ThreeDJ16

That is what I was thinking of that Dennis makes. Like it better than my homemade deal, but these were made afterwards.

Found a pic of it as the one's on the forum are so old that they're missing now.

That's one reason I don't use the main grill for high temp cooks where I want to sear/char the meat. No idea if anyone makes one or not, but many years ago, I came up with the idea of a veggee grill. It's sorta like a 1/4 main grill so you have access to the sear grill. It worked fantastic. Dennis may make one of those now, I've been out of the loop so long, so I don't know. But I would sear my veggees and meat, then put the veggees up on the small grill. I'm sure there's a pic around here in some of the really, really old posts.

LOL...............

Those remind me of bratkartoffeln - German fried potatoes.....Mmmmmm. Now I want some German food. ARGH!

Jeez I hate coming to this thread, as it makes me hungry and jealous....LOL. Sure hope the summer permits me to get back using my KK again. Crappy weather has knocked ME (not the KK) out of commission for a long while. Been dying for some smoked ribs. Been working from home for several weeks and would have been the perfect time for all sorts of great KK meals.....sigh.

LOL...that's funny.

Really depends on the material you use. Sounds like in the example above, the person used PLA, which is highly unstable with temperature and also has the lowest print temperature. ABS would be next, but it doesn't like outdoor environments so much and has the next lowest print temperature. PETG, polycarbonate and possibly nylon would be a different story. But the average person will have a hard time using some of them due to the 300 degree C print temps of some brands. PETG can be printed around 260 C, but again brands differ along with printers. I've seen people print some of these materials at lower temps, but they usually do better at the higher temps. I'd definitely try it first, worst case it's going to deform and you finish the cook manually. But if you are using it for a typical low and slow, the normal temps of 225-250 are far below the melting points of better 3D printed material. Anything but PLA should work OK, PETG would be much better. Not that this adapter needs to be food grade, but PETG is considered safe for use with foods. Another solution would be to just use a Guru fan. Even if the device is not 12v, it's a pretty simple matter to use a relay at whatever voltage the device you are using outputs, then the relay just switches a 12v wall plug for the Guru fan. Long, long ago, before the Guru series had an open lid detect feature built into the firmware, I made an electronic version for my ProCom4. It was simply a tilt switch and a timer that switched a relay for the Guru fan. I could adjust the timer, so was able to dial it in pretty good so I wouldn't have temp flare ups opening the lid. Anyway, guess my point is when there's a will there's a way.

It was 84 degrees on Halloween, nasty thunderstorms and a couple of tornadoes in the area (thankfully none got too close for us). But a massive cold front came in behind it and we had 38 degree by the next morning. LOL...I'll still take that over all that white stuff (whatever it is....HAHA).

OMG, why did I come to the topic when I'm hungry. Jeez this stuff looks so good. Haven't had time to do any pic worthy cooking lately....sigh....so many other projects going on. But seeing all these pics are making me want to get to cooking instead of taking the lazy way out and ordering in...HAHA.

So whatever happened to Doug (Naked Whiz)? He totally dropped off the radar? I think it's great that you picked up where he left off.....Mr. Naked Reef or Reef Whiz....LOL. Actually those both sound pretty bad, guess we better stick to ckreef....LOL. Been burning up my old boxes of early KK CEL and it still looks and cooks great. I do prefer to add in some lump to help it spread better. But it's been so long since buying any charcoal, add to use what was on hand. LOL..need to get off my butt and go get some more.

Nothing fancy, just a nice rack of St. Louis cut ribs. Cooked direct for a deep bark. Was sad though, no fresh baguette to go with the meal, but somehow we struggled through.

Holding within 1 degree of 225 nicely. And nope, still haven't broke out the weedeater...LOL. FYI, it's not missing an led segment, it strobes the numbers. Took me several shots just to get that many segments to show up...LOL.

