Bull Flame out and Minimum feed rate questions

[vegsmoke]

Hey everyone,
This is my second smoke on my Bull and I had it cruising at 225 for about an hour and a half and then i dropped it to 210. Shortly after that I believe I had a flame out. The temp kept dropping to about 150 and then it shot up to over 300. I looked up the minimum feed rate online and everyone mentions the default as being 6.5(even the app says it). I checked my feed rate and it was set to 30 (3.0) from the factory. I changed it to the 6.5 and it wouldn't keep low temp. It kept creeping to the 270s+. Also, when it was 6.5 and I was obviously way above my set 210 temp, the fan would keep cycling off and on...never heard that before. Anyway, I set it back to 3.0 and it's still kind of all over the place. My first cook was rock solid stable - nothing like this one. Before this cook I cleaned the fire pot out. I'm using Kingsford pellets.

I'm in California and it's about 80 degrees and the grill is in the sun. There seems to be a lot of misinformation on min feed rate out there. Thanks for the help.

 

[ricwoodard]

I'd set it to 4.5 and see how it goes. You just need to find the right balance.

 

[vegsmoke]

As I was wrapping the ribs I turned the grill off, let it do it’s thing and just turned it back on. I’ll see how it goes

 

[Beach Bum]

My Bull came set at 6.5. I was able to run consistent anywhere in the 180-250 range, depending on what I wanted to hit for that cook. When we had that nasty heatwave a few weeks ago it was over 100 air temperature and 140 in the smoker even before I fired up. I had to dial back to 4.0 to run well at 225 degrees. I have left it there and been good ever since. i have never gone down to 3.0, as 4.0 has been good for me.

 

[BethV]

I'm in sunny Southern California and keep my Stampede at 3.0. It was running way to high when set to the original factory setting of 6.5. RT customer support suggested that and it's worked great.

 

[vegsmoke]

I'm in sunny Southern California and keep my Stampede at 3.0. It was running way to high when set to the original factory setting of 6.5. RT customer support suggested that and it's worked great.

Hi Beth,
have you ever had any flame outs?

After I reset the grill after I wrapped them everything seemed to behave fine. I have a couple instances where it would spike 10-15 degrees but would recover rather fast. Still a little worried about the flame out and inconsistency of my first cook.

 

[vegsmoke]

@vegsmoke No flameout, nor do I want one. I have a Bullseye also and I'm very careful about keeping grease out of both grills. I foil my drip tray as well. Mine does sometimes jump 10-15 over, but it always goes back down. In extreme heat like we had a couple of weeks ago, it can be hard to hold the temp.

Did you see the flames? How did you know you had a flame out?

I had the temp set to 225 and lowered it to 210. After about 20 minutes I noticed the temp gradually decreasing to about 150 and then shot up to 300+. After that happened I started looking up minimum feed rates etc. After that flameout and MFR adjustment to 6.5 my grill was all over the place. Couldn’t hold 250. Kept creeping to 270s. Not sure if it was from the residual heat from the bump to 300+. No clue. I added the attachment of the flameout.

 

[BethV]

Hopefully someone in the forum will be able to better address this. I don't know what is happening. You could always call customer support for help.

The fan goes on and off to help control the temps. When mine originally spiked way too high, the fan was blowing on and off pretty much non stop. RT told me that the fan was working to try to bring the temps down.

 

[Waterboy]

@vegsmoke did you have anything close to the RTD? Did you have a water pan or wire rack near it? I have had issues with other smokers where placement of the meat, water pan, wire racks near my pit probe can really mess with the probe reading. Bottom line is there could be several variables, not just feed rate. Customer service can help you work through them.

 

[vegsmoke]

@vegsmoke did you have anything close to the RTD? Did you have a water pan or wire rack near it? I have had issues with other smokers where placement of the meat, water pan, wire racks near my pit probe can really mess with the probe reading. Bottom line is there could be several variables, not just feed rate. Customer service can help you work through them.

No I just had two racks of ribs and 3 individual short ribs. Nothing crazy.

 

[vegsmoke]

I’ve been running it empty for about 2 hours at 6.5 MFR since that’s the default and it seems to be behaving properly. Rock solid temps. Minimal swings.
I have one of the meat temp probes elevated off the middle of the grill and a Maverick ambient temp sensor near the same spot and at 250, the two other probes are about 10 degrees higher than what the pit says.

 

[Bif Hunkly]

Mine came set at 3 and I put it at 6.5 (because I had read a thread on the forum beforehand that said that is supposed to be factory setting. I cooked dino ribs for 8 hours at 285 and brisket for 10.5 hours at 275. Didn't notice any crazy fluctuations unless I had just spritzed and it was trying to bump the heat back up but then it would settle right back down to the set temp. Water pan was over near the sensor on both cooks and I used RecTeq pellets.

 

[Waterboy]

I’ve been running it empty for about 2 hours at 6.5 MFR since that’s the default and it seems to be behaving properly. Rock solid temps. Minimal swings.
I have one of the meat temp probes elevated off the middle of the grill and a Maverick ambient temp sensor near the same spot and at 250, the two other probes are about 10 degrees higher than what the pit says.

if I read your post correctly you have a RT probe and a Maverick probe reading the same but 10 degrees higher than the set temp on the controller. You can do an offset calibration to bring the pit temp to the same as the probes.

 

[vegsmoke]

if I read your post correctly you have a RT probe and a Maverick probe reading the same but 10 degrees higher than the set temp on the controller. You can do an offset calibration to bring the pit temp to the same as the probes.

yes I did see a video from Rec Teq on that but from my understanding the RT probe takes calculations from different parts of the grill? Not sure how that can be done but I was told to just trust it by RT support....?

 

[vegsmoke]

I spoke with customer support today and they confirmed that they’re shipping grills with a MFR of 3.0 now.

 

[charlesrshell]

I spoke with customer support today and they confirmed that they’re shipping grills with a MFR of 3.0 now.

What?

 

[vegsmoke]

What?

Minimum Feed Rate. They’re shipping them at 3.0 now as the default.

 

[charlesrshell]

Minimum Feed Rate. They’re shipping them at 3.0 now as the default.

When you get a chance read my thread.

https://www.recteqforum.com/threads/auger-minimum-factory-preset-value.2147/

 

[PapaWhisky]

I frequently have temperature instability problems with my Bull.

What's a flameout ?

 

[vegsmoke]

I frequently have temperature instability problems with my Bull.

What's a flameout ?

Where the flame essentially just goes out for some reason. The Bull then has to reignite. Usually the pellets somehow smother the fire.

the good thing is this grill has a reigniting system. My old Traeger you’d have to break the grill down and vacuum the pellets out of the firepot and start over.