# Brand new flame boss 400 pit probe acting strangely



## greg84 (Jul 26, 2021)

Hey there, I bought a flame boss 400 last month to pair with my big poppa smokers uds kit.  I tested it as soon as I got it with just charcoal and wood and no meat to get the hang of it.  Then we had a very rainy July  so I couldn't use it again until today.  I smoked a few pounds of wings. Only an hour cook at 300 degrees, but the flame boss was acting very strange. The pit probe was reading on my phone at over 300, but my other 2 thermometers were reading 225.  I fiddled with it for the whole cook trying to get it right. I unplugged it a few times and I even reset it and reconnected it. Finally I decided to test it in the kitchen in a bowl of hot water by comparing it to my instant read thermometer.  They both read the same thing, so I reinstalled the fb and tried again and finally when the cook was almost over it started working properly.  

So I'm just curious if any other flame boss 400 owners have any insight into what may have been wrong so I can correct it for next time.

Also I should note there were a few other things that were happening as well.  Like the fan not coming on when the pit temp was lower than the set temp, and the app randomly saying offline and a minute later coming back to online.

Could it be my wifi network? I have had problems before with it on other devices. 

Thanks for any tips


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## SmokinEdge (Jul 26, 2021)

Disregard it and cook with the remote probes. None of them are accurate. Don’t feel alone.


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## greg84 (Jul 26, 2021)

SmokinEdge said:


> Disregard it and cook with the remote probes. None of them are accurate. Don’t feel alone.



What do you mean remote probes?  Sorry I'm a newbie


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## Chasdev (Jul 27, 2021)

If you were using analog metal temp gauges, toss them out and buy a wireless digital set up.
There's lots of them on offer on Amazon and even the cheaper ones work well for at least a year or so.
As to different temps inside the cook chamber, welcome to the club.. all cookers have hotter and cooler zones inside and where you sample temps will offer up different readings.
In addition, as the cook progresses those temps will change as the cabinet or cook chamber heats up.
In addition introducing cold or room temp meat also creates havoc reading wise especially is your temp probe is close to the cold meat.
There's a school of thought that holds that the way to test is to place raw biscuits all over the cook grates and cook them.
Some will be dark or even burned, some will be semi-raw and some will be perfectly cooked.
You can read the hot and cold spots in the cooker based on the fate of the biscuits.


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