker for long periods of time is a good idea no matter what, so I don't see a problem with manually notching up every few hours. I know that method wins contests (and makes really good food)and has for years so I'm happy with it.

Doc,
Candy's unit gives more our less infinate control of the burn/delay cycle. If you reduce the combustion air to create smoke, the run has to be increased to to maintain temp. The system has advantages, but the problem is it requires more skill than the general public will have. There is a MIM team has been quit successful with these burners.

Fred,
I was talking about the board and how it runs a traeger feed system.
I really can't say anything about whichever competitor you're talking about.

The only time I've ever seen something other than a Traeger system run, it was Candy's big cooker, and there was ash all over the food and it kept going out.

Ray,
The Curly Tail Smokers have been quit successful with this burn system for years. Not to speak for Candy, but the problem was the system was installed on a Tucker cooker. As far as going out, my FE 100 falmed out this week.

There is not a cooker that couldn't be better. There is not a better goup to improve a product than those who own it.

I'm so confused, but I've enjoyed trying to understand.

Fred, I always like the idea of having more control over more things. The problem is it just allows me to screw more things up!

So are there 2 separate controls, one for the auger and one for the duct fan?

I don't know hat else to say Fred. I like the way the current FEC 100 works.

Gang, must have been a slow Saturday night

If you really have some issues with the FEC's, just drop a line to cookshack customer service and let them know. They don't regularly read every post in the forum and suggestions are always best delivered personally.

Let's give FE and CS some credit. How it's worked has been used by a lot of great cooks on the original FE and with a LOT of success.

CS is changing the thermostat for whatever reasons. CS doesn't have to explain to us (actually I don't know) but they could be for manufacturing reasons, UL or NSF listing, economics, improve the unit whatever their reason, we'll see what they come up with.

I'm like Ray. I use the unit like it is, I monitor it and I manually change the temp to affect the results I need.

Russ

Ray,
I wasn't saying I don't like the FE. Just doing some theorizing that there might be better ways to control the system. I own six smokers,some of which I designed and built. I am always wondering how I could improve them. I apologize if anyone thinks I'm picking on the FE. I am currently installing a Traeger burn system on my hog cooker. That is why I've spent time thinking about burn system control recently.

As for the system like Candy's. As I said earlier, it is too complicated to be sold to the general public. Actually there are three controls. It would certainly require a lot of experimentation to learn the combinations of run/delay and combustion fan speed to give the temp and smoke that you want. It's control is simply a dual timer to set run and delay time and reastat to vary the combustion fan speed. However, what is to say a board could not be developed to automatically adjust the three variables. Reality is that even if such a controller was a significant improvement, the market for such a controller would be too small to make it viable to produce.

I told you guys that if you keep bringing this up, I will have to get into the discusion. I can't resist.

I don't know, Fred! I know Mike Pittman has done extremely well with this type fire system. Do you know if he got his old cooker back? I heard he has a new one, even bigger than the old one. Visited with Mike at Quality Grills a while ago and got this. Mike P. hasn't needed "pebbles" here lately, so I don't know for sure. Do you know of anybody that has this pellet-fire on a heavier guage metal pit? What's the 3rd controll on this system? I've only got 2. Course, I can't say I've mastered them 2 anyway.

I love my FE! Only complaint (which isn't a complaint) is that it doesn't eat pellets fast enough.

Far as I know, Mike hasn't gotten his cooker back. He seems very happy with the new one. In fact, he has several butane tanks that he intends to turn into cookers. There is no question that with his long experience with the burn system he can make it do exactly what he wants. He can separate temp from smoke level.

Does yours not have a set knob for run time, knob for delay time, and a knob for fan speed?

I love my FE also.

We all must be at least a bit fond of them, we bought them didn't we

Candy, you'll just have to work on having all of us buy FE2000's so we'll use mo' pellets.

Ron,
How come you haven't helped candy out by putting a pellet burner on your other cooker?

That's an excellent thought. It would need the 3 burners. Maybe you could design the controller for me. I could turn the vertical into a pellet hopper. I think there's a future in pellet conversion kits.

Wish you where here. At 8 am it was 26. It has dropped over 10 degrees and isn't supposed to stop anytime soon. We had snow and the wind is howling. So......I just turned the knob on the FE and put 3 racks of spares on...right now I'm very glad there's only one knob

Gritsboy, I am with you. Question to Ya all. I just ordered a Fe and one thing i thought was you set it and forget it. I know Q and u must watch it but now it sounds like there might be more work to this unit than previously thought or is this just the fact that we have alot of good cooks with differant ideas on this fourm. Also Dr BBQ i agree with u just learn and cook on it. I have had like most of us many cookers and i had to learn each ones way of cooking.
My 4 cents

Sounds like you may need to put the FE's jacket on. One knob is a big advantage when you have to dig in the snow to find it. Its 42 here and that is plenty cool for me. your can sit your beer outside and it gets perfectly chilled. Going to do some more salmon today. Cooked a case of butts earlier this week for Xmas gifts. Did some practice ribs this week also. Think I want pizza for Christmas dinner.

The FE is VERY GLAD it lives in the trailer.

If you put your beer outside here, you'd have a beer slush or a beer sickle. Marker's Mark in coffee isn't bad. Salmon sounds good and I assume the pizza is going to be done in the FE.

I just bought a 3 bone prime rib roast for Christmas. It's dry aging as we speak. We'll smoke it for about 4 hours then 250 until the internal hits 118 - 120. It'll rest while the FE gets to 450 then finish for 15 to 30 minutes. We did one recently like this and I almost cried when I sliced it.

I think the pizza will be be cooked at Rocky's Pizza. Actually, I'm going to re-smoke a beautiful Petit Jean ham that Papashaka gave us. Four hours at 180 in the FE turns wonderful into prefection.

Jdawg,
dont let all this talk worry you. last time i saw a thread like this was over smoke ring on meat.
if you look back at this thread look for my 1st response. the whole key to the fec is keeping a note book. list everything you do. meat,meat grade, quantity of meat in the smoker, pellets used, pellet manufacturer, weather and the whole 9 yards. in no time at all you will be able to figure exactly what your unit wants and that is what you are concerned with. to give you one good example my owners book says to turn unit on for 10 mins, turn off and right back on. on my unit it dont work for me. found out from some suggestions that 3 mins is perfect for me.if i dont start up this way my temp will spike to 375. just keep in mind that all smokers are like people, each one has a different personality.
but i will say this in our 1st comp we took 2nd in brisket and for sure it was the fec and the notes i kept.
so have fun and dont let this worry you. you made the right decision
hope this helps
jack

There you go getting back to business prisonchef.

You are absolutely right about the notes and understanding your unit. One of the things I love about the FE is that you can "set it and forget it" (as long as the power is reliable) and get excellent BBQ. It also provides you with the flexibility to try various cooking methods if you prefer.

Would more control be nice? That really depends on the person. Some people are perfectly happy with it the way it is. Some people are more hands on (I imagine Eddy is the same way--that's why we're talking about FE's and not Traegers).

The beauty of the FE is that once you figure out what you want to do, you can do it again and again with the same results. It was single digits here with negative wind chills when the ribs where cooking yesterday. The unit held temp without a problem, the cook time was the same as it was a month ago, and more importantly, I didn't freeze outside tending the fire.

How true! Exactly 9 hours for the 18# fresh ham last night. Temp outside was 20. Even nicer...the Nu-Temp wireless probe to keep track of meat temp.

Another thing especially nice about the FE...speed that it drops temp when cooking's done. Didn't want to leave it outside this morning. Opened the door, dumped the heat and wheeled it back in the garage.