Stampede Fire!

[Kim]

I put a rib roast in last night to smoke for two hours. I took it out and bumped the heat up to 300 to bring the roast up to 120° and then planned to take it off again bump the temp and sear. Well fortunately I was watching the temp of the grill on my phone because once it reached 300 it was steady for about 15 minutes then started to climb rapidly! I went out to see what was going on and the grill was on fire. Apparently a grease fire. I quickly pulled the roast and turned the grill off and closed the lid until the fire went out. When I started it back up to heat up to sear there were no further issues. The roast turned out awesome but my smoker did not have a build of grease on it before starting the cook. Cooking one small rib roast should not cause issues.

Oh yeah on top of the fire just as I was about to get the baked potatoes out of the oven one of them exploded.


Haven't had time yet today to get out there and check out the grill to see if there was any damage.

 

[bfletcher]

Gosh; I hope your Stampede didn't suffer any damage . It would be interesting to know the root cause of the fire. Your plated pic looks awesome!

 

[Kim]

Thank you. I opened the smoker up earlier but didn't take the sear plates out. The majority of the fire was coming from that side with only a small fire on the controller side where the open grates are. The sear plates are slotted side up. There is some grease down in there but I always scrape them out after using them and usually before.

I'll probably clean it out tomorrow and take some pictures. I have to call Rec Tec anyway. Even in the summer the grill will barely get up to 475.

 

[Roaniecowpony]

So, you had Grill Grates in there the whole cook?

If so, it could have been the Grill Grates that were the issue. They are intended for quick searing. If a fatty meat is cooked for a long time on them, the fat renders into grease and the Grill Grates may channel the grease to places other than onto the drip/deflector and out the end to the bucket. Check to see if the fire was under the drip shield.

 

[Mike]

I'd first check if the grill was level, then check to make sure the drip pan is seated correctly and finally would agree with @Roaniecowpony and not use the grill grates for cooking but for searing.

 

[Roaniecowpony]

...
Oh yeah on top of the fire just as I was about to get the baked potatoes out of the oven one of them exploded.

Rough day for the chef. Hang in there. ...and lance those spuds before hand.

 

[Kim]

Rough day for the chef. Hang in there. ...and lance those spuds before hand.

I did! I poked all of them all the way around with a fork. I opened the over door to peek in at them and right after I closed the door I heard the explosion. I'm gonna blame it on Food Lion taters. LOL

 

[Kim]

So, you had Grill Grates in there the whole cook?

If so, it could have been the Grill Grates that were the issue. They are intended for quick searing. If a fatty meat is cooked for a long time on them, the fat renders into grease and the Grill Grates may channel the grease to places other than onto the drip/deflector and out the end to the bucket. Check to see if the fire was under the drip shield.

The meat wasn't on the sear plates yet.

They were just in there off to one side because it's hard to put them in a hot grill but I have watched quite a few videos in which the guys from Rec Tec fill the grill up with wings or burgers and have the sear plates off to one side and use both the open grill and the plates for the entire cook time.

 

[Roaniecowpony]

I was cleaning up my 700 this morning after having smoked a fatty farm raised salmon fillet from Costco on Christmas day. I noted that there was fish oil that had run over to the front ledge that holds the grates. None on the back ledge. The grill was not level. It was tilted with the front down where I used it. I figure the main grates let the fish oils run along them to the ledge. A bit was down in the barrel too. I imagine if it was a large fatty piece that rendered a lot, it would have been quite a mess and maybe a fire like yours.

 

[Roaniecowpony]

I did! I poked all of them all the way around with a fork. I opened the over door to peek in at them and right after I closed the door I heard the explosion. I'm gonna blame it on Food Lion taters. LOL

Weaponized food! What will the terrorists think of next?

 

[Kim]

I started pulling the grill apart to see what was going on. I just had it apart and cleaned it about 3 small cooks ago. No foil on the drip pan because I didn't have any the last time I cleaned it. The drip pan was seated properly, the grill is a little high on the grease draining end but really...my deck is level and I even moved the grill around to a couple of different boards and checked it.

The grease is obviously pooling in the middle and there isn't even enough there to drain really. I have noticed before when cleaning that ashes blow up around the grill. Not too fond of that idea but I didn't vacuum out the bottom the last time I cleaned is and there were a few more ashes in there than maybe there should have been.

I got some picture to send to RecTec. I don't see a way really to adjust the height of the drip pan on either end. :-/

The sear plates were all the way to the right and in there like they should be but I moved them before I thought to start taking pictures. I didn't try to clean the grill any after I used it the other night until just now so it's kind of disgusting looking.

