Pellet Grill Flameout Explained
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Wondering what causes pellet grill flameout? This video is for you!
What causes flameout, how you can prevent it, and what to do is you have a flameout.
The principles in this video apply to any pellet grill type, Pit Boss, Treager, Camp Chef, Smoke Pro, Louisiana Grills - you name it.
I would say most of the time it's because people don't keep an eye on their hopper and the pellets stop feeding, the other time is that people don't clean out their ash pot. The key to a flame out is to fix the problem BEFORE you continue or you can have serious issues. Very good video for all pellet grill users.
Couldn't agree more. Thanks man!
if you are doing a longer smoke how often should you check your hopper?
@@ChiTownBrownie89 on a long smoke at around 225 degrees, I'd say fill the hopper and check it every 3 hours at least. Higher temps will use pellets faster so you would need to check more often. However, if you are doing an overnight cook at 200 I think it will make it. It also depends on what pellet grill you have. I'm basing this off of my PB1100. My PB Tailgater will go 5 hours at 225 easy because of the smaller area that needs to be heated.
Yeah @craig k , what he said. Kevin, I gave you a shoutout on my last video and modified your sticker segment idea on my channel too. Thanks for all you buddy!
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Sincere thanks! Sitting here smoking some baby backs for Memorial Day and temp starts dropping quickly. Shut off and started again and blew the lid off. Shut down, saw this vid and cleaned the pot. Back in business!!! Will clean after every smoke now! Had no idea.
Dang I am so glad I found your channel..you are spot on
Thanks brother and thanks for watching!
Informative video! Thanks! Your P settings video was very good, also!
Thank you very much! Glad you found some value in them.
Based on all the videos I've seen On Pit Boss smokers and their problems with Auger James, Flame Outs, Ignitor failure, and Hopper Smoke It think it would be safe to say the the problem is
the Walmart special Pit Boss Smokers. I've owned a Oklahoma Joe Pellet Smoker for 2 years and have not experienced any problems. All It do is clean and maintain it and continues to operate without issue.
Interesting, I just got a Walmart Pit Boss and have been surprised by how resilient it is to flame outs. So far they've only been caused by me doing stupid things like making huge sudden temp adjustments (all the way high to smoke) or dumping in handfuls of pellets to get it to temp faster. It manages temp really well, within 6 degrees with a thermopro and is surprisingly well built for the price.
This is an excellent example of what could happen. I think that if you had the top closed it could get bad very quick. I believe the moral of the story is, keep your grill clean and watch your hopper, and there is nothing to be afraid of. Very good video. Thanks for doing this.
Well said, I agree. Thanks for watching, and thank you for the feedback.
Keep seeing this videos like everyday not sure if it’s a sign LOL
I hope its a sign that you'll learn how to avoid flame outs!!! 😃😃😄😃
Your pellets can "bridge" under the pile making it look as though it is full of pellets but the "bridge" wont allow pellets to encounter the auger. this will make the grill starve for pellets and then flame out. this can be delt with by dimply keeping a piece of wire or something like that by your grill and simply "poke" the pellets toward the auger. you will see a sudden shifting of the pellets which signifies you have "broken that bridge" and now they are free to flow into the auger therefore into the burn pot. happens all the time. most especially if you are using inferior pellets that aren't nice and hard, if they get "dusty" that can very much influence the bridging as the dust settles to the bottom of the hopper. It is advisable to clean out the hopper VERY well after the use of those inferior pellets hopefully preventing this occurring again. this can also happen with pellets that have somehow gotten moisture in them (maybe the lid wasn't sealed right on the hopper allowing a very small amount of rian or something similar. The "fix" is the exact same. You farmers know that this exact same thing happens in grain bins often with "deadly" consequences on occasion sadly.
Lesson learned the hard way today lol. Had to pull two pork butts off and clean out the ash pot at 4:45am.
That sucks!
I was your 10,000th sub:)
Trevor. You are the man!
I liked watching your "experiment" with a full ash pot to see what it would DO, because it answered some questions I'd had.
