Bull BFG auger motor in the RT-700. It's awesome!

[richdan]

wow 401! i think other than the show us what your cooking threads this is the biggest one. i expected interest in the 3rpm but not to this level.

The 3rpm motor takes this from a smoker that will grill to a true grill/pellet smoker. Heck if Recteq doesn’t pay attention to this then I just might start my own pellet grill company and use what we learned here and quit dentistry sooner rather than later.

 

[chadinsc]

The 3rpm motor takes this from a smoker that will grill to a true grill/pellet smoker. Heck if Recteq doesn’t pay attention to this then I just might start my own pellet grill company and use what we learned here and quit dentistry sooner rather than later.

i bet they are watching this atleast every few days to see what we think and if we are having issues. they will probably make the change. but if you think you can build a better grill please do. seriously competition is a great thing, makes every one better. i got some ideas on how to make the perfect grill. recteq is pretty close though

 

[Ssheridan74]

Ok so I got back from the Smoky Mountains and installed the 3 RPM auger motor tonight and set the feed rate at 15 on my Bull. 450 in 18 minutes with an ambient temp of 75! That would normally take 40 minutes. Perfect. Then I opened the lid for 15 seconds. It dropped to 427 and recovered to 450 in 90 seconds, then overshot to 455 and never came back down. I can live with that. Now I’m trying to run it at 225 and it doesn’t want to. Opened the lid for a while, close it, and it spikes to 300. I set it on LOW with the lid open for a while and it’s currently at 223, but it’s been 10 minutes or so. I think it’s going to get to 180 and hoping it won’t flame out. Maybe I’m doing too much all at once.
Any input is appreciated.

 

[jfjohn77]

Yeah, you may be right about doing too much at once. I sorts had the same issues when I was plying with it. They're just like women... don't mess with them too much, pretty temperamental. Just set them and forget them. I have no problem maintaining 200 and I start all my reverse sears at LO (180) no problems at all.

 

[chadinsc]

just leave it shut and i bet it will get to 180, mine will. but also i think the grill needs a few cooks to settle in. i think it learns from its past cooks. what does everyone else think? did your grills take a few cooks to settle in?

 

[jfjohn77]

Actually, and maybe I was just lucky, but I had no problems on day 2 until present. Just me messing with it on day 1.

Edit: I shouldn't have worded the above that way. Don't take that to mean I am having trouble now, because I'm not. I only had a few small temp issues the first day and they were most likely of my own doing.

 

[Ssheridan74]

It did settle in at 180 and smoked like hell on mesquite pellets. Think it’s fine!

 

[JGW]

Just about everyone has a warped heat deflector. It doesn't seem to affect anything negatively.

I see the black flakes occasionally in all my smokers. It's not paint. It's the flaking off of a build up of resins from the wood smoke (from pellets or wood chips/chunks/sticks). The resin builds up on the inside surfaces of the smoker, then when you do a hotter cook, it can dry and flake off. Use a wire brush or wadded up foil, etc., to scrub the flaky areas of your drum.

I think it's pretty common for the deflector to warp. Not sure if I'll fix this once my Bull arrives (Hopefully this Friday), but on my Traeger.....I went to Lowes, bought a 1/4" steel plate, cut to to fit under the deflector, drilled holes in both and used SS bolts to mount it to the bottom of the deflector. Straight as an arrow now, and it's been that way for 4 years.

 

[chadinsc]

thats perfect. i plan to do something with mine also. i like your solution

 

[jfjohn77]

I'm just going to get the Smoke Daddy stick burner deflector, which I wanted anyway. I want the extra smoke. But that is definitely a good fix.

 

[richdan]

Does a warped deflector affect performance?

 

[C. Keeper]

Does a warped deflector affect performance?

Only if it hits (raises) the drip pan.

 

[chadinsc]

i really cant tell any difference atall. but it bothers me lol. i gota fix it

 

[C. Keeper]

i really cant tell any difference atall. but it bothers me lol. i gota fix it

If it's that wide spread of a problem I'm sure some enterprising individual will start production soon.

 

[llbts1]

I'm just going to get the Smoke Daddy stick burner deflector, which I wanted anyway. I want the extra smoke. But that is definitely a good fix.

Why don't you just lay some chucks or chips on top of the RT deflector? It seems like on one of the instructional RT videos that it was suggested to do that to add more smoke. I thought about the Smoke Daddy deflector also, but haven't done or tried either.
Thanks

 

[jfjohn77]

Why don't you just lay some chucks or chips on top of the RT deflector? It seems like on one of the instructional RT videos that it was suggested to do that to add more smoke. I thought about the Smoke Daddy deflector also, but haven't done or tried either.
Thanks

A couple of reasons... I have done that with chips and they burn out too soon ( no long term smoke), if you try chunks they must be small (you only have about 1+" to play with), so you end up with the same as above in term of time. And second thing is, if you try to get too much wood in the area above the heat deflector (for long term time), it being so close to the drip pan, if you have a lot of drippings you end up with a flare-up.

 

[Cne7son]

I’ve had good luck with a smoke tube and putting western wood chips in it. It only last about an hour, but gives it a real smoke flavor.

 

[llbts1]

That makes sense .

Thank you.

 

[AKAGalford]

Came across this topic just before I ordered my Bull just a few weeks ago and just Installed the auger upgrade tonight. I went ahead and added one to my order with the grill. Initial test just to 225*, set feed rate to 15 prior to starting. The temp ramped up to 221-222 in the matter of 6 minutes with ambient temp of 89* (also I'm in Colorado so not sure if the altitude has any affect on this) but after another 6 minutes it was still hanging around 222 so I bumped the minimum feed rate up to 2.00% from 1.50% that it was set to and it came right up and nailed 225. Just my first test tonight with it and just wanted to add some data points. I'll do some more testing this week.

 

[C. Keeper]

Came across this topic just before I ordered my Bull just a few weeks ago and just Installed the auger upgrade tonight. I went ahead and added one to my order with the grill. Initial test just to 225*, set feed rate to 15 prior to starting. The temp ramped up to 221-222 in the matter of 6 minutes with ambient temp of 89* (also I'm in Colorado so not sure if the altitude has any affect on this) but after another 6 minutes it was still hanging around 222 so I bumped the minimum feed rate up to 2.00% from 1.50% that it was set to and it came right up and nailed 225. Just my first test tonight with it and just wanted to add some data points. I'll do some more testing this week.

Sounds right, I was having flame outs at 1.5%
I increased to 2.0% as above without issue.