Ok, I dug out the boxes with my DigiQ and CyberQ again and only found a 10 CFM fan and looked at my Procom box and it only has a 10 CFM fan. So went back and found the article and now it rings a bell as to why I stated earlier that you don't need more than 10-12 CFM for at least the 23" KK. Thought I had 12 CFM, but not like my memory is very good, lol, so I have two 10 CFM fans. I'm currently finding that depending on how you are cooking, 1/2 damper closed or more after it gets close to setpoint works even tighter. Sure more higher CFM will work if you have a damper door, but my luck I'd forget....LOL. I'll never own another type grill, so just see no need for higher flow and to me it's more of a PITA to pull out and setup to blow on a high temp grill when I'm already using a torch. Also, smoking ribs tonight using the DigiQ and it's working like a champ. Bench tested the CyberQ, same deal. They've has been put away in a box for quite a long while, as even before all my back issues, my Procom was always the favorite. So actually being used for over a decade, I can only attest to the Procom's quality (even with a several year hiatus), it still got used a ton. The other two are freakn brand new in the box basically, as I kept them packaged in the cloth bag and bubble wrap, only used one set of temp probes between them. Doubt they will ever really see much action long as my Procom is alive...LOL. Honestly the CyberQ might as well be a stand alone like the DigiQ, with the exception of dual pits and probes, it has no real "internet" capabilities as you have to connect it via USB to a computer to use it that way. The new CyberQ looks like they wised up and figured out having Wifi and a webserver, which Stocker had way back then. I think he used RTD probes if I'm not mistaken. If it wasn't for his box being huge, I think he probably had one of the best Que controllers on the market and I've still yet to see one better. It had the ability for tons of probes and someone developed a cell phone app for the built in webserver. I think he release a second version that was much better, as the first required an end point connection for wifi or ethernet cable. Shame he quit making them

That makes sense as silicone is only rated to 500 degrees max. So that would explain the difference.

Is one towards the inside or something? As otherwise, I don't see how it would damage a gasket on the bottom lip. Mine is towards the outside slope and really no way having the lid open can damage this gasket. Of course, I guess it may depend on the materials used now too. Whereas I have a ceramic fiber type gasket, which is made for high temps.

Good point, as neither of my grills have a gasket on the lid itself, only the bottom lip (which doesn't matter about the lid being open). Didn't know there were upper and lower gaskets now.

If you think about it, the KK with the top and bottom vents wide open is basically like a chimney starter. Of course that being said, I still just open the lid, hit it with a torch, grill, shut it all down and walk away. I don't even mess with the tophat, just open the bottom door. But I guess that depends on what type of cook you are doing. If you aren't sear cooking, and maybe doing a pizza, you want the dome to heat up. So in that case, I'd open the bottom and the top and leave the lid closed. So many methods of cooking with these things and so many great options.

Mine is obviously an older model, but all three units are still functioning when I plugged them in back in July. I can try out my DigiQ this weekend on my ribs instead of the Procom to ensure full functionality. Might even play with the old CyberQ and see if they have new firmware to increase it's features too. Interesting, so maybe one of my fans is 25cfm and the other is 10cfm. Knew I had two different models, but couldn't remember the flows of them (as i thought they were 6 and 12 cfm...oh well, probably explains why i choke it back so much if I'm using the 25cfm one). The mind is a terrible thing...LOL.

