Egg Genius

domcof · January 2019

The wife got me an EggGenious for Christmas.

Ive gone through the WiFi setup, got the unit connected to my phone and everything looks as it should.

My my first cook attempt was with the Christmas turkey. I set the pit temp to 275 lit the charcoal and everything appeared to be going well. Put the turkey on and walked back inside for a few minutes, then I get a warning that the pit temp is high. Sure enough, the pit is at 400 and the fan is blowing wide open! &$(:(@$(;:(@!!!

I pulled the thing off and closed everything down to get my temps back down, got the temp regulated manually and finished my turkey...now charred on the outside!!

Yesterday I tried it again with a rack of venison ribs. Venison tends to be dry so I wanted to do them low and slow so I set the pit temp on the device to 250. Once again the temps appeared to stabilize at the set temp. I watched it closely for a good while and things appeared to be Ok. I turned my back for a few minutes and start getting alarms again!! The pit temps are over 300 and climbing!!

As of right now I am not pleased.

For those of you who own the Egg Geniius, what has been your experience??

Am I not doing something right?

Is my unit defective?

domcof · January 2019

domcof · January 2019

The ribs turned out great, but no thanks to the Egg (not so) Genius!!

pgprescott · January 2019

Do you have the top closed down, almost shut?

milesvdustin · January 2019

Did you put the grate probe in the Turkey?

SmokeyPitt · January 2019

Something definitely sounds wrong. If the alarm went off telling you that the pit temp was high...then the pit probe was reading correctly. It doesn't seem there is much you could do wrong. The only thing I can think of is you could have had the food and pit probe switched. In that case, you would get a high temp alarm on the food and not the pit. Is that a possibility?

They are made by Flameboss and I have heard good things about ther support. I would contact them for assistance. If it does seem to be defective it might be an option to just exchange with your egg dealer and let them handle sending the defective unit back to FB.

Technical & Warranty Support Contact: 800-978-9078
Email: support@flameboss.com

https://www.flameboss.com/contact
Hours: Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 6:00 pm EST

nolaegghead · January 2019

pgprescott said:

Do you have the top closed down, almost shut?

This is the most likely issue.

ewyllins · January 2019

All of the above plus bring the egg up naturally to your desired temp then put the Flameboss on, this way the fan is runnin a 100%.

stlcharcoal · January 2019

What was it showing the pit temp as? I know what you said it was 275F set temp, but what was it indicating was the actual temp?

Dollinger · January 2019

Most likely you have the pit probe clipped to the grate or something with a lot of mass which heats up much slower then the air temp. So the fan stays on trying to bring up the pit temp when in reality it is already up. The simple fix is to get a large binder clip and clip it to the grate. Clip the probe to the ear of the clip. Now the pit probe reads the air temp at the grate instead of the grate temp so as the air temp comes up sooner than the grate temp the fan will slow down much sooner. Once you do this, you will find it works like a champ. It will bring you up to temp and hold it there and when its done drop to your warming temp and hold it there once the grill cools down.

thetrim · January 2019

Doesn't sound so smart after all?

Dollinger · January 2019

well it is very smart and any system would have the same issue. Its nice to be able to light it and be able to walk away and let it do the cook to perfection and be able to monitor it when you run out to get items you forgot.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/x5/3odhua3tsdv9.png

SmokeyPitt · January 2019

I think OP switched the meat and temp probe when plugging into the controller and when he received an alarm it was a high alarm on the meat not the pit. That is the only explanation I can think of that the fan was still running when the pit temp was way over the setpoint. The pit temp was reading 50-60 degrees from inside the turkey.

It looks like the connectors are the same.

Image: https://biggreenegg.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/egg-genius-unboxed-1080.jpg

...either that, or the unit is defective.

I do agree that the top vent wide open could cause the temp to rise above the setpoint, but the fan shouldn't be running.

stlcharcoal · January 2019

Dollinger said:

Most likely you have the pit probe clipped to the grate or something with a lot of mass which heats up much slower then the air temp. So the fan stays on trying to bring up the pit temp when in reality it is already up. The simple fix is to get a large binder clip and clip it to the grate. Clip the probe to the ear of the clip. Now the pit probe reads the air temp at the grate instead of the grate temp so as the air temp comes up sooner than the grate temp the fan will slow down much sooner. Once you do this, you will find it works like a champ. It will bring you up to temp and hold it there and when its done drop to your warming temp and hold it there once the grill cools down.

