After about 5 sessions, I decided to do a corned beef. about 12 hours into a 48 hour session, the unit shut off in the middle of the night and the beef set there at 81F all night. Discarded.
Bought another corned beef, and tried a 36 hour session at a higher temp. The motor began to rattle. Shaking it seemed to help for a while. After 24 hours, I noticed the water was no longer circulating, and the temperature was fluctuating by like 5 degrees (presumably due to no circulation). I manually stirred the pot every hour or so, so I could at least be able to eat Corned Beef #2.
After things cooled down, I took off the metal skirt, submerged the bottom half and noticed the circulator pump hums, but does not spin the blade.
I signed up to do two corned beefs for my son’s graduation party at school on May 27. :(