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I just hire a new employee

Sounds like just more learning curve, and needing to keep the plugs in. Probably would have been fine minus the plug issue. Thanks for the rolling reports
 
Just want to add that after cooking with the unit another month everything is getting better with each cooking. I have found that by starting the cook at 175* for about 2 hours and then bumping the temp to 225* it really helps get more smoke. A little spritzing goes a long way as well. I'm happy where it's at but I still want to find a way to get a little more smoke for some occasions but it's close. I was told by CookShack they would be sending me an updated processor with the inaccurate food probe temps but I have yet to see it and it has been over a month so I will call them this week. I bought the cover for for like $175 and it was well worth it.
 
It is good to see that you are having good results with your FEC 120. Like you, I was also a bit gun shy about my poopers(Pro Smoker). My first issue was the outlet I used was a GFI and one unit would trip it when the element was getting it started. I just had to do change where they were plugged in to fix that.

I too noticed that the humidity is probably what seemed to cause my chicken's skin to be a bit tough. The next time I made chicken, I used olive oil before putting on the rub and they were perfect.

The rest of my cooks have yielded some of the best Q I ever cooked(even on my stick burners) and I do get to sleep like a baby at night with my GURU digiQ wifi. I have yet to have an issue, but i can't take the chance of a flame out with a couple hundred pounds of meat in the smoker.

I only added to this thread to help others in case they were thinking of going to a pellet setup. I know I don't have an FEC, but the units are very similar so my info could maybe help someone.
 
bjbbq that is something I don't like is that if the power goes out for 15 seconds the system will default and stop cooking and you won't know it. I plan to hook my Marverick ET732 to the FEC and route the probe so that it will send me a signal if there is a low temp issue for any reason in the middle of the night.
 
HBMTN said:
I know of one that cooks pork loin in an oven, does not even have a smoker on the premises, chops it to almost hamburger with a buffalo chopper and people go crazy over it.
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That's an abomination! I don't even know if you should speak of this, it's the Voldemort of BBQ!
 
toadhunter911 said:
As long as the guys not calling it BBQ pulled pork, fine. But it is puzzling what some folks consider good BBQ. :doh:
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They do and they have been in business for over 30 years. I do believe when the founder ran it that they served real deal BBQ but now with children running it they don't but people still like it. Go figure.
 
HBMTN said:
They do and they have been in business for over 30 years. I do believe when the founder ran it that they served real deal BBQ but now with children running it they don't but people still like it. Go figure.
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I always have someone at events telling me about the great BBQ pork they or their Uncle Bob makes in the crock pot. Than they taste what I brought...:loco:



:jaw:
 
Know Bull said:
Cookshack now makes a piece to hold the extra wood chunk for additional smoke in a FEC100. Simple bolt on, no drilling or cutting required. When I got mine a few months ago, it was so new that it did not even have a part number yet. Call sales or customer service.
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I have an Fec100 but had no idea Cookshack offers this. Very interesting! Do you just attach with the bolts on the fire pot?
 
iceblue, they now have an official line item for the piece you're talking about, it's called a "log burner" and attaches to the fire pot, dave is throwing them in with almost every new order free of charge.
 
Thanks for the great post and keeping it updated with your experiences. I learned quite a few tips that i hope to pass on to a friend of mine who has recently got a 120. Thanks again and Best of Luck and continued success with your catering business.
 
So it's been 2 two months and I'm still waiting for the updated processor to fix the inaccurate meat probe issues which kinda sucks because my season it getting ready to take off and I was planning to depend on the meat probe to drop the temps to a hot hold while I was still sleeping so for now at least my $5000 purchase to get sleep is still going to have me up probing meat temps in the early am. They tell me it issue is still in the hands of the software provider.

I catered my first wedding with this cooker this past Saturday and everything went well. I have pork and chicken that I am very pleased with however I will say for now that my stick burner will for some reason cook brisket way better than the quality I am getting off the FEC. I hope to keep tweaking and figure that our but for now there is a huge difference.
 
So I figure another update was in order. As you can see maybe from my post time I am up at 5:30am as I was also at 4am and 5am. Why am I up? Because I have a time line that puts some butts needing to be done this morning between 4-7am and one of the big selling points for me on the FEC was the meat probe that could shut the unit down to hot hold when the butts reach the temps that I want. As of this posting date I am still waiting on a new processor from CookShack to fix the inaccurate meat probe issues that they have with this unit. It's been 3 1/2 months and when I called them the other day they said that they were still working on it and did not have a release date as of now. All I could read about CookShack when II researched buying this unit was how fast and efficient the made repairs/shipped parts and things of that nature. I bought this unit 100% so I could get sleep and here I am up just as much as with my Lang and I am not getting the sleep I spent $5k for. Can ya tell I'm a little P!$$ed?

On a side note I have noticed that 7.5-8lb butts take anywhere from 14-16 hours to reach 195* in this unit at 225 degrees. When I inquired about this to CookShack thinking that maybe the food chamber probe accuracy was a little off as well I was a little shocked when they told me that it is standard for them to see 14-16 hours cook time on a 7.5lb butt. When I questioned them about it as to why they proceeded to tell me about the plateau effect of meats yada yada yada. I told them I am not a newbie but every other cooker I have will cook a 7.5lb butt to 195* in 12 hours at 225 every time. While I have not taken the time to check with accuracy with another probe which I will do it sometime, I was just shocked when they said it was normal. I see this time period whether I have 2 butts on it or 10. I will just bump temps up some to find a 12 hour cook time.

