Reasonable insurance or silly expence?

[WI Bubba]

There have been a couple of posts recently about losing power when cooking with a device that requires electricity to operate so that got me thinking. And that naturally lead me to wonder what it might cost to avoid that problem. A quick search of the interwebs brought me to this one from the great tool mecca that is Harbor Freight. It should provide enough power to keep a sous vide or a pellet pooper running once they are up to temp and they just need to maintain.

Not exactly cheap, but not outrageous either if it saves a cook or two. I has a pass through function that would let you run off regular power but would kick in if the power goes out. The only question is if there would be a delay between regular power and switching to battery power to make it useless? Has anyone tried one and had good results with something similar?

And yes, I can feel the eye rolls coming from the stick burner crowd already. If I lost power mid cook and I was home/awake, I would just fire up the WSM or the SnS, so no worries. But it's those times when something is being left overnight, and I was getting my much needed beauty sleep, or while I was away for a few hours where a backup would provide some piece of mind.

A true UPS system would be nice, but finding one with enough reserve power to be useful is going to run quite a bit more $$.

[Panhead John]

The video says it’s only $199.99 at your local Harbor Freight. $279.99 if you buy online?! That’s a pretty big difference. 😳

[WI Bubba]

That is a pretty big difference, but the video is 4 months old, and there are new expenses caused by things we don't discuss here for things imported from overseas that may not of been there when the video was made.

[Jfrosty27]

My whole house generator takes about 10 seconds to kick on if the power goes out. So everything needs tp be reset (clocks mostly) or turned back on. An example would be my CPAP if in the night after I am asleep. So I assume a pellet grill would need to be restarted also. But I have no experience with that.

[Oak Smoke]

A big part of the expense of having our whole house generator installed was the switch that isolated us from the grid if our generator starts. Do you need that too?

[Jfrosty27]

Oak Smoke yes I have the transfer switch as well. It’s a fairly large thing mounted on the wall next to the main panel.

[wu7y]

For what it may be worth Jfrosty27 I run my CPAP from a deep cycle marine battery connected to a trickle charger. Unless the battery gets depleted during a long power outage (which has happened here only once in 40+ years) I always have CPAP while I sleep no matter what the commercial power is doing.

[captainlee]

Honda gas fired, 2200 watts. I don't know what the draw is for a pellet pooper igniter. This generator has enough power to keep your frig running and some other accessories. Costs more but you get more options in case of a power failure.

[WI Bubba]

Once it is fired up and running, the pellet pooper will just need to run the fan and the auger to keep the fire burning, so you would even have the load from the igniter to worry about. I know a lot of people run pellet rigs off of deep cycle batteries and inverters, but they will weigh a lot more. I'm thinking more of how to prevent a shut down if the power goes out for 10 seconds or maybe up to an hour.

[captainlee]

Looks like igniters are 200 to 350 watts.

[Donw]

Not sure about the reaction time of your linked product to instantly react to a power outage but it might. Just need to check with them to see its reaction time. I did buy one from another manufacturer for one of my sons and his does react instantly. His also has solar panels that will recharge the UPS in long outages.
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I have a whole house generator but it takes about 5-10 seconds to sense the power outage, start, and then get to the proper rpm’s before engaging and restoring power to the house. However I have computers and other equipment that cannot loose power even for a second. On those items I have small battery UPSs that will instantly kick in and bridge gap. The computers don’t miss a heartbeat.

[MBMorgan]

From what I've read, most pellet cookers require from 300-500W during the ignition phase. After ignition, they then require from 50-100W just to keep them running.

FWIW, Grilla sells both THIS 300W Battery Power Station (which is NOT described as a UPS) and THIS 400W inverter that they consider adequate for their cookers. I don't know your exact needs but this might help get you started with your search for something similar that will work for your gear.

[DavidNorcross]

I do not think anything that provides a backup power source is a silly expense.

[CharKraft]

Agreed, especially living in a very rural area with frequent outages, this seems like a good investment in "Brisket futures"