Bull 3-Years Wait; Mixed Results

[VegasVic]

Well, after researching and researching and waiting and well.......researching. I finally chose the RT-700 over the Yoder YS-640s. The deciding factor? #1, the supposed superior PID temp. controls of the Bull, #2 the 4th of July bundle sale. I waited until my competition cart base (on back order) arrived before finally assembling the smoker and putting it to the test this weekend.

I have been rolling with a wood/charcoal smoker for a number of years now and the constant tending to temperature was getting old so needless to say I was very much looking forward to having that power in the palm of my hand for once. After the hour long burn off at 400 the night before I setup for what should have been an easy 2 racks of ribs w/mac n cheese the following day.

Being the first time, I wanted to see what the basic settings would turn out so I avoided using the extreme smoke temps or a smoke tube. I set the temp to 250 to start, placed the ribs once at temp and all appeared to be going well. That is until I opened the door to spritz at about 1.5 hours. Once I closed the door, the actual temp shot up about 25 degrees to 275 and stayed there for the next hour or so. I had done ribs at that temp before so I let it go until I sprayed the second time at about 2.5 hours. This time the temp shot up over 315 once the door was closed and stayed there until I removed the racks to wrap.

I figured I would give the smoker some time to come down in temp as I wrapped so I set the temp down to 200 and lowered the feed rate to 4.5%. When I returned from wrapping, the temp had not changed. It was now more than 100 degrees hotter than what I had it set for. This is not the 1 or 2 degree variance I had seen touted or read about in so many reviews. No matter how low I set the temp the smoker would not go below 275 so I left the temp set to 200 and threw the wrapped racks back on once it fell to about 275 and closed the door. Over the next 2 hours the temp climbed gradually to 327 at the peak and never fell below 300 - this is still with the temp set to 200! After unwrapping, I decided to go ahead and shut the smoker off all together and see if it just needed to reset or something to come back down in temp. I left the lid open after shutdown to help cool it and then turned it back on after unwrapping the ribs. After startup the actual temp was now 205 with the temp still set to 200. I placed the racks and mac-n-cheese on and close the door. Once again the temps rose to 260-274 which was better than before but still so far off of the set temp. I let it go another 1.5 hours this way and then sort of threw in the towel. Ended up being a 7 hour (3.5-2-1.5) cook.

The mac-n-cheese was great. The ribs were about a 3/10 - they had great flavor and smoke almost all the way through but were tough and chewy. Seemed like they could have cooked another 1.5-2 hours but without much control of the temperature I have no idea. All in all, I have to say this wasn't a much different experience than tending a fire smoker all day with temp swings the whole way through....haha!

I have read here that others are having issues with the temp. Is this just a bad batch or faulty equip.? or is there anything that can be done about it? I obviously live in Vegas where outside temps are a bit hot but the smoker is in complete shade. Not sure what to make of the first smoke on this thing. It is built really well but unless it can cook at a set temp, I'm not sure being built well is going to go far for me.

 

[Uncle Bob]

As you've seen over time the majority, by a long shot, of folks don't have the problems you've enumerated. While there have been a few, resist perceiving that "a lot" or whatever have troubles. You'll get sympathy here, but bottom line is you need to contact RT Tech Support ASAP. They have the experience, expertise, and will warrantee your hardware if that ends up being the problem...…………..nobody here can do that last thing for you. Sorry you're having some initial pains, but I can't imagine it won't be resolved by the guys in Georgia.

 

[NU2SMOKE]

Lower the feed rate to 3.5 once I did that she holds temps perfectly for me

 

[Kim]

I just got mine a couple of weeks ago and it holds temp really well. My husband's boss has a Rec Tec and when he got it he was happy with the way that it kept temp but he said he called support and they got it straightened right out.

 

[VegasVic]

As a follow up to my first cook, I have now done homemade pizza (twice) as cooks #2 and #3 which obviously went very well since I chose to repeat it. I did lower by feed rate to 3.5% from the very beginning as @NU2SMOKE suggested but then of course I threw the temp all the way to full for the pizza so I did not test the temperature hold in this case. I forgot to take pics of the pizza but it turned out very well. Both times I cooked two approx. 16" pizzas together at the same time. I flipped by grill grates over and used the flat side to test how it affected the crispiness of the crust. One pizza went on the flipped grill grates, the other directly on the SS wired grates. I will say the pizza on the grill grate cooked 1-2 min. faster than the one on the wire. I actually found it a good idea to switch the pizza that had been on the wire over to the grill grates once the one on the grill grates was done. This ended up helping to crisp the crust on the 2nd pizza too.

Cook #4 ended up being reverse seared ribeye steaks. This time I was able to test the lower feed rate and the ability for the Bull to hold some lower temps through lid openings. Steaks were nearly 2" thick and I chose to go with the Heffer Dust on all three steaks. Let them rest for 15 min. or so and set the grill to 180 x-treme smoke. I placed them in at the 180 for 1 hour and the internal temp was about 95 at the end of that period. During that hour I did open the lid a couple of different times to test the temp control and the grill never spiked like it did on my first cook with ribs.

I took the steaks off and turned the grill up to 255 and placed them again at that temp. It took quite a bit longer than I expected to get to an internal target temp of 120 (had that crazy lag somewhere between 95-105) but it finally got there. I removed them again and cranked the grill to full for searing. Grill went to 525 and I seared them on the grill grates for 1min. or so on each side. Let them rest for 10min and they were delicious. Me and the kids really liked the Heffer Dust (no steak sauce allowed in our house). My wife? not so much. She thought it was overpowering but then again, she is one who only likes salt and pepper on her steak. I thought the streaks were super moist and cut like butter but again she prefers Filet Mignon and all other cuts are not worthy. She calls it "Cowboy Steak" unless it is Filet - any sign of a bone or gristle (even though there were neither in these boneless ribeyes) and she's out.

Anyone tried to cook steaks at a higher temp? Maybe shorten the smoke period to 30-40min.? 2 hours total for steaks just seemed like a long time.

In any case, I was very happy with Cooks #2-#4 and the way the temps behaved with a 3.5% feed rate. I think it's time to revisit the ribs.....

 

[Uncle Bob]

I recently did a boneless ribeye at 250, took about 30 minutes to get to 120, then seared on the IR sear burner rather than doing the grill grate mambo. However, the steaks were only about 1" rather than 2, so timing isn't exact comparison. I've got some 2" ones in the freezer that we'll get to some time down the road.

 

[Buckeye smoker]

Looks and sounds like a good job to me... I'm wondering if it wasn't a thickness problem also. And some pieces just stall longer than others...
I've found (my personal taste)..that 225-235 plus a smoke tube works better than the 180 "extreme smoke"...steak wise. (Depending on thickness)