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stoker and guru users thoughts?

boogiesnap

Babbling Farker
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for the teams that use these, what are your thoughts on IF power goes out overnight and you are sleeping?

and you lose your fire because all other vents are shut.

BTW, i love the stoker, but have been cooking without recently.
 
Valid concern.

A lot of teams use a battery jumpstart pack that will save you if this happens. Duracell makes one...search Amazon.
 
We'd just go back to manual temp control. Doubt there are many teams out there that couldn't cook without a stoker/guru if forced to.
 
We'd just go back to manual temp control. Doubt there are many teams out there that couldn't cook without a stoker/guru if forced to.

What if you were asleep when it happened?
 
You guys are still cooking overnight? JKing. Battery inverter to the vehicle will work perfect as backup. The stoker/guru should have plenty of power. My stoker setup is 3-22" WSMs

Hope this helps

Carl
Sweet Beaver BBQ
 
What if you were asleep when it happened?

Honestly, we always had someone up overnight. If they slept, it was a quick 20 minute power nap. I think if power did go out, temps wouldnt be affected terribly before the power outage was noticed.

Now if we were a sleeping team, guess that would be a different situation entirely.
 
Use a regular old computer UPS. If you lose power, you'll know it. And it will give you time to switch over to an alternate power supply if the outage will be for an extended time. We use one for our pellet pooper.
 
Use a regular old computer UPS. If you lose power, you'll know it. And it will give you time to switch over to an alternate power supply if the outage will be for an extended time. We use one for our pellet pooper.

That's a great idea! :thumb:
 
I don't compete but being out in the country we see power go down overnight from time to time. I have one of those portable jumpstart battery packs that's got a 120V outlet on it.

Works perfect and is easy to lug around. Runs the fans all night with easy.

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I would think enough things would be affected by a power outage that someone would wake up pretty quickly. Fans / AC, neighbors too loud music, etc.

When cooking on my UDS's, I never worried about it, they were not airtight anyway as I used rubber magnets over my intake holes. Since I never slept over an hour, they were never going to lose enough heat that would seriously effect things before I could adjust.

Never ran one on the Pitmaker but thats another story altogether.

I don' think most of the teams that cook overnight really are concerned about it as it seems someone is usually up roaming around and peeking at the temp and as Crash said, cooking with out would not be an issue.
 
thanks for the thoughts everyone.

i am a 2 person team. we need to sleep:crazy:at least for a little bit. typically between 12A or so and 5A.

we use WSM's. if the stoker goes out we wouldn't notice, and the cooker would for sure lose it's fire.

i guess if that happened i'd have to look at IT make sure it's safe and gear up for some high heat cooking.

with the stoker i can be pretty confident in the temps while i sleep, but the fire could go out completely if soemthing goes wrong. without it, the temps may not be quite as stable, but i know the fire ain't gonna die. i guess it's which card i wanna play in the end.

thanks again, guys.
 
Here is what I bought the other day for this purpose: Amazon.com: Duracell DPP-600HD Powerpack 600 Jump Starter & Emergency Power Source with Radio: Automotive@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lHOF4v6RL.@@AMEPARAM@@51lHOF4v6RL

It was recommended by other teams. It will run a stoker and a few other things on its own, and you can plug shore power into it and it will act as a UPS if the power goes out.

I do cook overnight and I am the only cook on my team, so I like to get a few hours of sleep. I usually sleep between 1am and 4am.
 
i've had my eye on that exact farker for over a year! looks like a great tool.

but for this season i already got a new canopy and 2nd WSM 22.5.

NOW, i have to get the darned wifi stoker :loco:
 
I spent 6 months practicing with my cooker to make sure I could control the temps before adding the stoker. But if the stoker is attached, power goes out and I don't notice for 3 or 4 hours I am screwed. My fire would be snuffed out and my contest would be ruined. For me the $150 is cheap insurance compared to what I have invested in the competitions I cook at ($500-$1000) depending on the competition.
 
I spent 6 months practicing with my cooker to make sure I could control the temps before adding the stoker. But if the stoker is attached, power goes out and I don't notice for 3 or 4 hours I am screwed. My fire would be snuffed out and my contest would be ruined. For me the $150 is cheap insurance compared to what I have invested in the competitions I cook at ($500-$1000) depending on the competition.

agreed. it is a very wise investment.
 
I use an inverter tied to my RV house batteries. It passes through the 110V from the contest, but switches to the RV if the external power fails. It got a "field test" recently when the power went out 4 times at a contest. It worked flawlessly. This kind of setup would also work with just a regular car battery, though I would recommend getting a seperate deep cycle battery for this purpose to you can still start your car if there is a long outage.

I have also used a Duracell power pack succesfully. Just be sure it's fully charged first. It takes a long time to charge, and the charger that comes with it doesn't put out much power, so it won't recharge the battery fast enough keep up with your load if you start out with a power pack that isn't fully charged.

I have tried computer UPS systems in the past, and I don't recommend them. The reason is that a lot of contests use generators, and some generators put out a square sine wave for power that your UPS may not recognize. Your UPS is looking for perfect power from the power company, and it will treat some generator power the same as it would a power failure and just run off the battery. My APC UPS has a sensitivity adjustment for generators, but even so I have found some contests where it just doesn't work. Atfer having this happen a few times, I retired it and got the inverter.

In regard to the sleep question: Get a Maverick ET-372 thermometer and set the low temp alarm. If your smoker temp gets too low, it will wake you up.
 
No one's mentioned it, so I'll throw it out there. I use two 6-volt lantern batteries with the "jumper" I bought from BBQ Guru. I also bought a cheap voltage tester so I can check before each contest that my batteries are not about to go dead. Works like a champ.

--frank in Wilson, NY
 
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