I just had my second explosion and flame-out a couple days ago. This is the second one in about 5 months with this Traeger and I am at a total loss as to WHY? Unlike our first Traeger, this one came with a "shut down" mode which I do NOT like at all because it never shuts itself off! You are inside enjoying your meal and relaxing, only to step outside 2 hours later to discover your grill is still going! What??
It will just run for hours and do a slow burn, wasting pellets. Our old one didn't have the feature and we never had a burnout. The only reason we got rid of it, was a wiring issue and it quit working after about 8 years... though our oldest son took it from us and got it working and is still using it!
The first flame out was a huge shock and I had flames coming out the top of the stove, warping the paint which ticked me off as this is a fairly new grill. Yes I shut it down and shut the lid, but had to get my steaks off.... I felt, as I didn't want 8 steaks ruined, yet taking them off with those flames all around was not very fun, and fairly dangerous.
I CLEAN my Traeger and I have never had my burn pot filled with ash like you had done... which is why I appreciated your experiment, and when I do clean, I do a really good job.
I mean.... it is a very messy process ....so do it good when you DO clean it, right? (I find putting on about 4 pairs of disposable rubber gloves is easiest, so that when you scrape off grease and mess with the ash, should you need to touch a garage doorknob or something to dispose of something, you can remove one layer and not get things dirty.)
Not only has my burn pot been filled with pellets after one of these explosions, but I have about 8 cups of pellets outside of the burn pot, inside the stove body.
As for running out of pellets, I check my hopper every time I grill to see what I have, and I have a deck tote beside my stove that is full of pellets and I can scoop up and refill any time I need. I don't run out of pellets... have sacks of them stocked up in my garage to refill my tote! LOL
I give you a thumbs up for doing this experiment, but I am still confused as to why this grill is doing this. I took it apart last night and cleaned out the explosion mess, then turned it back on without the grill and tray to watch the burn pot to see what it did. Pellets began to fill the chamber but no smoke. I kept digging out the clean pellets and returning them to the hopper box, and after several minutes I shut off the grill, then turned it back on and it THEN began to smoke and ignite the pellets... so I put it back together and grilled hamburgers. We SHUT IT OFF as soon as we took the hamburgers off, treating it like our old grill... and I guess we will see what happens tonight when I grill steaks!?!
Sorry you’re going through all this trouble. If your flame outs are occurring at the beginning of your cooks, you may want to check your igniter, that little piece of metal that heats up and starts to fire. Maybe it’s defective, and sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t, If your flame outs are occurring more like mid smoke, maybe check your fan to make sure it’s working correctly.
Something is causing the grill to flame out, and if you’re keeping it as clean as you say, you do, it’s probably something with the igniter or the fan.
@@1526BBQ Thanks for your reply!
I think both flameouts occurred at the beginning of the cook, so it is very possible it is our igniter!
I cooked the hamburgers the other night and it worked ok, but we shut it down as soon as we took the burgers off the grill, just like the old Traeger, and didn't use the shut down mode.
I grilled steaks the next night without incident and again shut it down as soon as we took them off.
Then I cooked bacon a couple days later and still worked ok... so I guess we will see if we continue to shut it down right away, if it solves the issue!?
I might just order a new igniter just in case.
I appreciated your demo!
Pellet smokers go through the
Add pellets to smoldering pellets
Pellets ignite to flame to maintain heat setting
Pellets smolder to create smoke for flavor
Add pellets to smoldering pellets
Etc
What can happen, temp drops and grill adds pellets to bring temp back up. But the pellets barely smolder and don’t increase temp. Grill dumps more pellets into pot because it needs to raise temp. Nothing, they’re not burning, so it dumps more in. Now the pot is overflowing with pellets. At this point you must unplug and turn off the grill. You must stop the convection fan. Our bad things will happen next.
If ‘any’ pellets are smoldering under this overflowing pot, and the convection fan continues to run, you can end up with an explosive flash over.
The fan will continue to blow on the few smoldering pellets in bottom of the burn pot. These ‘will’ eventually start to burn with a flame. The entire overflow will begin to burn and be fed with air by the fan. Just before this entire burn pot flames over, there will be a huge thick cloud of dirty gray smoke coming from the grill. This is a soup of explosive gasses and smoke. When the pile flames up and flashes over, it’s most likely this will blow the cover open. Will likely bend it in places as well. This fanned flame will burn in the 750F range. Pellet smokers are not built for much over 550-600F at most. You’re going to damage things. Food will be torched.
