Stoker alarm tolerances - how wide to set \'em

acertain

So I just got awakened (it's 4:20 am here in Seattle) by the Stoker due to a low-temp alarm. I had set the stoker to 240 and put an alarm at 229. Normally when I'm cooking, the Stoker keeps the temp at the target +/- about 5 degrees, but tonight it seemed that it had an issue. Going back through the log (I'm a geek), it looks like it first shot up to 250 (I had a high alarm set at 251) and then plunged back down to 227 (the gap in the data is where I switched off the logging to investigate). Has anybody else had this happen? How wide should I set my tolerances so that I don't get false positives?



Thanks.

Andrew

Big'un

I usually set my alarm tolerances at 40-45F below target and 35F above. IE..for a target temp of 275F, I'll set my low alarm to about 235F and my high to 310F. I've had the same thing happen, but only once. Usually the Stoker keeps it within a degree or two of the target. My biggest concern is catching any problem before things get too far gone, in either direction. I don't want the meat to drop below 140F, and I don't want my house starting to blaze either. All that said, the Stoker is a fantastic tool that makes over night cooks so much easier and safer! HTH.