Fire box overload

[tampatk]

In the middle of cooking, I accidentally let the pellet box run dry. As the cooking temp dropped due to lack of fuel, I added more pellets. It appears that the augur is speeding up to “catch up” to the temperature, and ends up overloading the fire box. This resulted in significant smoke, pellets overflowing the fire box, and a less than desirable outcome.

Has this happened to others? I’ve cooked many butts and ribs on my 590 with no issue but am perplexed. Other than stopping the cook and cleaning the fire box and making sure there is enough fuel to not run out, any tips to fix the issue when it happens? Lower the temp and ease it back up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TheRicker]

In the middle of cooking, I accidentally let the pellet box run dry. As the cooking temp dropped due to lack of fuel, I added more pellets. It appears that the augur is speeding up to “catch up” to the temperature, and ends up overloading the fire box. This resulted in significant smoke, pellets overflowing the fire box, and a less than desirable outcome.

Has this happened to others? I’ve cooked many butts and ribs on my 590 with no issue but am perplexed. Other than stopping the cook and cleaning the fire box and making sure there is enough fuel to not run out, any tips to fix the issue when it happens? Lower the temp and ease it back up?

Thanks in advance.

I’ve not had that happen. If I understand the “theory of operations” correctly, I “get it” that the auger tried to satisfy the “set temperature” by feeding the pellets. But if the fire in the firebox was lost or significantly reduced, your RecTeq doesn’t know that and tried to continue feeding pellets. It doesn’t know to turn the igniter on to restart the fire…thus the result you had.

I believe the best course of action would have been to shutdown, remove all your meat, the grates, drip pan, and deflector and get the fire in the firebox going by putting a quarter cup of pellets in the fire pot, loading pellets into the hopper, then restart the smoker. That way the igniter could fire up the pellets in the fire pot and give the auger time to get pellets from the hopper to the fire pot. By then, you should have a good fire going in the fire pot. Then put your deflector back on, then your drip pan, your grates, and then your meat. Close the lid and keep on cooking.

That’s my opinion. And, in my mind, doing all of that should take no more than 20 - 30 minutes.

The key is making sure the fire in the fire pot is going good. That’s why I don’t put everything back in until I know my fire is good. Be careful doing all of that as all the components that need to come out are hot.

I hope that helps.

 

[RattleR]

I had this happen once. I dropped the temp to LO, added pellets, then opened the lid. It caught up without issue. I walked away thinking I got lucky, sounds like maybe I did.

 

[Threadcutter]

I had this happen once. I dropped the temp to LO, added pellets, then opened the lid. It caught up without issue. I walked away thinking I got lucky, sounds like maybe I did.

Sounds like good advice. I'm very careful to keep my hoppers topped off and I'll try and remember this if I ever forget to keep the hoppers full.