I decided on meatloaf tonight and wanted it simple. I basically followed
Hub’s recipe, except I had about 2
pounds of 73/27 beef instead of 90/10. I added 1 pound of my homemade Italian sausage and 2 packages
of Lipton Onion Soup mix.
Put onto the Grid Iron at 180 for the first 30 minutes for some extra smoke. I am burning Lumberjack MHC.
Now here is where the
lessons learned start! When the meatloaf reached an internal temp of 150 I decided to
kick up the Grid Iron to 350 to finish it and give it some crust. I had been cooking it for 2 hours at 250 to 275.
About 5 minutes after the Grid Iron reached 350 I noticed a LOT of smoke coming from it. I walked outside and
noticed that the temperature on the digital readout was 434. I knew this wasn’t right. I opened the lid and lo
and behold the inside of the Grid Iron was on fire. I knew I needed to change out the foil on my drip pan, but I
figured one more cook and I would do it. The fire was so intense that it collapsed the aluminum pan that I had
my rack with the meatloaf on. I was able to pull the meatloaf out of the flames and removed the burning pan.
The foil under the grates was still burning so I turned off the Grid Iron. Well that didn’t help until I realized that
the fan was going through it’s cool down period and keeping the fire going. I unplugged it; shut the lid and about
3 minutes later the flames were out.
I had left my frogmats on the grates from my previous jerky cook. They were none the worse for wear. A little
flimsier than before but they should work okay.
I am very
LUCKY as when I pulled the drip pan this morning I saw this under it! Again
laziness on my part!
What happened to the meatloaf? Well it actually got up to temp real fast and was not burnt on the bottom.
Actually it came out very good! I didn’t get a plated shot but I did take this photo this morning. Going to make
some good meatloaf sammies today!
I wasn’t going to even post this, but I got to thinking that there may be someone else out there that
procrastinates on cleaning their pellet grill and I sure don’t want to see this happen to anyone else.
I did get it all cleaned up this morning, fired it up and it is purring like a kitten!