New Flame Boss 200 help

MN-Egger

Jeepster47 said:

The good news is that the butt will turn out great.  It really doesn't care if the temp deviates +/-25 degrees.

Maybe @MichaelCollins will check in this morning and share some insight.

Can't explain the updating that occurred during the start up portion, but if you had to reset it such that it lost the accumulated knowledge of your egg then I suspect it's in the process of relearning.  I'm told it takes about an hour of running to understand the personality of your egg.  Unless you unplugged the fan at 8:25 EST, it looks like the FB is beginning to control appropriately.  A swing or two through the target temp will greatly improve it's knowledge.

I would suggest simply riding it out right now without making any physical adjustments.

Yeah it's like it heard my complaining and decided to stop feeding air and is returning to target.  I still do not see how much logic it takes to not throw 100% fan at a fire that is 30° over target but hopefully it will learn and perform better now.

sctdg

Like someone said previously ,open top vent no more than thickness of a dime. That holds true for all temperature controllers . Also try using a small piece of paper towel soaked in veg. oil and put it in middle of charcoal  to light fire . Let it get close to target temp (do not bring it up with controller) ,then install your controller . I have stopped using my Auber controller ,essentially does same as flameboss and went to CHEAP TipTop controller works great no bells and whistles just WORKS ! I use my Maverick et-732 to monitor meat temp and find with TipTop I have no need to monitor pit because it stays dead nuts on temperature where I set it .A Smokeware cap keeps TipTop on the egg and is useful if it rains . Just saying .

MN-Egger

Sure wish I could get a hold of someone at Flameboss. The temp settled down and was going good then at 9:30 the FB decides to begin throwing fan at it and the temp soared again. Makes no sense to me. 

Also vent has been and is currently open the thickness of a dime. 

Robo2015

MN-Egger said:

Sure wish I could get a hold of someone at Flameboss. The temp settled down and was going good then at 9:30 the FB decides to begin throwing fan at it and the temp soared again. Makes no sense to me. 

Also vent has been and is currently open the thickness of a dime. 

I've found FB's customer service is pretty great, but I don't think they are around during the weekend.  I'd send them an email on Monday and discuss it with them.  Email seemed to work best for me because I could send them pictures, etc.  good luck with the cook.  FB issues aside, as @Jeepster47 said that pork should come out tasty.

MichaelCollins

MN-Egger said:

Not so much spot on, It has the temp 20° over target and keeps stoking with fan, it just won't seem to let the temp come down, it's like it thinks the target is 270°

Hi MN-Egger, It seems that you have a noisy power source that is causing a lot of fluctuation in the pit temperature reading. Notice that the red line looks like a EKG instead of a line with gradual curves. This causes Flame Boss controller to think that the pit temperature is frequently dropping rapidly causing the blower to run when it shouldn't. Once for more than an hour, the power source gets cleaner as if whatever is causing the noise turns off. When this occurred, the blower doesn't run as much and the pit temperature drops to the set point.

I just changed the tuning of your controller to make it less sensitive to the noise. I hope that this helps.

Dondgc

that link to the cook is really neat.  Looks like temp is spot-on since @MichaelCollins made some adjustments.

Dondgc

MN-Egger said:

Smoking today and having issues with the FB...

So whats cooking in the Egg today? Hopefully your controller issues are behind you and you can enjoy the cook!

MN-Egger

MichaelCollins said:

MN-Egger said:

Not so much spot on, It has the temp 20° over target and keeps stoking with fan, it just won't seem to let the temp come down, it's like it thinks the target is 270°

Hi MN-Egger, It seems that you have a noisy power source that is causing a lot of fluctuation in the pit temperature reading. Notice that the red line looks like a EKG instead of a line with gradual curves. This causes Flame Boss controller to think that the pit temperature is frequently dropping rapidly causing the blower to run when it shouldn't. Once for more than an hour, the power source gets cleaner as if whatever is causing the noise turns off. When this occurred, the blower doesn't run as much and the pit temperature drops to the set point.

I just changed the tuning of your controller to make it less sensitive to the noise. I hope that this helps.

Thank you for your help!  When I started the FB today, it was stuck in a loop that was telling me that is was in a production test and kept performing a voltage check. I unplugged the power at the FB unit and it went away but there sure was something electrical going on and I hope you cured it. 

Again, Thank You Michael!

MN-Egger

Dondgc said:

MN-Egger said:

Smoking today and having issues with the FB...

So whats cooking in the Egg today? Hopefully your controller issues are behind you and you can enjoy the cook!

That would be a 7.7# pork butt, my first one. 

Dondgc

@MN-Egger- I have no connection to Flame Boss, but that's impressive customer service - not to mention pretty impressive controller performance. You are now locked in on 250 plus or minus a couple of degrees.  Looking forward to pictures of the cook

Update - you are locked in at 251.  Wow.  That's impressive performance.

MN-Egger

Well, the cook had many ups & downs and I was pulling my hair out about what could be wrong. I took such care to cross my T's and dot my i's. Cleaned the egg completely, hand selected the lump in layers, lit one spot, daisy wheel closed off, etc still, the temp went wild. Thank god Michael from Flame Boss was watching this thread and saw the problems I was having and made a correction remotely to my controller! From that moment, the cook went perfect and needed no intervention by me. Raise temp, and the FB complied perfectly. 

On the cook, I am so glad I decided to not foil and experience the outrageous bark! I knew it was what I was after and my wife and I both couldn't get enough of it! We made sandwiches and have two more meals left to enjoy. 

I have never had pork of this caliber up here in the north. Many times up here if you get pulled pork in a restaurant, it is so heavily doused in some pungent BBQ sauce, that is all you taste. 

Thank you to the members who helped me with the do's & don'ts.

And the pics:
One clean bone!

RedSkip

@MN-Egger. Great cook!  

Just for reference, I know a dime is fairly easy to understand.  I'm in process of cooking a Butt at 240 F for tomorrow, and thought I'd share.  I don't have the FB200, wasn't available when  I bought the FB100.  

Great device and very reliable, you'll love it! 

MN-Egger

One more pic to show the lump burn pattern after 13 hours. Enough left to many more hours!