No, because if the pit temp was reading high, the fan shouldn't be on at all. Doesn't matter if it's clipped straight to the grid or in a clip in between......temp above set = fan off...….temp below set = fan on.

@domcof …post a screen shot of the cook and it's going to be very easy to figure out.

Dollinger · January 2019

Ok I thought he reading was off the gauge. If the reading is off the pit probe and it's above set point and the fan is running wide open it not the clip issue.

The clip issue is real and occurs when the pit temp doesn't come up with the air temp which causes the fan to run wide open which causes an overshoot of the actual temp as read by the gauge.

Then after a while you get a large over shoot of the pit temp too because the heat is in the egg but the fan would stop.

Unless he had a 400 degree set point and got the alarm right saying it was within range the fan would not be running.

The food probe does not give a high alarm. It would give a message saying food done lets eat and then drop pit set point to what ever warming them is set and stop fan until the egg cools down to warming them.

Make sure you do a firmware and app update. There was a bug and you need both at the newest updates.

domcof · January 2019

Ok folks, thanks for all the feedback. Been a few days since I logged on to check for responses.

Obviously now it is after the fact so I cannot assure that I had the temp sensors plugged into the correct input port, but I’m pretty sure they were plugged appropriately.

I did have the pit temp clip attached to the grilling grate....possibly the problem???

The daisy wheel top vent was open with the holes in the wheel only.

i will log on and see if I can capture and post the “cook” graph.

Thanks again

Dollinger · January 2019

You should have the top cap almost closed IME. Even if you have it closed, the fan will mostly likely force enough air out but it runs faster. I can usually light the fire and once it's lit, put the genius on and it brings the temp up to set point and hold it there without me adjusting the dampers as long as you have the damper closed down enough so the fire can't draft on it's own.

domcof · January 2019

Dillinger, you may have hit the problem. It seemed as if it was drawing through the device without the fan. I probably need to close the daisy wheel completely. Also someone else suggested clipping the pit temp probe to the stud on the back of the temp gauge on the lid.

I was was unable to retrieve the graph for the turkey cook, but following is the graph for the rib cook. The lack of fan once the temp is achieved, supports Dillinger’s assessment of too much vent opening.

domcof · January 2019

I may never know why the fan was in run away mode on the turkey cook. I’ll try it again in a few days with the vent completely close.

Lo_Gear · January 2019

I would do nearly closed instead of completely closed. I think it would be a struggle on the fan if it was completely closed. I find leaving just the smallest gap works well for me in maintaining temp with my flame boss. I also try to bump up to my target temp, if I want 225 I’ll set my initial out temp to 210, then adjust in case it leaps too high. Just play around with it, make sure your probes are reading accurately and make sure your fan is cutting off when it reaches target temp. If all these things line up then it’s possible you could have a air leak somewhere.

HeavyG · January 2019

domcof said:

I may never know why the fan was in run away mode on the turkey cook. I’ll try it again in a few days with the vent completely close.

I wouldn't wait until you are actually doing another cook. I'd go ahead and fire up your Egg and set it up for indirect and just plugin the pit probe and set it in the middle of your grate and let it run. Set the FlameBoss to keep whatever temp you might ordinarily run and let it rip. Keep an eye on the graph and see what is going on. If it isn't holding a steady temp then at least you aren't wasting some meat.

I believe the FlameBoss folks do suggest that the top vent be mostly closed that way the fan is what is doing the work of feeding air into the Egg rather than a natural draft that might occur if the top vent is open too much.

If it isn't able to keep a steady temp then you could have a bad probe or bad connector on the FlameBoss control box. Or maybe your Egg is leaky enough that maybe the top vent does need to be completely closed. A dry run will help you figure that out.

Thapco · January 2019

Keeping the top vent nearly closed is important and is clearly mentioned in instructions along with a good picture diagram. Did you read the instructions?

flexfusion · January 2019

Get a SNOBOT and move on......they work!

