British BBQ Society Forums

There are lots of Big K fans, I only meant their 'garden centre' stuff can be a bit iffy, their restaurant grade is top notch.

Dig out your card and get down there!! Not sure where you're from, but their S.E. London store has damaged bags for a fiver

London Irish wrote:

aris wrote:I'm wondering if the probes in the Fantasts could be used in my home-made pit controller.

Worth a go, although some probes are calibrated against their units. Easy enough to check though

Is your home-made unit waterproof?

John

Not built it yet, though I have most of the Arduino bits including a bluetooth shield for remote logging and monitoring (possibly from an Android device - in the future ). Don't have the probes yet - I think I might just get the Maverick ones as they are tried and tested. I may well put it all in a waterproof container - one step at a time My 44 gallon drum should be delivered any day now. I need to build that first!

Interesting, keep us updated, you're gonna be a busy boy!!

Sounds like an epic project! Photo's are of course mandatory!

aris wrote: Don't have the probes yet - I think I might just get the Maverick ones as they are tried and tested.

Have you thought about using ETI probes? They're the guys who make thermapen's but they also make so much other stuff. I know they've got all sorts of probes available which will not only be cheaper but also better quality than the maverick ones.

Swindon_Ed wrote:

aris wrote: Don't have the probes yet - I think I might just get the Maverick ones as they are tried and tested.

Have you thought about using ETI probes? They're the guys who make thermapen's but they also make so much other stuff. I know they've got all sorts of probes available which will not only be cheaper but also better quality than the maverick ones.

Certainly not cheaper. The Maverick ones are about 8 quid - the ETI ones are 28-33 pounds.

http://thermometer.co.uk/80-thermocoupl ... ion-probes

http://www.smokingbbq.co.uk/spare-parts-21-c.asp

aris wrote:Certainly not cheaper. The Maverick ones are about 8 quid - the ETI ones are 28-33 pounds.

http://thermometer.co.uk/80-thermocoupl ... ion-probes

http://www.smokingbbq.co.uk/spare-parts-21-c.asp

They've come down since i last bought them

I've not had a great experience with the mavericks in general as i got through 3 probes in 12 month before i stopped using them, and a few of us on the competition circuit have noticed the mavericks not being very accurate.

Are you referring to just the probes, or the control units too? Are you able to put 3rd party probes into a maverick unit?

aris wrote:Are you referring to just the probes, or the control units too? Are you able to put 3rd party probes into a maverick unit?

Sadly i've not got any way of testing what part of the Maverick is causing them to read the wrong temprature but this is a problem with both my et-732's & et-73. It's also difficult to replicated the issue as they do start off being correct but during a long cook the temp' starts wander.

Also i've just remebered that i also had big problems with the marvericks when using forced draft systems like my Stoker, BBQ Guru & also with my Traeger. I would get temp' swings which could be as far as 100f out, this is the main reason that i've stopped using them in my smokers. I don't know if it's something to do with the way that the air circulates in the smoker or what, but i was at a comp' using my stoker which was telling me it was cooking at 250f but the maverick was jumping around at 275f, 290f, 340f and when i put my hand on the smoker there was no way that it was at 340f.

You might want to speak with Steve from Royal Q as his pit controllers look really well and ask him where he got his probes from.

I'm not trying to scare you with this, but it's some of the experiences i've had with them. I'd be interested to hear if other forum members have had simmilar problems when using their Pitmaster IQ's, BBQ Guru's or other forced draft systems

In that case I may well put an analogue temperature gauge on my UDS.