Burn back

[Sandman]

My Sysco rep has a pellet grill and sent me this picture the other day. He said he hasn't cleaned it out yet to see what was up. I am guessing he dumped water on it to put it out.

[sliding_billy]

Yuck!

[muebe]

Green Mountain Grills have a hopper fan and a burn pot fan. If you don't have the hopper lid completely closed I believe this can happen. Or if there was some type of cavitation with the pellets in the auger tube.

Could have been the hopper fan died also.

If everything is working properly a burn back should never happen on one of these GMG because of the positive draft hopper.

[Smokin Don]

A good reason to keep an eye on any smoker, even when they are designed to prevent this any can fail. If he had been watching he should have seen smoke coming from the hopper lid and stopped it before fire reached it. Don

[smokeasaurus]

That is just plain scary. The entire time I had my Yoder and doing the review for the Camp Chef grill, I always had the fear of something going wrong. Smoke and technology just don't get along too well..........

Now if I remember correctly, if pellets get wet, they turn solid??  If he used water to put out the fire, he is gonna have a big clump to get out of there...might have to even remove the auger.....?

[Hub]

Now if I remember correctly, if pellets get wet, they turn solid??  If he used water to put out the fire, he is gonna have a big clump to get out of there...might have to even remove the auger.....?

They disintigrate and clump but don't turn like cement.  He'll likely have to remove the auger if much water was used, yes.  GM's do need to keep slight positive air pressure in the pellet chain to the burn pot and either a fan or lid problem caused this. 

This is a good reminder that no cooking device is foolproof.  If there is fire . . .  we need to keep an eye on it.  I've never had a burn-back on either my Memphis or Traeger gut I've had pellet dams (jams where pellets don't "fall down the chute" properly) on both.  No harm is done except you can lose the fire and have to restart.  That's why even something as reliable as a pellet cooker still needs to be looked at occasionally.  On long cooks I check mine about every two or three hours.  I check the hopper for good flow and adequate supply, the temp in the chamber, and the IT of the food.  99.99% of the time there's nothing unusual going on.

Hub

[tnjimbob]

I can relate. This was after a flame out & temp spike to 450°+. This picture was taken to show that there was no smoke in the cooking chamber. I closed the main lid right after this was taken and let it sit until it was no longer smoking through the pellet hopper. Fortunately, it hasn't done this since then. Still considering a different pellet grill.

[muebe]

When the pellets are completely dry they will become like sawdust and then be vacuumed out of the hopper. There might be a problem with the pellets in the auger and they will need to be removed.

Burn back is not a common problem but can happen.

Usually happens when a pellet grill is set to 350F or more and then turned off or down to low temp after it reaches over 350F.

The pellets in the auger tube near the firepot get extremely hot at these high temps. When you reduce the temp drastically or turn off the grill the amount of pellets being moved into the firepot slows down or stops. This gives those super heated pellets time to ignite.

This is why during the cool down mode of many pellet grills you will continue to hear pellets dropping occasionally and the fan still running while in this mode. It is moving the pellets out of the auger while it cools to avoid burn back. My Memphis does this during cool down.

I had burn back happen one time on my Traeger Junior because I had it running at high temp and then shut it off too soon. I had caught it before anything bad happened. Smoke bellowing out of the hopper is not a good sight

Just remember if your grill does not have a cooldown feature to let it run for 10 minutes on the lowest setting before shutting it down to help avoid burn back. And keep an eye on it for these 10 minutes. It's an excuse to have another beer while you wait

[tnjimbob]

as you can see, mine was set on cool down, a new feature on Traeger controllers. It continued to smoke back through the pellet hopper even after being in cool down mode for several minutes.

[muebe]

as you can see, mine was set on cool down, a new feature on Traeger controllers. It continued to smoke back through the pellet hopper even after being in cool down mode for several minutes.

How hot was your grill after you turned it down? Sounds like their cool down mode is worthless. Probably just runs the fan and does not move any pellets. If that is the case then I would not use it. Smoke mode is going to move those hot pellets out of the tube preventing burn back.

I would leave it in smoke mode then. Also if at high temp maybe drop it to 300F until it settles and then smoke mode.

[tnjimbob]

as you can see, mine was set on cool down, a new feature on Traeger controllers. It continued to smoke back through the pellet hopper even after being in cool down mode for several minutes.

How hot was your grill after you turned it down? Sounds like their cool down mode is worthless. Probably just runs the fan and does not move any pellets. If that is the case then I would not use it. Smoke mode is going to move those hot pellets out of the tube preventing burn back.

I would leave it in smoke mode then. Also if at high temp maybe drop it to 300F until it settles and then smoke mode.

It was somewhere north of 450°. I put it in cool down mode immediately, because I didn't know to ramp it down. After observing it, the auger does not run in cool down mode, so you are right - cool down mode is basically worthless. I had it set on smoke mode, P-2 when it flamed out & restarted, then spiked to that high temp.

I have had a very hard time with temp control in this Traeger, and it still continues to give me problems with temp spikes. I have tried ramping it up 25° at a time to desired temp (now it takes nearly 35 minutes to get to 300° for chicken cooking while waiting for temp to stabilize at each step), and it shouldn't take that much fiddling around with it just to make it work. I have tried three kinds of pellets, cleaned it out after each cook and implemented many helpful ideas to better regulate temps, but it is frustrating to say the least.

[muebe]

as you can see, mine was set on cool down, a new feature on Traeger controllers. It continued to smoke back through the pellet hopper even after being in cool down mode for several minutes.

How hot was your grill after you turned it down? Sounds like their cool down mode is worthless. Probably just runs the fan and does not move any pellets. If that is the case then I would not use it. Smoke mode is going to move those hot pellets out of the tube preventing burn back.

I would leave it in smoke mode then. Also if at high temp maybe drop it to 300F until it settles and then smoke mode.

It was somewhere north of 450°. I put it in cool down mode immediately, because I didn't know to ramp it down. After observing it, the auger does not run in cool down mode, so you are right - cool down mode is basically worthless. I had it set on smoke mode, P-2 when it flamed out & restarted, then spiked to that high temp.

I have had a very hard time with temp control in this Traeger, and it still continues to give me problems with temp spikes. I have tried ramping it up 25° at a time to desired temp (now it takes nearly 35 minutes to get to 300° for chicken cooking while waiting for temp to stabilize at each step), and it shouldn't take that much fiddling around with it just to make it work. I have tried three kinds of pellets, cleaned it out after each cook and implemented many helpful ideas to better regulate temps, but it is frustrating to say the least.

Have you considered getting the Ortech controller or perhaps the SSII?

You could also build your own PID controller.

[tnjimbob]

I didn't want to turn this into a "Bash my Traeger" thread hijack, but it has become a pain to use it.

Yes, I have considered an SSII/Ortech, but I may just sell it & get something bigger. Thinking about a Rec Tec.

[muebe]

The problem with Traegers have always been the controller. The cooker itself is not bad just the controller. And it sounds to me like they tried to make the new controller better and just made it worse.

Not going to try to steer you away from a Rec Tec. Appears to be a great pellet grill from what I see. But before you go giving up on your Traeger the PID controller would make a huge difference in temp control and pellet consumption. Would be like owning a whole new grill!

You could make your own PID controller for less than $100

Now it would not be as advanced as the SSII with Stoker control and high/low fan speed switch but it will do the job fine.

Just something to consider...