Dollinger · January 2019

The Genius works well too and is simple to operate.

I have clipped my pit probe to the back of the gauge but I find the probe actually has enough mass it puts lag in the pit probe reading. The large binder clip with probe clipped to ear works good too. You can close the top all the way and it will still work but the fan will force air out wherever it can such as around the probe wire comes through the gasket. But opening the vent a little will give the air a place to come out without it being forced out through the gasket. The large spike in pit temp looks suspicious. Did you also see a spike on the gauge? This looks like it could be a probe problem of the probe got near the fire. The fan is not on most of the time because the pit probe (the process variable) is above set point so the control output is zero. The fact that the temperature stayed up in mostly a steady state condition above set point indicates the egg is being controlled by draft instead fan. Crack the vent slightly and watch the pit temperature and fan. When the fan is cycling on and off and the temp is hovering around set point, you have found the spot where the fan is controlling.

stlcharcoal · January 2019

domcof said:

Dillinger, you may have hit the problem. It seemed as if it was drawing through the device without the fan. I probably need to close the daisy wheel completely. Also someone else suggested clipping the pit temp probe to the stud on the back of the temp gauge on the lid.

I was was unable to retrieve the graph for the turkey cook, but following is the graph for the rib cook. The lack of fan once the temp is achieved, supports Dillinger’s assessment of too much vent opening.

This doesn't show the fan running after it passed 275F. The green line is the fan. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but the unit doesn't think it was running the fan. Everything up until it passing 275F looks normal, it overshot, then the fan comes back on when the pit temp drops to 150F (red line).

BTW.....don't clip the temp probe to the BGE dome temp (other than to calibrate the two). You don't care about dome temp, you care about grid temp. That's what the meat feels. The dome temp is the temp above the meat after evaporation lowers it.

Dollinger · January 2019

Ok this is basic process control. When the process variable ( red pit temp) closes on the set point ( black 275 degrees), the manipulated variable (green the output to the fan) is reduced to zero as it nears set point. When the temp drops the fan ramps back up. In the graph, the fan does not start back up because the natural draft is holding the temp so once the fan hits zero it can do no more to bring it down.

I agree with clipping the probe at the meat. I did it for comparison. I also did my first run with the egg without cooking to figure all of this out.

The sudden dips in the red line are from opening the egg.

I suggest you also wrap the wires in flat foil sheets to heat shield the wires.

stlcharcoal · January 2019

The original post said that the temp was at 400 and the fan was blowing wide open........this graph does not indicate that.

Again, not saying it didn't happen, but the unit doesn't think it's doing it.

littlerascal56 · January 2019

I agree with @stlcharcoal...regarding fan operation. The fan usually speeds up on a temp drop, and dies off when it hits the set point, per one of my cooks below.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/bi/hs186b9z8t6n.png

Dollinger · January 2019

littlerascal56 said:

I agree with @stlcharcoal...regarding fan operation. The fan usually speeds up on a temp drop, and dies off when it hits the set point, per one of my cooks below.

Yes that's how an reverse acting PID controller works.

I find it interesting that when the lid is opened on your cook, the fan output increases.

On the egg genius, it interprets the rapid drop as the lid open and stops the fan so it does not over draft the flame. After the lid closes and the temp comes back up, it sees this and allows the automatic control to continue. However, in the graph above, the controller ramps up as it interprets the drop in temperature as an actual drop in flame heat so it speeds up the fan to try to bring it up which it won't with the lid open.

littlerascal56 · January 2019

That graph is kind of deceiving (9 to 5) as it’s a 8 hour snapshot. In reality, every time I opened the egg the fan stopped and went on a 2 minute delay, then ramped back up to get back to temp!

tbru · January 2019

I was using my Egg Genius to do ribs here in MN yesterday with outside temp at approx. 9 degrees F. It worked wonderfully for 4.5 hours, then the fan stopped working. I noticed condensation and icicles on the unit...could the fan have frozen stuck? It made the egg temp drop and I had to pull it out to finish the cook. Should I take it back for malfunction?

Egg Genius

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