So I got my Savannah.

[okie52]

Got my Savannah about 3 days after I ordered it.  Installation went fine.

Cooked a brisket that was great but really too tender...could hardly slice it.

But I noticed that the grate temp was about 20 higher than the rtd. So I tried to calibrate the difference.

Went to PB1 and raised it by 20 degrees and the grate temp and rtd were within 2 degrees of each other.

But the temp would never come back down from 225 to 180 where I was going to set the other two settings.

[jimsbarbecue]

This learns the more you use it. There is program you can run to help it learn the pit. It is in the instructions.

[okie52]

Well I took a couple of months to get back to calibrating my new Savannah. 

So for the last week or so I’ve been trying to get the basics down such as outlo, rtd offset and the auto temp....I must admit it has been a struggle.

The first day I followed savannahs video for setting the above.

It was over 100 degrees here in central OK and I had direct sunlight on my smoker...so maybe not the best conditions to be setting these adjustments but I assumed that once set the PID would accurately adjust to the conditions.   Well I was wrong.

I got the rtd offset/PB1 set to plus 25 degrees and gradually reduced the Outlo/auger to 7 to get close to 150 degrees setting for the SV that was stated in the video and manual.  Once the PV got to 160 and seemed to stabilize I moved the the SV to 225 and tried to let the temp stabilize to run the auto temp. 

However, although the ambient temp was still mid 90s but the sun had moved off my smoker and evidently affected the previous adjustments.  The PV temp continued to drop to the point where the fire went out.  It reignited on a few occasions but would not stay above 150.  So I would start anew tomorrow.

THe same scenario followed the next few days as I tried to find a balance between the ambient heat and direct sunlight but basically ended up with the same result.  I never got satisfied with the stabilization at 225 to run the auto temp.

So a cloudy, cooler day moved in and I tried the above adjustments and ended up with an outlo/auger at 9 and the rtd/PB1 at +20.  Then I ran the auto temp and it seemed to have adjusted to the conditions at that time but we will see...

The Rtd offset/ PB1 seems to be a moving target.  At 225 it seems to be close to accurate but at 180 it is usually off by 7-8 degrees on the low side. 

I wonder if for every different season I’ll have to recalibrate the above settings. If so, that would be disappointing. 

[okie52]

So I tried something simple tonight.

I did drumsticks starting at 180.  I left and came back about an hour and a half later and the PV was showing 162. The SV was 180.  I hadn’t put in the maverick to check the grate temp. 

So I upped the SV to 225 and added the maverick to check the grate variance.  About 8 degrees on the low side for the PV.   

It held steady as we moved to evening with the 7-8 degree differential.   The drumsticks turned out great after 2 1/2 hours at 225 (with an hour and half at supposedly 180.)   

I’m not sure that the 180setting would’ve survived the evening as I wonder about my auger setting at 9 for evening hours.

My previous PID was a blazn grill which as I understand it is a rec tec PID.  The PID was always about 30-35 degrees lower than the actual temp by the Mavericks but it was steady at those temps.  I knew that if I wanted 180 I’d just set the PV to 160 (its minimum) and understood it was really going at 190.  That seemed to be true throughout all of the temps I ran. 

The blazn grill certainly didn’t have all of the features that the savannah 4.5 has.  But having a constant grill temp that is reliable is more important to me than the added features. 

Sometimes the Savannah feels like I’m working with the Traeger p factors...which I definitely want to avoid. 

So if anyone can tell me where I’m doing it wrong please do so...

[okie52]

I’d like to thank Arthur Held for running me through the adjustments on the savannah stoker.  He spent about 8 hours with me trying to get the stoker fine tuned.

Very patient and you won’t find that kind of customer service anywhere.