When the grill temp dives, be ready to pull the plug.
I don’t totally trust smoker built-in thermometers to avoid this smolder out condition. So I always run a grill temp thermometer that talks to my phone or a wireless remote like the ThermoWorks Smoke.
You can find a couple three grill flash overs on UA-cam. Not what you want to have happen. These grills are sold as ‘set it and forget it’. But please, don’t trust them quite that far. Keep them away from house, garage, shed, etc. if you’re not attending to it.
I had a flame out on my camp chef SG and had to replace my fan, I was surprised that theTreager fan fit the camp chef. Back up and smokin.
Glad you were able to get her back up and running!
i will add when u vac. out your pellets (if they r still hot) empty your vacuum into a pie pan with water so u have the vac for the next clean out
Good point
Keep up the great work!
Thanks Chef Terry!
Good video. I had this happen to me 3 times. The first time I was guilty of not cleaning the firebox. The other two times thefirebox was clean and it overflowed with pellets within 30 minutes. I haven't used it since. Any thoughts on this? Thx.
My guess - you had a pellet void, that lead to a flameout, the pellet void then self corrected (collapsed), and filled the ash pot with pellets. To avoid this you have to "stir" the pellets from time to time - mix them up so you break up any voids.
@@1526BBQ thanks
@@1526BBQ my ash pot is clean the auger is putting pellets in .. I only see a small blue light on the ignitor is the ignitor bad & is it replaceable or can you recommend a fix?
If pellets are NEVER igniting then you may have an ignitor issue. The ignitor can be replaced, but I haven't done the job. You could pre light a few pellets and drop them directly into the ash pot, then turn on the pit. It should work just fine, the ignitor is only needed during start up and is not used during normal operation.
@@1526BBQ😊😊
I clean out the fire pot on my pellet grill every 3 cooks or if I had a cook which was a long cook for like a brisket for example. I definitely clean it out if I'm going to start a long cook so I don't have this issue during the long cook.
Yes sir. Keeping it clean is key!
My wife never had a flame out on hers it just caught on fire 3 times the last time she was 3 hours into a 6 hour cook and it blew up!!i was about 70 yards away managing my stick pit and thought my son just shot the .50 cal..she screamed wasn’t injured!!we run and it blew the lid half off and was a blaze we got it to the yard got it out..yup she knows how to use one!!needless to say it set for a while she just got back cooking on the egg!!but after dealing with camp chef for about a month they just said we don’t know we will just ship you a new one…
Glad to hear everyone's okay. If you had an explosion, then you had a flame out. Explosions occur when the pit starts up with the door closed. If you flame out there are times where the flame would reignite, in essence starting the pit with the door closed. You forgot to mention one detail, did you guys save the food?
Well she always does ash clean out before a cook always starts the pit with door open..like I said she knows how to use it…it’s done this 3 times during a cook not on start up!!2 times just fire the bottom of the pit will be full of burning pellets 3rd time 3 hours into a cook and it just blew up no pellets in the extra pellets in bottom of pit..and no it blew some of the food into my pool and the rest just all over…I had 6 briskets 18 racks of ribs and sausage and Bologna on mine we were cooking for an event..she had the eggs and campchef loaded with smoked bake beans..tech department didn’t have a solution or have an answer..it’s not our only camp chef equipment idk they just sent a new one…
I see.
Nice video sir. My question is does the fan run the entire time? My ash pot was clean before I started my cook and flamed out on me 2 times and I don’t think the fan was running then would kick on and back off
I believe so.Yeah it does on mine, because it never gets "quite" so the fan is always running. Call PB customer service, they will most likely send you one.
I’m smoking a brisket and it happened to me maybe 7hours into the cook . I took everything out cleaned and vacuumed the ash and scraped everything off and put it back in and it keeps happening nothing too crazy like before but enough smoke that I don’t want In my brisket . Can the temperature be an issue ? I’m cooking it at 200 I typical do it at 225 …
The lower temp you run a pellet smoker at the higher risk of flame out. Now with that said Ive ran mine at 175 and never had an issue..... Keeping the hopper full?
