FB 200 Help

armyguy13 · December 2015

Long time lurker, first time posting. I've had my egg since August and have done a lot of successful cooks. I bought the flame boss 200 a couple months ago and have used it well, and the last cook were some amazing ribs at constant 250 temp.

I wanted to do a 9lb bone-in pork shoulder today. Started at 7:30 a.m. wanted to set the pit temp at 225 and let her go. Problem is, the temp. has been up and down like a roller coaster. Started coming up to temp, add the meat/platesetter etc. She stayed around 225 for about an hour them climbed.

Daisy wheel is closed, foil blanket over the fan to keep wind out. No matter what though it blows past 225 and right now I took the fan out and closed the lower vent to almost 1/16" to keep the air flow regulated. Chillin' around 275 and climbing.

Any help would be appreciated, I want to bring the temp back down to lengthen the cook.

Photo Egg · December 2015

First, I think 225 is a little low for a target. If I was trying to hit 225 I would try and go 200 first with platesetter and butt and let it go for an hour. Adding the cold butt and platesetter will trick the controller and it will over stoke the fire to compensate. Once you over shoot such a low target temp its hard to get it back. If you are cooking on a fairly new egg, low temps are even harder IMO until some of the little air gaps gunk up.
Using no controller, you would stabilize egg temp, add your butt and NOT make adjustments as temp drops initially. Temps will climb as platesetter and butt warm up.

stlcharcoal · December 2015

Where is the temp probe?

Remember, you're only maintain the temp in that one square inch around the probe. If it's in "direct view" of the fire, it's near the meat, above the drop pan, etc you're going to get a false reading, thus the fan will be running at the wrong times. Make sure it's above a plate setter leg, and at least an inch or two from the meat, ceramic, and drip pan. Then ignore the dome temp gauge.

Only other thing it could be is a leaky gasket. When you fire it up and it starts to smoke, do you see any single spot that spews smoke when the fan kicks on?? It should "leak" out of every hole int he egg and a constant rate (dome mating surface, daisy wheel, lower draft door, temp probe hole. If you see some tea kettle action out the side, that is the path of least resistance and needs to be fixed.

armyguy13 · February 2016

Reviving this one last time. This past Sunday was the first time I've used the FB 200 since this last cook. Did some baby backs. Not the first time I've done baby backs and each time they've turned out well.

However, same thing happened again. I went for a 225 low and slow but ended up with temps in the 250-260 range. I know that for smoking 250 is still a good temp so I'm not complaining about the end result.

The only places I saw smoke coming out of when the egg was all sealed up was the lower draft door and the daisy wheel. Now, I don't have a gasket around the top for a good seal around the daisy wheel. My egg didn't come with one. Now I'm just determined to somehow...one day...get this thing to sit at 225 for hours on end.

Photo Egg · February 2016

You might have a poor fitting lower vent and it's just letting in to much air no matter how far you close it. I find my older grills have a better seal because over time the lower vent gets gunked up a little and seals better.
Other issue just might be an over stoked fire from the start and it physically can not come down in temp because of the airflow.
For a real low temp, you truly must start with a small amount of lit lump and bring the temps up very slow. Bringing up a "cold" Egg and platesetter takes some heat and once it's reached the fire will be to hot to maintain 225 if your temps are not brought up very slow.

littlerascal56 · February 2016

I run a gasket around the top daisy wheel. Might try that.

Jeepster47 · February 2016

What was your cook number from last Sunday? Looks like there were about 130 folks cooking on FB200's on that day.

stlcharcoal · February 2016

The only other thing....

How are you lighting it?? If you light from the bottom or have a good distribution of the fire, this can happen (it's happened to me.) It moves up and spreads since it can pull air through the fan.

If you light from the top and just in the center, the fire doesn't really have anywhere to go. Try a torch or a starter cubs and see if this happens again.

Can you post the graph?? This first one the unit appears to be working--fan shuts off completely when it gets a little over the target temp. Otherwise it's stoking like it's programed to do.

armyguy13 · February 2016

Cook number 13145. I'll have to post the graph later, work computer wont bring it up.

