The Blower

So let's take a look at the blower used by this controller. It is a 35 CFM variable speed blower. The blower itself has no damper, but we will see in the next section that the adapter used to attach the blower to your cooker has two dampers.

Blower/Adapter Connection

The Lava Lock controller comes with a blower adapter for attaching the blower to your cooker. The adapter has two dampers, one manual and one automatic. The automatic damper is held closed by gravity and swings up and out of the way when the blower is operating. The manual damper is a sliding plate which is meant only to be closed when you are not using the Lava Lock controller and wish to leave the blower adapter installed. Otherwise, the manual damper should be opened fully when using the controller.

In the following photos, you can see how the blower attaches to the adapter. It just slides in and is a press fit. If you find the fit too loose, you can always press the sides of the adapter together a bit to get a tighter fit.

Adapter Installation

A number of options are provided for connecting the adapter to your cooker. First, if you have a ⅞"" port on your cooker, you can just slide the threaded tube of the adapter into the cooker and secure it with the provided nuts. You can also drill a ⅞" hole in the side of your cooker near its air intake and install the adapter in that hole.

Lava Lock also provides three adapter plates for attaching the blower adapter to cookers. The two rectangular plates measure 2⅜" x 4⅛", and 2⅜" x 3⅜". The rectangular plates are intended for kamado-style cookers. The round adapter measures 4¼" in diameter and has a 1½" tab that extends about 2" outside of the circular portion. The round plate is intended for Weber Smokey Mountain cookers.

Unfortunately, neither of the two rectangular plates will fit on any size of Big Green Egg or Kamado Joe cookers. The instruction manual indicates you can cut them fit various cookers. The photo below shows how much (11/32") would need to be cut off the end of the smaller of the rectangular plates to fit a large Big Green Egg cooker. In the photo we have laid a Flame Boss adapter plate for a large Big Green Egg on top of one of the Lava Lock plates.

Since we have a Flame Boss adapter plate available, rather than cut the Lava Lock plate, we placed the Flame Boss plate over the threaded tube of the adapter. Then we placed the Lava Lock plate over the Flame Boss plate, and secured them both with the provided nuts.

Finally, this photo shows the blower and adapter installed on a large Big Green Egg cooker. Due to the size of the blower/adapter combination, depending on how your cooker is configured and supported, you may have difficulty fitting the blower/adapter combination to your cooker. It just barely fits on a large Big Green Egg sitting on a BGE Table Nest.

Audible Alarm and Alerts

Since the Lava Lock controller has no connectivity, there are no sort of alerts, emails, or text messages to notify you of an alarm condition. What it does have is a loud physical beeper, a set of LEDs, and some flashing icons on the display:

The physical alarm is located on the right end of the controller.

The green, red and blue LEDs are located on the front of the controller.

The "pit temperature low" icon on the display.

The little thermometer icons indicate which probe is alarming.

There is just a short list of alarms that can occur:

• Pit temperature too high.
• Pit temperature too low.
• Food probes reaching their target temperatures, i.e., Food Done.

• Pit Temperature Low: The alarm will sound, the red LED will flash, the small flame icon on the display will flash.
• Pit Temperature High: The alarm will sound, the red LED will flash, and the small thermometer icon next to the pit temperature will flash.
• Food Temperature at Target: The alarm will sound, the green LED will flash, and the small thermometer icon next to the appropriate food probe will flash.

Good Neighbor Feature

You may remember that the original BBQ Guru Competitor had a "Good Neighbor Feature" which allowed you to disable the alarm so as not to disturb your neighbors. This controller has a relatively loud alarm, so thankfully, you can mute the alarm by pressing the rotary knob once the unit is powered on. Pressing it again will toggle the alarm back on, and so forth. However, there is no volume control.

Visible Blower Feature

The Lava Lock controller has a blue LED above the display that tells you if the blower is running or not. It doesn't not give any indication of what speed the blower is currently running, but you can tell if it is running. This is useful for knowing what's going on in your cooker. If the pit temp is rising and the blower is off, you may have too much ambient air flowing through the cooker. If the pit temp is falling and the blower is running constantly, you are probably running out of charcoal:

Power Interruption Feature

The Lava Lock controller will remember the target pit and food temperatures if power is lost so that it can resume control of the cooker's airflow when power resumes.

Keep Warm/Ramp Mode Feature

Some controllers have a Keep Warm or Ramp Mode feature which essentially allows the controller to keep your cooker at the food target temperature once the food reaches its target. This is to help prevent over cooking if you happen to be away from the cooker when the food reaches its target temperature. The Lava Lock controller does not have a feature like this.

Learning Your Cooker

Many controllers use some sort of adaptive learning process that modifies the control algorithm as the controller learns how your cooker is responding to the controller's efforts to control the temperature. The Lava Lock algorithm however, is much simpler:

• If the pit temperature is significantly below the target temperature, the blower will run at 100%.
• If the pit temperature is approaching the target temperature, the blower will run at 50%.
• If the pit temperature is above the target temperature, the blower will not run.

Open Lid Detect Feature

Open Lid Detect (OLD) is a feature where the controller detects the rapid drop in temperature caused by opening the lid. It stops the blower to prevent stoking the fire unnecessarily and then manages the rise in temperature after the lid is closed. While the Lava Lock manual indicates it has open lid detection, their definition of Open Lid Detect is not the same as every other controller on the market. The Lava Lock controller does not stop the blower when it has detected the lid opening. It merely sounds the alarm and flashes the small flame icon on the controller's display:

So, the Lava Lock detects the open lid condition, but it does nothing about it in the way of trying to adjust its control behavior in response to the open lid.

Built In Timer

There is no built in timer function on the Lava Lock controller.