A lot of extra smoke while warming up

Whitey

Member
Messages
7
Earlier today soon after starting up the Bull it started created a ton of smoke, much more than I've seen before (which is only about 6 cooks). I was worried something was wrong, but after opening the hood and letting it air out, it evened out. Has anyone seen that before?

My best guess for a cause is that I had just cleaned out the ceramic pot (for the first time) and I didn't add a half a handful of pellets into it after cleaning it. Should I have done that? I figured that a bunch of pellets may have been dumped into an empty, but very hot pot and created all that smoke.
 
Your supposition may be correct, but there's another factor at work too. With pellets you get more smoke at the lower temps, e.g. say 170-250 than you will when it gets to the higher temps when the burn efficiency is higher, producing less smoke.
 
True. But this was soon after starting up (temp was below 100 degrees) and when I say extra smoke, I mean TONS of smoke. Pouring out of every seam. It looked like the whole thing was about to burst into flames. I've watched it while it warmed up and I've cooked for long periods at 225, and it never produced that much smoke.
 
I'll chime in with a second hand story of something similar. A buddy of mine has a 680 and he was telling me one time after cleaning he started his up and the same thing happened. Apparently it happened to the point at which the grill actually made a loud "boom" sound. Smoke everywhere.

He said there was zero damage at all, but it was as if there was a ton of pressure building up and there was too much smoke to vent and eventually it sorta "popped".

He said he hadn't added any pellets to the pot to get it primed and wondered if that had something to do with it....fine ever since.

I'm not saying this is exactly like your story, or that this is the definite cause, but the two instances surely have similarities.
 
I have the 700 and when you shut it off it goes into cool down "mode" runs the fan to lower temp AND runs the auger a little to restock the burner. You shouldn't have to add a handful everytime unless the 680 happens to not have the same functions. After cleaning however (as in you vacuumed them out of the burner) then yes I'd add pellets before reassembling it.
 
Mine does this every time I fire it up. Traegers do this too. I think they all do. I leave my lid open till the fire is burning strong and then close the lid. Takes less than a couple minutes.
 
Helps to look at the date of the post you are replying to. Just in case you don't get a reply. 😁😁😁
 

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