When I light I use these first starter sticks that I also use for my fireplace. When the flame extinguishes off of them, that's when I seal and bring it up to temp. I'll place one in the middle of the lump and light. I've been placing the FB 200 recently on right away and have it come up to temp as it stokes.

I can tell ya that they fan wasn't running as the temp rose which of course then does say that air has to be coming in from somewhere. I do wonder if my lower vent needs to be shored up a little.

Jeepster47 · February 2016

Here's your Sunday cook:

Notice that the fan stopped running after 2:30pm ... the x-axis time is plotted in my time zone. Ignore the two blips at about 5:05pm ... that's associated with the lid open shut off feature. If the fan doesn't run, then the FlameBoss is simply waiting for the temp to fall below your target pit temp. The FlameBoss can't make the temp come down ... that's your responsibility. You have too much natural airflow through the egg to hold the temp at 225*. Look for places to reduce the natural airflow:

- Gasket on the daisy wheel
- Check to see if the daisy wheel will close tight ... no casting bumps
- Dollar bill test on the felt line to see if it's tight or leaking ... add a temp probe wire to see if your seal will absorb the wire
- Recheck the lower adapter installation ... maybe share a picture of it installed so we can see if something is catawampus
- If the door is loose, you can delicately bend the guide rails to tighten up the clearances
- Use bamboo skewers to help tighten up the bottom vent even more. See pic:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/a9/71rtevt7dv8z.jpg

- Use some high temp duct tape to block off a part of the fan adapter outlet

Cheers ...

armyguy13 · February 2016

Thanks for all that. I was thinking of doing the bamboo skewers idea next time to give it more of a seal. High temp duct tape would be nice too.

I appreciate the advice!

g37 · February 2016

I've got the same problem. I was able to keep 225 for hours, when i first got my flame boss. My last 2 cooks i tried to keep it at 225 but it spike to 275. My egg leaks bad so im gonna fix the leak and try again. I also sent flame boss an email they sent me a new probe. After my leak is fixed im gonna try the old probe. If it fails I'll start using my new probe.

Photo Egg · February 2016

If you put the FB on right away, after your starter stick go out, set your initial pit temp to 200 and let is sit for a bit, then slowly bring it up to 225. Still think your fire is actually to hot as it is warming up the Egg, then struggles to come back down. The larger fire will draft/pull more air and make it hard to bring back down.

stlcharcoal · February 2016

Take a look to see if the fan is running......

In both of these instances, it's not the FB, it's the Egg. This has been probably happening for years, but no one ever noticed because it was dome temp rather than grate temp.

Get the Egg sealed up and control your start up better. Both of these overshot the target temp on startup--step the temp up slowly to control the fire. stabilize at 180 for 15-20 minutes, then go to 200 for 15-20 min, then take it to 225. If you overshoot, it's a bear to get it back down because after a few hours the egg becomes even more efficient since the meat isn't soaking up as much heat.

Photo Egg · February 2016

stlcharcoal said:

Take a look to see if the fan is running......

In both of these instances, it's not the FB, it's the Egg. This has been probably happening for years, but no one ever noticed because it was dome temp rather than grate temp.

Get the Egg sealed up and control your start up better. Both of these overshot the target temp on startup--step the temp up slowly to control the fire. stabilize at 180 for 15-20 minutes, then go to 200 for 15-20 min, then take it to 225. If you overshoot, it's a bear to get it back down because after a few hours the egg becomes even more efficient since the meat isn't soaking up as much heat.

True that it is not the FB fan powering on causing the issues but extra air leaking around the installation bracket and freely passing through the fan might be compounding the other small leaks in the Egg. Nothing on the Egg is 100% air tight and all the little stuff adds up.
I think your step up method for the temp will make a big difference.

armyguy13 · February 2016

Thanks again all. I'll try to tweak a few things for next time. Understand that its no 100% airtight and like I've said, food has turned out great each time. Now I'm just stubborn and want to prove that I can get it done.

Eggscuses · February 2016

On the bbq guru fan there is a throttle, On mine I noticed the temp would climb when that was open full. Does FB have a throttle? Possible extra air coming in from there.