 

[Kim]

So basically what Rec Tec told me is what we already know, that I had a grease fire. They said that if I don't use foil then I need to clean my drip pan every time. However, the grease in my grill when the fire happened is way less than a grill full of hamburgers and wings would produce in one cook. Additionally I have a shelf so theoretically I could put pounds and pounds of burgers on that grill. If one small venison tenderloin, smoked then seared and two sausages (the small cooks that I had since last cleaning the grill) produce a grease fire how am I going to get through a smoker full of burgers?


Additionally I almost always cook large pieces of meat low and then crank the grill up to sear them. There will be grease puddled on the drip pan is it going to catch fire every time?

The entire reason that I bought a pellet grill was for the ease of reverse searing. If all that I wanted to do was smoke meat then I have a BGE with a temp controller for that. The issue there is setting it up for low and slow and then getting it hot enough to sear in a matter of minutes. I could have bought a cheap gas grill to sear on after pulling the meat off the BGE. Heck I could have set up my Weber to sear after cooking at a lower temp.

I'm not happy right now. Customer service caught himself just before saying that the grease was puddling up there instead of running off like it should have.

 

[bfletcher]

I fully understand and agree with your logic, though I wish I were expert enough to challenge and point you in the right direction. Is it possible there was an anomaly and you will have dozens of future cooks without incident? I hope so; it is frustrating to have worrisome feelings. Could juices have dripped between the barrel and drip tray during removal or reinsertion of your roast? How significant was the fire?

 

[Kim]

I fully understand and agree with your logic, though I wish I were expert enough to challenge and point you in the right direction. Is it possible there was an anomaly and you will have dozens of future cooks without incident? I hope so; it is frustrating to have worrisome feelings. Could juices have dripped between the barrel and drip tray during removal or reinsertion of your roast? How significant was the fire?

The fire didn't get too bad because I was watching the temp on my phone. The alarm for the temp fluctuation did not go off which I did mention to them.

I usually just cook for two on grill so haven't really taxed the grill yet. My reverse sears so far have been individual steaks so not much grease to accumulate.

I need to get a bunch of burgers and just cook a grill full and see what happens before I have a bunch of people over and try to cook a lot on it with people here. LOL

One thing is that smoking the roast at 200 and pulling it after two hours the internal temp was only 90 degrees so really no fat had rendered. Then when I put it back on after the grill had reached 300 it was only on about 15 minutes before the fire. Really odd and yes maybe an anomaly. It was also a really lean piece of meat for a rib roast. They only had two left to select from. It was a Food Lion piece of meat so maybe the fire was Food Lion's fault too.


Sorry for harping on Food Lion but I am old enough to remember the Food Lion meat scandal and I rarely ever but meat there. At 6.99 per pound for rib roast the only way to go wrong is if it ruins your expensive pellet grill.

 

[Roaniecowpony]

Kim,
The smoke pattern looks like the fire was concentrated center and left. Was this what you saw too?

The center of the drip tray looks like it had a fire.

The grates look like they had a grease fire in them as well.

As for reverse sears, I prefer a front sear when the meat is very cold (think freezer for 20 mins), then a low temp smoke to bring the core to the desired temp. This keeps the sear from over cooking and provides more "smoke-on" time. It may just prevent a pit fire too. I haven't tried this on my pellet grill, but on my komados, I build a hot fire in the charcoal basket and raise it to just under the grate to sear. Then, I put the meat (tri-tips mostly) back in the freezer, reconfigure the fire to a 200F smoke and put the meat back on to smoke. I imagine I'll use the same principles on the pellet grill, since this has worked for me for many years of tri-tip cooking.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Kim, just for reassurance sake, not so much to answer the why of your fire. The greasiest cook I've done was two butts and two racks of ribs at the same time on the 590, drained enough fat juice to fill the bucket roughly half way, maybe a tad over that. I have foil on my pan and some of the fat juice lingered there, though just a very small amount. That, coupled with quite a few Stampedes out in the market, some I've seen pics of them loaded with fatty meats for big cooks and yours is the first flash fire I recall seeing reported. I suspect it's not a basic design issue, more likely some set of specific issues that unfortunately came together in a risky way for you.

That evidence of a puddle in the middle of the drip pan doesn't seem right considering how much slant there is to that pan when functioning properly. First, of course, is to verify correct installation. Second, with all the reported deflector twisting on the more recent models of all RT units I'm wondering if yours might be one that twisted enough to lift the drain pan enough to slow or stop drainage.

