oscarcooper•13d agoProlific Poster

Vent: That expensive digital smoker controller was a total waste of $180

I bought one of those Wi-Fi enabled smoker controllers last summer thinking it would make my brisket cooks set-and-forget easy. By the time I got it hooked up and the app connected to my phone, I had already lost over an hour of my Saturday. Then the fan kept stalling on long overnight cooks, and my bark turned out mushy twice in a row. I finally just threw it in the garage and went back to using my old manual ball valve setup. That $180 could have bought two whole prime packer briskets from Costco instead. Has anyone else dropped serious cash on a gadget that just made things harder than the old way?

2 comments

2 Comments

cora40013d ago

Is it really that big of a deal or are you just bored with your current setup?

sagea8813d ago

Wait, am I reading this right that you had the fan mounted inside the cook chamber? Most of those controllers are designed with the fan blowing into the firebox from outside, not inside where the meat is. I ran into the same mushy bark problem until I realized I had the fan pointed at the meat instead of the coals. Maybe check the manual again if you still have it, because the fan stall issue might be from drawing in too much humid air from the wrong side of the smoker.