Jeepster47 · February 2016

@armyguy13 ... you are so close!

Yea, you had an overshoot, but some of that might be that the FB is still ignorant of your egg. It takes a few excursions back and forth across the target pit temp setting for the FB to "learn" your egg. Once you placed the ribs in the egg the pit temp came up to target nicely and then hung there for almost an hour ... probably the cold meat and still cool egg contributed to absorbing extra heat and kept the pit temp close to target. Once everything stabilized, after an hour or so, then the temp started going up very gradually ... not unlike what sometimes happens when manually controlling the temps. The fact that it didn't spike says it's close to the right airflow restrictions.

Some folks (Jonathan's in that group) like to set their controller such that the fan runs very little. The advantage of doing that is that if electrical power goes out, then the lump will stay lit longer ... maybe even finish the cook if you're lucky. The disadvantage is that if a flareup occurs, there is minimal restriction to bring the temps back in line. I favor choking off the natural air flow enough to make the fan run 20~30% of the time. If electricity goes off, I'm toast 'cuz the fire will go out. But, when a flareup occurs, there is enough restriction to bring the pit temp down to target quickly.

If, like Jonathan, you run with enough natural airflow to maintain target with a little help from the fan, then you might want to follow his lead and approach target temp in steps. If you've got a good throttle on natural airflow, and you know your final airflow settings, then I've had good luck with cold starts and minimal (couple of degree) overshoot.

Neither method is perfect, just two different approaches to solving the same problem. Try try both approaches and settle on the one you like.

Photo Egg · February 2016

Eggscuses said:

On the bbq guru fan there is a throttle, On mine I noticed the temp would climb when that was open full. Does FB have a throttle? Possible extra air coming in from there.

No, not a way to restrict draft on fan with FB, only negative point of the FB.
Great, easy to use product.

blind99 · February 2016

the FB can certainly hold low temps. For this cook, I fully loaded the egg with charcoal, and used one rutland fire starter square. When the square was really burning, I added the platesetter and grid and started the FB, set for 200. You can see it overshot a little in the beginning but then held 200 for a few hours before I was ready to cook. The little bounces are because the PID algorithm isn't tuned quite right, but it's not a problem.

Daisy wheel is cracked a little, and my old felt gasket is a little leaky. Outside temp was around 30.

I agree with above comments - it's just a matter of too much airflow through your egg.

Ozzie_Isaac · February 2016

Here is a cook that ran at 210 for 8 hours. It was actually to low and I had to bump it to finish my brisket. I was mostly seeing if I could. This is an XL cook.

Darby_Crenshaw · February 2016

i would get a powered draft controller, they never have any problems.

oh. wait. nevermind.

Jeepster47 · February 2016

@Photo Egg ... On my Guru, 1/4 to 3/8 closed was perfect for the nested egg. Once that was proven, I never changed the vent setting. The same approach should work with the FB via high temp duct tape ... find what works and you're golden.

Or, how about this approach ... took all of four minutes, so be kind to me. Cut and folded a piece of thin aluminum flashing (beer can would work) to this shape:

Then slid it over the flange on top of the Flame Boss adapter:

And finally, assembled in the plate ... obviously an inside view of my rather dirty adapter plate:

Since the blower adapter comes off easily while every thing is hooked up, you could trim until you've gone too far ... have a spare ready to install. Or, simply make the tab longer and bend it out until you get the correct setting.

PS ... last summer the lack of draft adjuster, like the Guru has, bothered me, so I e-mailed Michael and asked him if it could be throttled down. His answer was yes ...

Photo Egg · February 2016

Awesome...

SmokingPiney · February 2016

My XL is not comfortable with cooks below 250..........it just does not like to hold it. With my FB and a low and slow, I can hold 250 (close enough for my cooks) with no problem. I did this in last week's blizzard.........40+ mph winds and 2 feet of snow.

I let the fire get a good start, loaded the hardware, and let it come up to to temp with FB. The temp never waivered more than 2 degrees for the entire cook.

FB 200 Help

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