Tappecue instructional and review

[muebe]

At a OUTL of 12 the SSII at low speed fan is holding at 231F when set to 225F. The Tappecue is currently reading 250F. Going to relocate the probe to behind the SSII probe(away from the center of the grill) and lower the OUTL to 11.

[muebe]

The sun is shining right on the PTG raising the temps to 250F and the ambient temp is almost 90F :'(

I dropped the OUTL to 10 and may need to goto 9 until the PTG is out of direct sunlight.

The Tappecue has not missed a beat so far. Router is located in my bedroom and the Tappecue is in the backyard. Both phone and tablet are on watch. No dropped signal.

Still getting a 10 to 13 degree variance between the SSII reading and the Tappecue even after relocating the probe behind the SSII probe. I have a feeling that might be because this is a meat probe and not a cabinet/grill probe. But I can still live with a 10 degree difference.

Eric do you know if Tappecue has a cabinet/grill temp probe available?

[muebe]

Eric thanks for the info.

Can you log into my guest account and see if it is working?

Just had a temp overshoot due to opening the lid to check pellets and move the probe.

I just verified the guest account works and I ended the session.

Now time to work on the graph.

[muebe]

Ok so I am not familiar with Excel. I never had to use the program before so I was very confused trying to produce a graph using the Excel template that is provided by Tappecue.

Here is my best result...



I tried to get the times to show up at the bottom of the graph but I could not figure out how to make the proper times show up.

The session file shows up as a text document that you apply to the fields of the excel template. One issue is that I only had one probe plugged in but you get results for all four probes. It would be nice if the box or app would omit any probes not connected either automatically or by the end user on the app. So those results first need to be sorted and removed from the excel template. I of course being very unfamiliar with the program had to try and figure out how to do this. I finally found out how by using the sort tab. Once the probes were arranged in ascending order I was able to clear the fields of the other probes.

Then you highlight the temp field and insert a graph using those numbers. You are supposed to be able to use the time field also but I just could not get it to work. Also my version of excel is much older than the one on their PDF instructions and is different. Not the fault of Tappecue that my software is a older version.

I know that a dedicated iPad app with graphing capability like the iGrill app is in the works and I will be a very happy camper when that comes out.

Now that I figured out how to graph the next one will go much quicker I imagine although I do wish it was more of an automatic process.

Those of you very familiar with excel are probably laughing at me. My wife is not here but she used it for years at her old job and I would have been done quickly if she was here

You can look at the raw data and see the trending temps but having a visual graph makes things much easier when testing controllers for stability.

[muebe]

And here is what the raw data looks like in the email you get when you finish a session...



That comes as a text document.

[muebe]

And when I started the PTG test both the Tappecue and the SSII were reading the exact same ambient temp...

[veryolddog]

Muebe, I have your next technology product for you. Saw it today at Lowes. It made by Honeywell. It is the wifi enabled thermostat to control the temperature of your entire home. Looks good and it is IOS and Android compatible.

Ed

[Pappymn]

Muebe, I have your next technology product for you. Saw it today at Lowes. It made by Honeywell. It is the wifi enabled thermostat to control the temperature of your entire home. Looks good and it is IOS and Android compatible.

Ed

I want the one called the Nest. I can turn the heat down on my family in the winter when I am on the road

[Patio Cook#1]

I did monitor a cook recently on line when this system was being tested.

It did seem like a lot of technology involved in "thermometers".

Then again, I'm not real high tech.

In fact the ET732 is about as high tech as I care to go. The thought of monitoring four different probes from locations unknown is a little much for me. But then again, everyone's entitled to their own opinions.

I mainly bought it for it's web based monitoring capability. Being able to go to a neighbor's house or a friend's house  down the road and still keep an eye on temps is a cool feature.

Having the ability for others to monitor my cooks was not what sold me on the unit however it is a neat feature.

The four probes is great because there have been times I have had 3 large shoulders on my Memphis and with one maverick only two get monitored and one gets the guessing game. With the Tappecue I can monitor the 3 shoulders and the cooker temp.

