First problem with temp control.

trevorst · February 2012

Had my medium egg since just before Xmas and have done a lot of food on it, including several racks of ribs.
Never had a problem with temp control until yesterday, lit in my usual way with electric starter, left open until burning clear, added place setter and started closing own bottom vent. At 200 added DW and closed down bottom vent more, after 30 mins temp was 240 closed down to my usual slow cook settings and added ribs.
Temp kept rising slowly so I shut down till there was virtually no opening and closed DW till there was only about an 1/8th of an inch gap on the daisy.
Still the Temp kept rising slowly and it was at 350 after 3 hours, had to take the ribs off. They tasted good but were dry compared to my norm because of the higher temps.
Don't know what was going on but I could not keep th temp from rising, I couldn't shut the vents anymore or it would have gone out.
Checked the egg this morning and it had burned more than twice as much lump as normal for ribs.

hogaholic · February 2012

Was your egg purchased new or used? Is the gasket in good shape? If so, check the alingment of the bands to determine if a good seal is being made when the lid is closed.

For a low and slow cook I never leave the egg open very long after lighting the lump in only one or two places. I don't want all the lump to catch fire. I just use the bottom vent to start choking down the air and when the temps hit around 200 I put on the daisy wheel and start choking it down as indicated by the temps. I've never experienced what you describe.

lousubcap · February 2012

Fuel, air and an initial heat source and the BGE is on it's way. Hogaholic is on to something as about the only thing that will cause what you saw is excessive air flow feeding the fire. You mentioned that you left it open til burning clear-could it have been too much ignited lump for the temperature you were looking for? Sorry I don't have much more to offer.

stike · February 2012

i'm thinking your ribs were dry because they came off too early actually. 350 for that short period won't really do anything. 300 is a fine 'low' temp for ribs.

as hogaholic said, don't leave the fire going with the dome open trying to establish a 'good' fire before shutting down. that ignites a lot of lump. when you added cold meat and the cold platesetter, your dome thermometer may have read 240, but the fire was much hotter. all its energy was going into heating the platesetter and meat up. when those got relatively warm, the dome temp rose, showing you what kind of fire you really had.

add the platesetter early on, while the eg is coming to temp. and if you want 250, never set vents for anything more than that. your recovery time will be faster after adding the meat.

MO_Eggin · February 2012

"after 30 mins temp was 240 closed down to my usual slow cook settings and added ribs."

This may have contributed to the problem - need to stabilize the temp first, then add food (not close vents and add food at the same time). GL.

Botch · February 2012

Temp kept rising slowly so I shut down till there was virtually no opening and closed DW till there was only about an 1/8th of an inch gap on the daisy.
Still the Temp kept rising slowly and it was at 350 after 3 hours...

Right here, it sounds like something's wrong. I can shut my bottom damper down to about 1/8" for the low-and-slows, and keep it under 250 (I've given up on controlling temp with the DW, leave it with the main hole closed and the "daisy" holes wide open).

Try cleaning out the grooves in your bottom damper, and check how it seals against the back of the plate. Although doubtful, perhaps your bottom Egg shell is cracked, and letting in air.

Other than that, I'm puzzled about this one.

^#(^ (<==okay, I'm not sure what that smiley is even doing...)

bge30plus · February 2012

Oh No! You have an air leak some where. Check you egg like it was a plane you fixin to fly. Inspect it carefully you'll find a something some where that is letting in air. Your gasket, which by the way I change evey July. Thats most likley the problem or the vents at the bottom sre warpped, Look very close.

Ragtop99 · February 2012

Go out on a dark night and set a couple flashlights in it aimed at gasket, close the lid and look for light leaking through. You could also aim them at the bottom vents too.

stike · February 2012

Aint a gasket issue. Half the clowns on the 'lame' forum have no gasket at all

Little Steven · February 2012

That is so like you. You can not control temps without gaskets. Meh

trevorst · February 2012

The egg was purchased new.
Casket is fine and there is no air leak from it, I had a few wood chips in the fire and smoke only came out of the DW. When I use my Maveick I always get a wiff off smoke where the cable comes out, there was no smoke coming out from around the casket last night.
I had cleaned the ash out yesterday, so it could be ash in the vent causing a problem, will check tomorrow.

gerhardk · February 2012

I vote with the guys that are saying you initially established too large a fire, you may have calmed the flames by shutting the vents but the glowing embers throw off a lot of heat.

Gerhard

XLentEGG · February 2012

I agree with gerhardk. The only time that has happened to me was due to too high a starter fire.

mustgrill · February 2012

Look out I'm back Mustgrill here. Sounds like to me trevorst need a DIGIQ DX2! You will NEVER have that problem? Period!

trevorst · February 2012

So having too high a fire to star is possible.
This brings up an issue, if you close down the fire too early won,t that mean that a lot of the VOC from new lump will not have burned off.

Ragtop99 · February 2012

If I've added a lot of new lump, then I let the egg stabilize and stay at that temp for a little while to give the lump time to warm up and outgas.

lousubcap · February 2012

The key visual (independent of desired temp) is when the initial white smoke is no longer present and the BGE is burning "clear". If using smoke wood, then the test is the smell of the smoke-"smells good, tastes good." Then the BGE is ready to do its thing. Time to achieve the above conditions depends on many variables but the BGE will get there.

First problem with temp control.

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