 

[Midwest Economist]

+1 for Uncle Bob’s suggestion of a warped heat deflector shield. After receiving my Stampede earlier this month, I seasoning it (high temp) one day and followed the recipe to reverse sear two ribeyes on grill grates the next day (bringing the Stampede up to high temp only for the sear). In both instances, I hit the off button and left the Stampede plugged in to cool down by fan...I did not unplug and leave the Stampede at high temp.

My second cook was smoking and glazing a fully cooked spiraled ham....temp set point and actual were both 300 degrees. upon opening the lid to apply a third coat of glaze, I noticed the glaze that dripped off had pooled, built up, and run off the backside of the drip tray and down to the fire pot.

After the Stampede cooled down, I disassembled the cooking chamber components (assuming I was a knucklehead and had assembled them wrong) and found that my heat deflector shield was indeed warped, so much so that the drip tray no longer sits at it’s designed angle, no matter which way I insert the deflector shield. I searched the message boards here and read some of the stories...

I’m sure RECTEC would do right by me if I spoke up and sent them photos, but instead, I opted to purchase a 10 gauge heat deflector shield from Smoke Daddy....the cheaper one, not the one with the attached cavities to insert more smoke wood.

Am I mad? Nah....in my opinion, RECTEC has designed a product that is overall superior to anything else I have found in the same price point. We buy a specific automobile because we feel that overall, it is superior to its competitors, then we spend money on the aftermarket circuit to trick it out....so as far as I am concerned, I did the same thing by going to Smoke Daddy.

 

[Kim]

Kim,
The smoke pattern looks like the fire was concentrated center and left. Was this what you saw too?

The center of the drip tray looks like it had a fire.

The grates look like they had a grease fire in them as well.

The largest and hottest part of the fire was coming from under the sear plates which were on the right side of the grill. So I'm sure the heat was pretty intense under the sear plates and probably coming up between the holes. The fire may have already burned out on the top of them by the time I got out there or maybe it was getting ready to ignite. It's hard to say. There was a small fire on the left side as well. Of course that is what was happening by the time that I got out there and I watched the temp rising for a couple of minutes before I got up to see what was going on.

As for reverse sears, I prefer a front sear when the meat is very cold (think freezer for 20 mins), then a low temp smoke to bring the core to the desired temp.

If you haven't tried a reverse sear then you really should. The end result is a much more consistent level of doneness or in my case lack of doneness. The gray edge of a piece of meat that is cooked to rare or medium is far less with a reverse sear than it is when the meat is seared and then cooked.

I even cook my turkeys low now and finish off with a sear. By the time it's time to sear the skin has dried out some and you get a real nice crisp skin.

The tri tip pic is leftovers sliced cold, smoked and then seared.


The drip pan was seated correctly. My heat deflector is slightly warped. I will check and see if it's holding the drip pan up. I put the level on the drip pan and it is only slightly higher on the left.

The drip pan cleaned up pretty well with a wipe down and a plastic scraper. Of course there wasn't really that much on there. I just thought of another thing. I have been using quite a bit of Heifer Dust. The sugar in the rub could be damming up the grease since there is so little and causing it to pool more.

 

[Kim]

BTW thank you to everyone that has taken the time to read and reply.

 

[Uncle Bob]

An additional comment on the warped heat deflector that I've held back from making for some time now with the expectation that the RT folks would handle it. Maybe they are/will, or...……...

I don't share the knee jerk contempt for Chinese made products that some folks have. I grew up in the post WWII era when products from Japan were panned in much the same way. In time they evolved their production to become world renowned for quality for the most part. Some Chinese products have evolved similarly, but I suspect that the normal (unfortunate) human behavior patterns still apply and not all contractors have equal integrity. That preamble out of the way, I have noted in some of those previous deflector warp threads that I don't see the issue, and many of the members who have been here for longer than, let's say, 9 - 12 months have likewise stated they've not seen the issue. My guess is that somewhere in early 2019 production the production plant changed something about the way the deflector is made. Either material or process, perhaps a combination of both, which results in the warpage. If enough people make a complaint to RT they will see the pattern and most likely "do the right thing", whatever that might entail. Having run a business I appreciate that sometimes the decision makers are in the blind about an issue that needs increased attention, not out of negligence, but out of lack of communication. If enough customers don't complain about a possible common problem it might appear as the rantings of merely a few cranks. Not fair, but reality. Enough people complain and attention is grabbed and the more who complain the higher the intensity for solution. Anyone who reads this, and has a legitimate warpage issue should be relentless about making RT aware so that it can't be ignored. Don't sit there thinking it's not the customers job to do that..............it is. Complaining to others won't lead to a solution, complaining to those who can do something about it increases your odds of a satisfactory outcome. I yield the soapbox...........