SmoBot does Ribs

Jeepster47

Had a bunch of yard work to do today, so it seemed like a perfect time to use the Smobot (SB) on a rack of St Louis style ribs.  Filled the egg with Rockwood and five smallish chunks of apple wood.  Lit the lump with a weed eater ... love that thing.  Waited about 5 minutes after pulling the weed eater.  Then installed the AR, closed the lid and turned temp control over to the SB.  I initially set the pit temp to 235 degrees to catch the temp on the way up ... damn thing only overshot two degrees ... guess I'll stop worrying about overshoots.  Without a blower, the egg comes up to temp more slowly ... that's not a problem, cuz the egg reaches temp just about the same time as the smoke clears.  Eric should have called it "The Butler", 'cuz that's what it seems like for start ups.

Here's the SB set up for the rib cook ... pit probe, servo lead and power cord.  I could have/should have used the 9 volt batteries and it would have been even simpler.  A Lithium-ion battery pack sure looks like a good option for the SB, and also, for my other controllers.



The cook was boring ... closed the lid and forgot about it.  Since this is a beta version, a controlling/alerting app isn't available yet.  But, it's easy to trust the basic functionality and not feel like you have to constantly check on it.

A little graph porn for the techies.  Notice how closely the pit temp follows the target temp for about four hours.  Then there are some 4~5 degree deviations.  That seems to be a consistent trend on both the SB and my blower controllers.  I suspect that's how long it takes before the lump starts to re-position itself as some of it burns down.



Added the ribs to the egg and bumped up the set point a little after 1:00pm.  Checked on the ribs a little before 7:00pm to find that they needed a little more time, so went to get some Red Mud sauce to glaze them ... that's the second negative blip.  Pulled them a little over 20 minutes later.  Since the missus wasn't back yet, I covered the ribs and plate with HD aluminum foil and threw them in the oven at 180 degrees to keep.  Pulled them about 45 minutes later and here's what they looked like:



The oven stint didn't bother the ribs ... they tasted like they had just been removed from the egg.

reinhart36

Wow, nice cook, and thanks for the compliments and detailed report!

Your experience with controllers and technical background shows, in that you start up wisely with a small "fire" and leave the thing alone to do its job.

Kind regards,
Eric

stompbox

Nice cook!  SmoBot will be doing some pork butt this weekend for me! 

Eggcelsior

I wish I had one, this is a cool device!