My temp controller died right in the middle of a pork butt smoke

I had a 9 lb pork butt on the WSM last Saturday, set my Flame Boss to hold 250, and went inside to prep sides. Came out 2 hours later and the thing was showing 180 degrees in the pit. Turns out the fan connector got knocked loose somehow, probably when I closed the lid. I had to babysit the vents for the next 6 hours to get it back on track. Anyone else have a wireless controller fail at the worst possible moment?

3 comments

3 Comments

jadew6313d agoTop Commenter

Did you try just closing all the vents for a bit to bring the temp back up? I've had a similar thing happen with my old controller and after I got it stabilized I just ran the smoker manually for the rest of the cook by keeping an eye on the vents every hour. It was a pain but the pork turned out fine in the end.

taylor_young13d ago

Honestly gotta disagree with you here jadew63. Closing vents might help in a pinch but if the controller is already acting up from that knock, your temps are just gonna swing wild the rest of the night. And @nathana48 is dead on about those battery contacts being a hidden issue, especially after a few smokes, so your fix might not even tackle the real problem. Ngl, I'd rather pitch the whole wireless setup than babysit vents every hour for a pork butt.

nathana4813d ago

Right, I read somewhere that these wireless controllers are actually pretty sensitive to interference from the metal in the smoker dome, especially if the antenna doesn't have a clear line of sight. Sounds like yours might have been a simple knock, but I've seen people swear by putting the receiver on a little stand away from the cooker. My buddy had his fail on a brisket once because the battery terminal corroded from all the smoke residue, not from a knock at all. He ended up having to run it on a wired probe for the rest of the night, which kinda defeats the whole point. Might be worth checking your battery contacts next time you set it up, just a thought from what I've heard.