I was in Long Beach for a flea market back in September. We stayed the night, and set out to check out some antique/thrift stores the next day.
Hitting a local Goodwill, I spied this:
A brand new, in the box, Spider Grills Venom. I knew immediately what it was, I rifled through the box, and found that is wasn't quite complete- the power supply was missing. I looked it up on my phone, Spider grills was still in business, and they had a battery pack available for it. I jumped at it- $20.00. How could I lose?
Got it home and installed it on my Weber. It was quick and pretty straight forward.
I ordered a battery pack from them, but while I was waiting, I found that the battery pack for my Inkbird controller worked.
I fired it up, and cooked a pork butt. The controller seemed to work okay, the temp swings were in the 20 degree range. Hmm, not great.
Next cook was bacon, and it locked onto 250 degrees for 4 hours, never coming off by more than a degree or two. Awesome!
Over the next few months, I dialed it in. The app works well, although there have been a couple of times when the connection is lost and couldn't be restarted without having to delete the Venom from the app and start all over. The app has temp graphs, and you can control it from anywhere. The last pork but I did, I change the temperature while I was at Costco.
You can use the controller without the app. but I find it mush more intuitive from the app. The screen on the controller tells you to close trhe damper, and advises how much to open the top vent to maintain your desired temp. It even has a timer.
All in all a great pickup for $20.00, plus $54.oo for the battery.
Is it worth it for the $200.00 they want for it? I cant say. In the 8-10 cooks I've done on it, It has mostly locked on to the temp, and doesn't vary by more that 2-3 degrees. That's way better than my Dacor oven, and better than my Inkbird. If you've got a Weber kettle, and are looking for an easy (but not necessarily cheap) method of set it and forget it, or even being able to monitor AND control a cook remotely, this thing is great. At retail, I would have been into it for $254.00 plus tax, in addition to having a Weber to put it on.
I have since switched it to a brand new Weber 26 (with the assist of a $12.00 "conversion kit" from Spider), and am extremely happy with the results.
Performs exactly as it should, creating a very easy and no fuss way to smoke.
Hitting a local Goodwill, I spied this:
A brand new, in the box, Spider Grills Venom. I knew immediately what it was, I rifled through the box, and found that is wasn't quite complete- the power supply was missing. I looked it up on my phone, Spider grills was still in business, and they had a battery pack available for it. I jumped at it- $20.00. How could I lose?
Got it home and installed it on my Weber. It was quick and pretty straight forward.
I ordered a battery pack from them, but while I was waiting, I found that the battery pack for my Inkbird controller worked.
I fired it up, and cooked a pork butt. The controller seemed to work okay, the temp swings were in the 20 degree range. Hmm, not great.
Next cook was bacon, and it locked onto 250 degrees for 4 hours, never coming off by more than a degree or two. Awesome!
Over the next few months, I dialed it in. The app works well, although there have been a couple of times when the connection is lost and couldn't be restarted without having to delete the Venom from the app and start all over. The app has temp graphs, and you can control it from anywhere. The last pork but I did, I change the temperature while I was at Costco.
You can use the controller without the app. but I find it mush more intuitive from the app. The screen on the controller tells you to close trhe damper, and advises how much to open the top vent to maintain your desired temp. It even has a timer.
All in all a great pickup for $20.00, plus $54.oo for the battery.
Is it worth it for the $200.00 they want for it? I cant say. In the 8-10 cooks I've done on it, It has mostly locked on to the temp, and doesn't vary by more that 2-3 degrees. That's way better than my Dacor oven, and better than my Inkbird. If you've got a Weber kettle, and are looking for an easy (but not necessarily cheap) method of set it and forget it, or even being able to monitor AND control a cook remotely, this thing is great. At retail, I would have been into it for $254.00 plus tax, in addition to having a Weber to put it on.
I have since switched it to a brand new Weber 26 (with the assist of a $12.00 "conversion kit" from Spider), and am extremely happy with the results.
Performs exactly as it should, creating a very easy and no fuss way to smoke.
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