Another side not is that if you stay awake at night and don't mind cooking longer hours the FEC120 will cook excellent pork, chicken and ribs. As for brisket it's good but nowhere near what a stick burner will do and I still have not figured out why it does so well on the other meats but not so much on brisket. It's not bad, just not near as good.

When I bought the unit all info said it burns 0.5lb of pellets per hour at 250 degrees. CookShack and since updated their info to say 1.5lbs of pellet per hour at 250 degrees. Seems they were off by 66% on their pellet amounts. I am seeing around 1lb per hour at 225 degrees. I have been recently using the BBQ Delight Pellets and they are way better than others I have tried. All in all my happiness with this unit rests 95% on CookShack getting the issues fixed with the meat probe. SO if you're in the market for one of these units I'd ask them if it has been corrected before I bought one. I'll post here as soon as I have it corrected as well.
 
HBMTN said:
So I figure another update was in order. As you can see maybe from my post time I am up at 5:30am as I was also at 4am and 5am. Why am I up? Because I have a time line that puts some butts needing to be done this morning between 4-7am and one of the big selling points for me on the FEC was the meat probe that could shut the unit down to hot hold when the butts reach the temps that I want. As of this posting date I am still waiting on a new processor from CookShack to fix the inaccurate meat probe issues that they have with this unit. It's been 3 1/2 months and when I called them the other day they said that they were still working on it and did not have a release date as of now. All I could read about CookShack when II researched buying this unit was how fast and efficient the made repairs/shipped parts and things of that nature. I bought this unit 100% so I could get sleep and here I am up just as much as with my Lang and I am not getting the sleep I spent $5k for. Can ya tell I'm a little P!$$ed?

On a side note I have noticed that 7.5-8lb butts take anywhere from 14-16 hours to reach 195* in this unit at 225 degrees. When I inquired about this to CookShack thinking that maybe the food chamber probe accuracy was a little off as well I was a little shocked when they told me that it is standard for them to see 14-16 hours cook time on a 7.5lb butt. When I questioned them about it as to why they proceeded to tell me about the plateau effect of meats yada yada yada. I told them I am not a newbie but every other cooker I have will cook a 7.5lb butt to 195* in 12 hours at 225 every time. While I have not taken the time to check with accuracy with another probe which I will do it sometime, I was just shocked when they said it was normal. I see this time period whether I have 2 butts on it or 10. I will just bump temps up some to find a 12 hour cook time.

Another side not is that if you stay awake at night and don't mind cooking longer hours the FEC120 will cook excellent pork, chicken and ribs. As for brisket it's good but nowhere near what a stick burner will do and I still have not figured out why it does so well on the other meats but not so much on brisket. It's not bad, just not near as good.

When I bought the unit all info said it burns 0.5lb of pellets per hour at 250 degrees. CookShack and since updated their info to say 1.5lbs of pellet per hour at 250 degrees. Seems they were off by 66% on their pellet amounts. I am seeing around 1lb per hour at 225 degrees. I have been recently using the BBQ Delight Pellets and they are way better than others I have tried. All in all my happiness with this unit rests 95% on CookShack getting the issues fixed with the meat probe. SO if you're in the market for one of these units I'd ask them if it has been corrected before I bought one. I'll post here as soon as I have it corrected as well.
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To be honest, I never hear of anyone complaining about the probe, but I think that's just because nobody really uses it, myself included. Now, that isn't an excuse, it should work properly.

As far as your pork cooks, I am doing big loads of ibp butts around 9 lbs each at 250 degrees for 12 hours. Maybe try bumping your temps a bit. You can't always take an exact workflow from one cooker and transfer that directly to another cooker.
 
TailGateJoecom said:
To be honest, I never hear of anyone complaining about the probe, but I think that's just because nobody really uses it, myself included. Now, that isn't an excuse, it should work properly.

As far as your pork cooks, I am doing big loads of ibp butts around 9 lbs each at 250 degrees for 12 hours. Maybe try bumping your temps a bit. You can't always take an exact workflow from one cooker and transfer that directly to another cooker.
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I was told there was a bad batch of processors causing the probe issues. I plan to do as you say on the times and thanks I'll try 250* next cook to see is that gets me to 12 hours. I am just scratching my head as to why they are not done at 225* in 12 hours as they would be on all other pits that I have and have ever cooked on.
 
HBMTN said:
I was told there was a bad batch of processors causing the probe issues. I plan to do as you say on the times and thanks I'll try 250* next cook to see is that gets me to 12 hours. I am just scratching my head as to why they are not done at 225* in 12 hours as they would be on all other pits that I have and have ever cooked on.
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Maybe the temps on a computer controlled pellet cooker are more precise and you aren't truly cooking at the 225 you think you are on the other pits. The convection of the 120 actually allows you to either drop your cooking temps by 20 degrees or cook a little faster. I know guys using the fec100 doing 270 for 12 hours. I think truly cooking butts at 225 would take more like the 14-16 hours you are seeing.
 
I was thinking maybe the tight air quarters in the 120 were causing a lack of air flow between shelves causing it. I would agree with you that a 9 or 10lb butt could or would take 14 plus hours at 225* but a 7.5lb butt taking 16 hours just ain't right in my book but hey it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong LOL. My other pits have AshCroft Gauges and they are the best that you can buy. It it possible that the radiation heat from the reverse flow plate and tuning plates on my other pits have some effect like you said.

It's a great cooker and I can see myself probably getting a second one next year I just want the probe working because it will help me the way I my times and sleeping need are. That has a lot to do with why I keep posting the good, and bad about my experiences with this unit as I found a lack of good info when I researched buying one.
 
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