digi q and uds problems

Most likely not enough lit charcoal to start the cook.

I have a Guru Performer (older model BBQ guru) and I found that the 10cfm fan is too much for a UDS. I use the 4cfm fan and have the ball valve open only 1/4". These things do not need much air at all.

Also, with too much air, the fan will have a cooling effect.

You can effectively adjust the flow rate of the 10cfm Pit Viper fan by adjusting the vent on the fan itself. Based on the comments about too much air having a cooling effect, try shutting down the vent to half or 1/4 open. That would decrease the air volume the guru can pump into the drum.

My drum likes to cook at 250-ish temperature range without any help from my guru, which is a pretty good temperature to cook a lot of things. Your turkey would do well at 325 and probably even better at 350.

To get my drum to cook at 300 and above with or without the guru, it takes a good bit more lit coals than I would normally use for cooking at 225-250. I generally use a full chimney of lit coals on a minion method setup when i want to cook that hot. More hot coals will get your temp up where you want it without having to add as much air with the temp control system...

JMSetzler said:

You can effectively adjust the flow rate of the 10cfm Pit Viper fan by adjusting the vent on the fan itself. Based on the comments about too much air having a cooling effect, try shutting down the vent to half or 1/4 open. That would decrease the air volume the guru can pump into the drum.

My drum likes to cook at 250-ish temperature range without any help from my guru, which is a pretty good temperature to cook a lot of things. Your turkey would do well at 325 and probably even better at 350.

To get my drum to cook at 300 and above with or without the guru, it takes a good bit more lit coals than I would normally use for cooking at 225-250. I generally use a full chimney of lit coals on a minion method setup when i want to cook that hot. More hot coals will get your temp up where you want it without having to add as much air with the temp control system...

Click to expand...

Good advice here.

Based on my experience with the UDS, the 10 CFM fan is not enough to bring the temperature up to 325 and maintain that with only a small amount of charcoal lit in the beginning. This is why people running a Digi Q with 10 or less CFM blowers are recommending an entire chimney of lit charcoal to cook at that temperature. I run a Pitmaster iQue on my UDS which has a variable fan that blows up to 15 CFM if needed. When I use a minion cook and light a dozen or so coals, and then set the temp on 325, it works pretty hard to bring the temp up and maintain that temp but it will do it. The fan almost runs non stop and it burns a lot more charcoal than at my usual cooking temp of 250. I can only buy the theory of the cooling effect of the fan for a short while. If you force enough air into the lit coals it will get hotter but it may take a while. Ideally, you should be able to light a dozen coals on top of the unlit coals and bring the temp up to 325 if the fan has enough CFMs. My guess is that the 10 CFM blower is just not quite enough to do that. If you put enough hot coals in the drum at the start, you want even need a forced air controller to get the temp up to 325 or hotter.