You stoker owners did you get the 5 or 10 cfm fan?

 
It isn't going to matter which blower you get. I was advised to get and did get the 10cmf on my Stoker and the 10cfm on my digiq. I sort of wish I would have purchased the 5cfm. However, the 10 cfm works great.

You will love the stoker, make sure you pick up some extra food probes, you will find it handy to monitor several pieces of meat.

Stoker monitoring the dome, pit and several points on the meat in the large.


I also have the digiq monitoring the meat in the medium and the stoker watching the cook progress on the medium with the digiq


Here is the stoker controlling a summer sausage smoke and monitoring several logs.


GG

I got the 5 cfm fan as well for my large. In regard to the fan "messing it up", on the stoker log software there is a button for lid open detection which will turn off the fan for a few minutes to allow the probe to reestablish a proper temperature reading.

Raising the lid.....When I do Butts, Shoulders and Brisket, I never raise the lid until the meat hits the desired temp

When I do ribs and need to open the lid a couple of times, I just shut off the Stoker and turn it back on when I shut the lid

The DigiQ has a feature called "Open Lid Detect" that supposedly tells it to ignore dome openings. No idea how or IF it works. I've only used mine a couple of times so far.

I bought the 10CFM and it seems ok too. It's downwards adjustable. So far, mine has been set at 1/4-1/3 open (so maybe 2-3CFM, certainly less than 5) and it's been fine. Not sure when/if I'll ever need 10.

I've got three 5cfm blowers with my Stoker for my three large eggs. For a low-n-slow cook a 5cfm only 'puffs' on for about 5 seconds once every minute or so. Really no need for a 10cfm or larger unless you also want to use it on a very large steel smoker such as one for whole hogs...

I have a large BGE.

I called to place my order. Talking to him, I told him I wanted the 10CFM upgrade. He asked me what I was cooking on. I told him. I was advised that I really didn't want the 10CFM fan.

Some 20 cooks later (I got my egg in Sep 2010), I have to say he was right. Bringing the egg up to temp doesn't take very long. Once it's there, the fan cycles once every couple or three minutes for about 5 to 10 seconds at a time. I think I would have to say the 5 is just fine for the large egg and probably more than sufficient for an XL as well.

I have cooked a roast at 350 using my Stoker with the 5 cfm fan. Stokerlog tells me that the fan ran for 18% of the time during that 2-hr cook. There is no need for the 10 cfm fan with that kInd of performance from the smaller fan on a large egg.

You can use the lid open feature in Stokerlog to stop the fan for a predetermined interval, or you can simply turn off the Stoker before opening and turn it back on after closing the lid, which is what I find easiest.