Smokinbutts
Member
- Messages
- 20
- Grill(s) owned
- RT-1250
Not sure if anyone else has had this issue but figured I put it out there. Fired up the 1250 early Sat morning and set the temp @ 250 for a 6.5lb brisket flat. Injected it and rubbed it with some killer hogs TX rub ( good stuff). The flat looked awesome and I slapped it on at 7am. Guessing it would be about 7 hr cook and then cooler it for a few hrs. Checked the app after about 30 min and the grill temp was dropping steadily till it hit 80 degrees, just my luck! Couldn’t have done that with some chicken thighs on there, had to be a $$ cut of beef. What to do…. Shut it down and checked the fire pot, no un burned pellets just ash. Turned power on again and set the temp to 300, auger not dropping any pellets after a 5 min wait. Next… heard of pellets getting wet and dissolving causing a build up inside the auger preventing it from spinning. Emptied the hopper completely shop vac’d the spots I couldn’t reach. Looked down and saw a sizable wood chip against the auger & hopper chute. Cool, easy fix, reached in there to grab it and that #*^% was jammed in there tight, grabbed some long needle nose pliers, still tight, long screwdriver, still jammed in there. Finally after 10 min of cussing in 4 diff languages I got it free and vacuumed it out. 8am by now but still have enough time to get it done. Put in about 10lbs of pellets just in case and fired it up again. Temp hit 90 and started dropping! The meat gods hated me that morning! That &@#% n wood chip fried the auger motor. Next option: fired up the Weber Genesis and a smoke tube, put the flat in there with the lid cracked about an inch, hard to control the temp on a gas grill, fat cap on the bottom started searing and finally got the internal temp to 160. Pulled it, put it under the broiler for a pseudo crust for about 15 min, wrapped it until internal temp was 200 and popped it in the cooler for 3 hrs. Called CS and they were awesome. Explained what I did earlier and ran a few tests to confirm a bad motor. I have tried 3 or 4 diff brands of pellets but I just put a new bag of recteq Pellets in a completely cleared hopper the night before. CS said the motor will be on its way Mon am along with a free bag of pellets for my troubles. The rep told me that this was the first auger motor he had to send out in 3 years of working there. That’s my luck! Brisket came ot excellent but didn’t have that good smoke flavor I was craving. Guess I’ll take out a home equity loan, buy another flat and try again soon. Smokem if ya gotem
