(disclaimer) I do not work for or endorse Auber Instruments
So a month or to back I "found" (read wife gave me) a little extra money so I decided to spend it. For years I have been thinking of a Guru or Stoker but winced at the price. Along come the Auber Instruments website
http://www.auberins.com/ and the $130.00 special on the controller with the 10cfm fan set up. Package arrived promptly and was well padded from Auber, although I wondered why I paid $25 shipping and the controller arrived in a flat rate envelope? (edit, turns out this is probably incorrect).
Anyway, I needed to figure out how I could hook this thing up to my fuel monster. First order of business was to seal the leaky beast. This brought some scavenged rack blanks for a blade server, some bolts and a donated draw latch (Thanks Harbormaster!). I cut the blanks into pieces (easier said than done) and bolted an inside and outside piece over the intake holes.
Then, I mounted the draw latch as best I could and ditched the firebox door handle.
Close up of opening for fan:
Next was a more efficient way for fuel consumption, that brought a few sheets of expanded grate and some stainless wire with safety wire pliers. I used an old cooking grate from a smaller cooker that was long gone to reinforce the bottom of my "fire basket". I left the front 1/4 of the bottom with just the cooking grate so the first part of the minion burn would shed ash more efficiently.
It's not pretty, I'll admit I'm no craftsman with steel.
First test burn I dumped three quarters of a basket of grove and then a chimney of lit in the front of the basket. I mounted the fan, ran the thermocouple through the exhaust vent and into the cook box and plugged everything in. It took about an hour for the cooker to get to temp. After the controller held for a while, I dumped some cold water into the water pan to simulate a load of meat. The controller took approximately 32 minutes to get the temp back up and then held it steady. After a while I started opening the door and letting the temp drop, just so I could watch the controller recover, I was geeked.
Best money I've ever spent.
