Maiden Voyage of the Smobot controller -Pic Heavy

The maiden voyage with my temp controller went wonderful today. I've linked to the discussion thread from before below. I went with 4 racks of St Louis style ribs. 3 racks were rubbed with DP Raging River and 1 with DP Ghost Pepper. I prefer the 6-0-0 method for its ease and results. I went with cherry wood at 225. I started a little hot, so it took a bit for the controller to come back down, but once the ribs were ready, the cold racks brought the temp down nicely for me.

 http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1163874/my-homemade-digital-temperature-controller/p1




And a little while in. . .



And the controller unit.




The temp was high because this was when I first set the controller up. I was hoping the cold stone would drop the temp more than it did. It was a lot colder (5 degrees F) the last time I smoked than today (57 degrees F).

Ribs at right before saucing at 5.5 hrs, done, and some cut pics.



 
The ribs were amazingly juicy and perfectly tender. Great bark and perfect thick sauce (sweet baby rays). The temp was very stable. I never adjusted once, the Smobot did it all. I just monitored from my phone via the internet since it has Wi-Fi. Here's a screenshot of the temp graph from online.



The low points are when I opened the grill to load, rotate, and sauce. I briefly set the temp down to 210 when I was running hot, but I turned it back up to 225 shortly later. 

The one trick I learned was to close the bottom damper the whole way when I opened the grill. This kept the grill from overheating with the sudden rush of oxygen with the lid up. Otherwise I kept the damper halfway open. The only blips were after that first opening, and the grill got back down to 225 rapidly after saucing. 

For never using it before, it was practically idiot proof. The WiFi was a super nice feature as well. Thanks to @reinhart36 for the design and the unit. I can't wait for my next cook!

www.smobot.com