Isn't the connection at the controller a female micro USB? If so, the connector I linked above would work (provided we match it to the right barrel connector). I can get a measurement on the Guru barrel plug if you are seriously interested. As for the Fireboard fan, all I see on their website are square box fan and unless I'm missing something, no round adapter to plug into the KK. One thing I'm not fond of is that they are using a thermistor for their temp measurements. Thermocouples are usually more accurate, more linear and cover a wider temp range. Most industrial devices use Thermocouple or RTDs where consumer level products use thermistors. BBQ Guru controllers use thermocouples and they can also be calibrated to ensure accuracy. Read over the review link, and technically the Stoker (while no longer manufactured) was the first to offer cloud / web server technology. Also, all of the Guru devices I've used, you can adjust the proportional parameters of the PID control. FYI, having a fan damper door is basically having control over the damping force. But I can keep my Procom 4 within 1 degree provided I don't open it (not that this kind of accuracy is even needed, but it will maintain). Naturally you will set it off balance opening, but their lid open feature detects the inrush of cool air and shuts down the fan for a set time before starting the PID back up. My ProCom 4 is what I did the 85 hr test at 225 degrees with Dennis' CEL charcoal. The Smartfire looks like a bad idea, plastic and all in one case and zero weather protection with a lot of open holes. Doesn't look like it would be easy to protect either. I've been out of the controller market for many years, so no idea of everything that is currently available, nor have any new equipment to compare it too. But I've been in the industrial electrical and instrument world for 30 plus years. So a lot of what I am seeing (just a quick google search) seems to be overpriced crap to me, and maybe toss in a few fancy features to hook people. But I'm more concerned with the equipments ability to do it's basic function, which is control my KK accurately and last the test of time. All of my Guru devices are all over 10 years old now, but I used the Procom4 on July 4th (working perfectly) and about to use it this weekend for ribs. That was after sitting up in a box for 5 or so years...LOL. I plugged in the others and they seem to be fine also. Forgot to mention that I don't see any need for a high CFM fan for a smoker controller. Usually my 12 CFM fan damper is choked half way. The higher the airflow into your smoker, the more chance of overshoot. PWM would be ideal with a door flap that prevents natural convection from pulling in air (Stoker had a small door flap which worked pretty well). But simply pulsing a 6-12 CFM fan works pretty well if it has a built in damper (since this adjusts the air flow rate which should be determined by the size of your smoker). A high CFM rate may bring it up to temp faster, but more chance of overshoot. Get a hair dryer if you want to start it faster or for high temps...LOL. To be honest, for the prices of some of these controller packages, you could buy an actual industrial controller....LOL.

I'm sure you can find the right connector, if not, still easy to make one. Would be simple to swap and use the Guru fan with it. And I agree about being questionable. I read through their Q&A section where people had some valid points...LOL...their answers were we are working on improvements. It doesn't even have lid open detection, which is simple. I built it into my ProCom before there was a firmware update to add it in later. It's a great thing to have, especially if you need more than 10 seconds to open the lid and do something...LOL. In my opinion, BBQ Guru is still the best on the market. They were the first (and only for years) along with Stoker. But BBQ Guru's parent company is ThermoOmegaTech who makes industrial temp control equipment. So they know what they're doing and have been doing it for a long time. It just took them a bit to get the newer tech features, like actual wifi connectability (original had no endpoint built in), web server and cell phone apps working right. They used to send me all their new equipment to test out and review as I admined their forum back in the day. But their forum petered out after Fred, the owner, died. So haven't tried any of their newer stuff.

LOL...there is no way that Thermoworks fan is 46 CFM. The largest Guru fan, if my memory serves, is 12 CFM. These little 12v fans just don't move that much air. Anyway, here is the fan I was talking about. https://www.bbqguru.com/storenav?CategoryId=2&ProductId=54 You could easily make a jack adapter to go from the guru's plug (can't remember off the top of my head, but it was like a 2-3ish mm two pole barrel jack) to the USB type the Thermoworks fan connector accepts. Or get lucky and find one already made like this one.

I have no trouble getting crispy skin on my chicken at 275 using the pit cook type method I described above. It doesn't allow a lot of moist air in, so dries the outside nicely. I even spritz it with vinegar during the cook. It also has a salt based rub on it. But also, this is a long cook (2-2.5 hrs) for chicken and the breast can end up being dry. So I prefer the leg quarters and making chicken salad from the breast.

Crap, forgot to turn on notifications....argh. Is that a default somewhere in settings to always notify of replies? Man, I'm way behind the times on forums it's been so long...LOL. Aha...found it in the profile settings. As I always forget to request reply notifications.

Curious about this topic. So the BBQ guru fans are just 12v fans. Why couldn't you just buy one of the guru fans and find a matching connector to solder in place and use on the device you have? I'm betting most of these controllers operate off 12v since that's the most common voltage for these little fans. I have a the Guru ProCom 4, a DigiQ 2 and the original CyberQ (which was a really poor attempt). Also a friend loaned me a Stoker for a while which was really nice, but bulky. The Procom is by far my favorite (unfortunately no longer made), but was intrigued by the newer units which offer cell phone apps and trending on the computer via wifi. Oh yeah, I also have one homemade controller made from an arduino. It was a Github project someone started. They switched to using an old router later as a BBQ controller, since most routers are pretty powerful processors and a lot run Linux. Some pretty cool projects out there if you're into DIY. Of course some pretty cool devices out there premade too.