@@1526BBQ yes it stays full , I did turn back to the typical temperature that I always do and the excessive smoke did seem to stop ! Thank you
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So the flaw seems to be in the ashpot design. It needs a deeper pot with a sloping bottom?
No, I think you missed the point John Smith. The flaw is the Human not emptying the ash pot. It's typically a lever on the side of the smoker. There is no excuse for not emptying the damn thing before you start your next cook. That single lack of effort can cause an explosion. Boom!!! Human error. That was the entire point of the video John. C'mon man.
I agree with you both. A company could engineer a better ash pot design that would decrease the risk. However, with what we currently have - we have to keep it clean. On my Pit Boss 1100 Pro it is not as easy as a lever on the side, and thats why I think a lot of people "skip" it. You have to remove the cooking grates, remove the searing plate, remove the heat deflector, and then you can clean out the ash pot. I mod-ed my pit by cutting into the heat deflector (video on my channel page). This allows me to: remove 1 cooking grate, slide the searing plate to the side, open access hatch, and clean my ash pot.....
I clean my ash pot every time and I still get flame outs on long cooks. It’s really annoying and ruins the cooks. Just had it happen twice in the same cook. Bad design or I’m using the wrong pellets? I used lumberjack.
@@flashforwardfilms1570 I use cheep pellets I buy at Walmart if I'm just grilling real fast and there ok, I found if I keep the crock pot near by I can use it to save the cook if the flame goes out.
We had a flame out or something today ⁰5/02/22 What happened was tht the pellets got stuck or stopped even though there was a full bin. In the auger which moves it to the burner. Then we set it to high(500°) to see if auger would move it did (too much of it). smoke was increasing afterward and 2 minutes later a large blast
Anytime you have a flame out and you're restarting you need to leave your grill door open to vent out the initial smoke as it can be very explosive.
Last one happened to me, where the pellets didn't make their way into the auger. I'm this case youdint have to reprime? You just clean out the ash tray and that's it?
I thought for sure it was igniter failure... thx!!!
Glad it helped, thanks for watching!
Thanks good info
My pleasure Robert. Thanks for watching!
My flameout happened with a butt for possibly 4 or more hours. Should I toss the meat out?
Sorry that I'm getting back to you so late. But yeah after 4 hours with no flame I'd probably toss the meat out.
@@1526BBQ no sweat. I tossed it and cleaned my ash pot lol. Lesson learned.
Well done sir. SMOKE ON!!
That just happened to me, pellets stopped falling in now my temp is all wicked. I just clean it and prime it again. Will be doing that maybe today or tomorrow.
Flame outs suck!! Thanks for watching!
You never showed the modified plate for easy clean out
I didnt have it at the time of recording this video - thanks for watching brother!
Awesome Video!!
Thanks! Glad you like it, and thanks for watching!!
The problem I keep having is my ash pot fills up every 3 hours, then I have to take every thing out to clean the ask pot just for it to happen again in 3 hours
That sucks. What brand pellets are you using? And how do you k ow it fills up - it flames out???
I use trager brand pellets but I also used some cheaper pallets. I just get a lot of ash build up and cant do long cooks without stressing about it :/
Ive used Traeger once or twice and didnt notice an abnormal amount of ash build up... Sorry to hear about it. Maybe have a few more drinks so you dont stress about it....😃😄😃😄🍺🍟🍸🍝🍹
9:26 say no more !
Thats right!
Hope this helped! Please subscribe!!
Ok so I got a question, I was cooking ribs and had my temp set to 225, while on 225, the actual temp rose to over 300 and I also put one of the temp probes on the crate, it had a reading over 350, what causes the temp to rise above 225?
These things plug in and need electricity? I have seen lots of people use them in places without electricity!
Yeah pellet smokers do need electricity. Maybe the videos you seen it had like a portable generator??? Now I'm more traditional smoker like an Offset Smoker, does not need electricity. Thanks for watching!
You can use an inverter plugged into car power outlet to run a pellet smoker. Their largest electric draw is the first few minutes with the igniter/hot rod running. Then just a trickle to run the convection fan.