At about 8pm Sat night I trimmed the fat, and slathered the pork butt with mustard and the dry rub as instructed and stashed the whole thing in a 2.5gallon ziplock for the night (in the fridge). I also gave the smoker a quick test run to ensure that the heating element actually worked. That would have sucked if it hadn’t.
I loaded up the smoker at 8:15am Sunday morning. I’d been aiming for a little earlier than that, as it’ll likely be a 12hr cooking time, but I’m not a morning person. 8:15am is close enough.
Many reviews of this smoker (the Char Broil H2O electric) say that it doesn’t get hot enough, or only barely. But the thermometer I added says it hit 250 in 15minutes. Since I was instructed that I want to smoke at 225 for this recipe I’ll take it. I turned down the temp control just a bit when I put the meat on and checked it another 15minutes later and it was right where I wanted it.
And then the breaker tripped. So I checked all the connections, confirmed that the GFCI outlet hadn’t, flipped it back on, and went back to what I was doing.
An hour later it tripped again. And again, the GFCI in the outside outlet that the smoker was plugged into hadn’t tripped. We decided that the outlet must be faulty, and dug out one of the GFCIs we’d bought for a different project and replaced the outlet.
An hour later the breaker tripped again.
This time I switched on the back entry light, which is right over the breaker box, so I could look at things closer….and the light didn’t come on. At which point a light came on in my brain, and while the breaker was off we began determining what else is on that breaker. Turns out BOTH bathrooms, lights and outlets, even though they’re on opposite ends of the house, are on that breaker. The washing machine is on that breaker. The back entry way lights, inside and out are on that breaker, and the rear outdoor outlets are on that breaker.
No fricking wonder it kept tripping!
We ran an extension cord from a plug in the garage that we knew we could avoid using the rest of circuit for the day and got back to what we were doing.
About 8pm we finally got our meat off the smoker, and it was tasty! We’ll be doing that again!
And if we ever have to have an electrition out for anything I’m having him wire that outdoor outlet into its own breaker…..
Don’t you just hate when you find electrical surprises like that? I was glad that I checked out my outlets when figuring where the upstairs pellet stove would go. Turns out all of my living room (tv, dvr, dvd player, phone charger and where the stove would plug in) and most of my office (computer, printer) all on the same breaker. BIL was kind enough to come over and put the outlet for the stove on its own breaker. Didn’t change anything else, but someday probably will.
Yah, we’re creating a list of electrical “stuff”, some electrician is going to get rich off of us once we get around to calling someone….