And if I am smoking something and it finishes while I am not home I can call the wife and have her take it iff and shut off the grill.

But then again I also have a web based sprinkler control system for my house

This is about as far away from my MAK as I want to be. Especially when it's smokin'.

[muebe]

Ok it has been a while since I have been able to really get to test the Tappecue with a long cook. I recently moved to a new home with new internet service but kept my wireless router name and password the same. The Tappecue unit has been unplugged and dormant for months but immediately connected to my internet here at the new place without issue when I plugged it in. Had my router info changed then I would have needed to hook the Tappecue back up to my computer to change that information. As long as you keep the router name and password the same & same type of security(WEP,WEP2,etc) it will connect right back up wherever you are.

There have been a few nice updates to the app. The ability to see all probes at once in the same screen for the iPad app is nice. There were also some bug fixes however I don't remember any before. My hope is they will eventually make a graphing function similar to the iGrill that sends it directly to a PDF or image format without having to convert it. I am sure that is in the works.

Ok so on to the cook. Started with a couple of Costco boneless butts...

 



Now break out the BP Bacon Jalapeño Rub...



Liberal coating of rub applied outside at 5:00 am. No Molasses slather this time. It got lost in the move and I could not find it. Sorry Sparky...



Tappecue plugged in and 3 probes connected. 2 for the butts and 1 at the grill level to monitor cooker temp...



And on they go...



So then I went off to work. With the Tappecue on the watch until my wife came home I felt confident being able to pick up my cell phone and check the temperatures. Also the Tappecue sent me notifications right to my phone telling me when the cooker reached temp, when each butt reached 180F, and when they reached their target temp of 200F. It will also send you a message if the temps go above or drop below the thresholds that you set.

I ended up working late and got home at 6:30pm as the first butt was at 198F. I thought to myself "That was great timing". If they finished before I got home I would have been immediately notified by the Tappecue and a quick text to my wife to remove the butt from the smoker would have been done. Very cool!

The Tappecue worked flawless all day long. It never lost communication as far as I know. I checked the temps all through the day many times and got a quick response back from the Tappecue every time from my Android phone. Keep in mind that I was over 50 miles away from my home. I could be in another country and still see the temps as long as I have Internet There were other phones and devices listed on my app that were people who have logged into my Tappecue guest account to monitor my cooks with me so they ended up getting notifications too because I selected them to receive the notifications. Like Eric's cell phone. They can turn off this feature. But it is really nice that so many different devices can all get the notifications.

Ok so back to the butts. Here is how they looked when I got home 13 hours later...



First one that was off at 13 1/2 hours...



This one at 15 hours...



I let them rest then into the fridge. It was getting late and I was too tired to pull them. I will pull them later this morning. I am going to try and get a graph together of this cook and will post the pics of that and the pulled pork later.

Everyone enjoy the Superbowl today!

[mikecorn.1]

Looks great Mike!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CDN Smoker]

I love Butt

[muebe]

So I pulled both butts and here are the promised pics...





Very moist and flavorful. That bacon jalapeño rub is fantastic. The bark was not as strong without the molasses slather but still very good.

I am still having trouble getting a graph to work. Maybe my version of Excel is too old. I can get the fields to populate but it does not create a graph. I am usually pretty computer savvy so it is a little frustrating. My version Excel is from office 2000 so that might be the problem

[Sailor1]

Did you download the tappecue spread sheet from their site?  I could not get the graph to work either then I went to their site and found the spread sheet.  They have micros embedded that picks up the info and you use their spreadsheet and you get the graph.

If you are using their spreadsheet then I am not sure why you can't graph it. 

[muebe]

Did you download the tappecue spread sheet from their site?  I could not get the graph to work either then I went to their site and found the spread sheet.  They have micros embedded that picks up the info and you use their spreadsheet and you get the graph.

If you are using their spreadsheet then I am not sure why you can't graph it.

Yeah I tried their spreadsheet. It populates the fields but no graph.