MAK 2 Temp Spike today!

[Mojak]

Not sure what happened. I got thru my initial 2 hour smoke and wrapped the ribs. The MAK was closed while I did this to maintain temp of 275. Put the ribs back in and 10 min later a tremendous amount of smoke began to emit from the smoker and the temp spiked to 300 and appeared to be climbing. I pulled the ribs out and put them in the oven to finish at 275. Shut down the MAK and am letting it run thru it's cooling cycle lid open. Any ideas what might be the problem?

 

[MAK DADDY]

Sounds normal, when you open the lid the TC detects the temp drop and adds fuel causing the smoke. Once the added pellets catch fire there will be a spike in temp before it tapers back down to your set point.
If the firepot hasn't been cleaned or if you are using pellets that build a lot of ash this will increase this effect.

 

[TentHunter]

Yep, I get short temperature overshoots occasionally after opening the lid too, and you had the lid open twice in a short period of time (once when you took the ribs out to foil, and a second time when you put the ribs back on.

This can cause pellets to dump twice. This over abundance of pellets can choke the fire, causing a lot of smoke, and take a few minutes to ignite, and then you have a roaring fire for a few minutes causing a temporary spike.

When this happens, the MAK always seems to settle back down within a few minutes and keeps chugging along.

In addition to keeping the firepot clean, I also keep the temp sensor clean.



P.S. Don't fret over a 25° overshoot. I guarantee your oven probably overshoots that much and you just don't know about it. It's the overall average temperature that matters, not a temporary spike.

 

[jimsbarbecue]

Your oven does do it. the average household oven works in 50º swings that is not a typo 50. Set at 275 it could go to 300 and back to 250 as it cycles all the time and if you put on the convection fan it will run 50º lower the temp it shows. When your oven reaches the set temp it will not show it cycling it will display a average of the cycle. Pro oven the margins are way tighter.

 

[Mojak]

Problem solved! I didn't clean out the firebox soon enough after some long cooks....cleaned the the internal probe as well. All's well!!!