Caution: Keep your Fire Pot Clean!

[Smokin Don]

Apr 10 2016

Savanahsmoker was just saying he had to clean his fire pot out after 12 hours of cooking on his Blazin Grill Works. I had that in mind since I had done about 5 or 6 cooks on my Traeger and not cleaned it out. I usually do it every 2 or 3 cooks. It was a cold damp 40 deg. today and I thought I am just going to smoke some bologna for an hour, it should be fine.

I had the Traeger at 200 deg. and got the bologna on. I had my Maverick remote inside and was doing other things then noted I was down to 165 deg. It was about 40 minutes in. I went outside to check and it kept going lower so knew I had a flame out. I opened the lid and shut it down; with my Savannah Stoker v3 controller I have to go through a shut down before I can get the hot rod to do a light.

At that low of a temp. it cools down fast with the lid open. If you have caught it in time you can do a relight with success. Well I must have not caught it soon enough and it had dumped too many pellets in the fire pot. I did get a relight but soon the temp was rising fast and got to 300 deg. I thought I better shut it down. By the time I removed the bologna and shut down I was getting smoke from the pellet hopper.

I only had about 2 or 3 lbs. of pellets in the hopper so I emptied them out into a bucket and got it clear of pellets down to the auger. I left the lid open to the pellet bin and the smoker and let it go through shutdown. It shutdown ok and cooled off without getting fire up too much in the auger tube. I will clean it out as soon as I can and run it to clear all the pellets out of the auger tube before adding more pellets and using.

Highonsmoke just said maybe it was the pellets and said he was using Lumberjack pellets. I don’t think it is the pellets but the fire pot and auger feed tube arrangement. If you have a lot of ashes in the bottom then the pellets can build up and cover up the feed tube and that tends to smother the fire. The fire is looking for oxygen and if it can get it through the auger tube it will and burn into the tube. I think about any pellet smoker with a fire pot and an auger feed that feeds directly into the pot you could have this problem.  Not sure but I think the bottom of my auger tube is less than an inch above the bottom of the fire pot.

Prevention is to keep your fire pot cleaned out and you shouldn’t have a problem. Some pellets probably do put out more ashes but the Lumberjack pellets compare well with what Traeger pellets put out. A lot of their pellets are longer and not as uniform as the Traeger pellets and could contribute to a temporary jam at the auger entry and help cause a flame out. But I have had flame outs with the Traeger pellets too. The flame out did not cause the burnback; hat did was a dirty fire pot and too many pellets dumped in before relighting.

Smokin Don

[muebe]

Great advice Don!

I clean my firepot out on my Memphis after every cook.

[Cajunate]

My thinking is to check all grill and keep them clean of excess ash. Clean grill makes for clean burning fuel be it pellets, wood, briquettes or lump.
I have a metal wet vac specifically dedicated for cleaning ash from the grills. I like to clean the Traeger out out every 3 but no more than 4 cooks.

[tomcrete1]

Great advice! 

[TMB]

Yes sir I learned a lesson on my Traeger powered SRG.  We were camping and I had a beautiful fatty ready for the A.M cook

I fired up the SRG pellet grill went back to bed when I hear a knock on the door.      Tommy!  The cooker is cold, so I got up and found I had a flame out    there was a lot of ash in the pot, so much it choked out the fire.     

Good thing was the IT of the fatty was still 41 so I had time to clean out the pot and get it going again.

Keep your pot clean  

[smokeasaurus]

Great advice.

[HighOnSmoke]

Not to hijack your thread Don, but if you use foil in your pellet cooker make sure you change it regularly. It definitely makes for a
very nice grease fire.  This is definitely from experience! I definitely got a good crust on the meatloaf I was cooking! 

[TMB]

Not to hijack your thread Don, but if you use foil in your pellet cooker make sure you change it regularly. It definitely makes for a
very nice grease fire.  This is definitely from experience! I definitely got a good crust on the meatloaf I was cooking! 

Another good tip Mike.  I change mine every other cook but have changed it every cook to make sure

[Savannahsmoker]

Thanks Don for passing on your experience. 

Other than the current two fires in the auger tube in Grid Iron I think the last time I have one was in a very dirty Traeger more than 10 years ago when I learned my lesson. The fire in he tube and hopper was caused but excessive buildup of ash in the fire pot not the pellets and since than I have cleaned out the fire pot after cook.

Now as far as my Blaz'n Grid Iron having auger tube fires during shut down twice, both after a 16 hour cook, is causing me to think it would have to be design or pellets.

So for now, when doing a long cook in the Grid Iron, I will remove the easy pullout fire pot half way or so and check the build up of ash and if two much dump it out.  I will also be looking for low ash producing pellets. 

[Smokin Don]

Thanks Don for passing on you experience. 

Other than the current two fires in the auger tube in Grid Iron I think the last time I have one was in a very dirty Traeger more than 10 years ago when I learned my lesson. The fire in he tube and hopper was caused but excessive buildup of ash in the fire pot not the pellets and since than I have cleaned out the fire pot after cook.

Now as far as my Blaz'n Grid Iron having auger tube fires during shut down twice, both after a 16 hour cook, is causing me to think it would have to be design or pellets.

So for now, when doing a long cook in the Grid Iron, I will remove the easy pullout fire pot half way or so and check the build up of ash and if two much dump it out.  I will also looking for low ash producing pellets.

Art one more tip, I had some burn back once but I did a shut down at 300Deg or more, since then I always wait until it's below 250 deg. before shutting down. Don

[Savannahsmoker]

Thanks Don.
I always run the pit down below 200 before I shut down.

[hikerman]

 Good thread Don! And good advice everyone!
I figure I get about three to four "short" cooks on my pellet grill for every long cook. So before my next cook, ( after a long one) I vac her out good and refoil. No trouble yet but want to keep it that way!

[TentHunteR]

Good advice Don!

We keep ours cleaned out after every one or two cooks.