Hot Burning Pellet Brands

John.

Well-known member
Messages
45
Location
Jefferson, MD
Grill(s) owned
  1. Trailblazer
I had a thought. After making adjustments to keep and maintain a steady temperature, I finally ran into the "trying a different pellet" thing. I had picked up a bag from Costco that I thought I'd try since I was running low on pellets. I let the hopper run empty, while still having pellets in the auger area, I filled the hopper. A few minutes went by and the temperature started to rise. At one point reaching over 100 degrees higher than the set temperature. I turned off the grill and I took a trip to the closest place I knew that had pellets for grilling, Ace Hardware, and picked up a bag of pellets made by Weber. I removed the old pellets and dumped the Weber Pellets in and fired it up. The Temperature ran high for a few minutes burning the leftovers but fell and maintained the set temperature of 225. Problem fixed. So my thought was to have a place to list everybody's experience with what pellets burns too high. This is what I picked up at Costco. It might be a good brand but it made my grill run hot.

SmokeHouseBlend.jpg
 
I wonder how it would do if you just left it for a few hours? I ask simply because i have had crazy temp swings running rectec pellets, where like you it would run up quite high them eventually settle back down. The pellets will burn a bit different for sure but wonder if the controller would eventually figure that out?
 
I wonder how it would do if you just left it for a few hours? I ask simply because i have had crazy temp swings running rectec pellets, where like you it would run up quite high them eventually settle back down. The pellets will burn a bit different for sure but wonder if the controller would eventually figure that out?
The above story is an abbreviated version. :) I replaced the pellets in the middle of trying my 1st pork belly burnt ends with the SmokeHouse brand, since I was running out of pellets. Since the temperature went up once these pellets started to burn, I had to adjust the time for the burnt ends to finish them. I went as far as cleaning the grill after it cooled from the burnt ends and firing it up and letting it run for about 1.5 to 2 hours at 225 and it kept a very high temperature. That is when I bought the Weber brand. I'm not suggesting that I'll stick with the Weber brand or think they are the best, it was simply a different option from what I had and I wanted to test to see if there would be a difference in the results. I was really hoping the controller was going to adjust, the bag was about $15 LOLOL thought it might be a deal. :)
 
I used Smokehouse brand Apple blend for some ribs and they worked fine. I have my auger speed set at 3.5.
 
I used Smokehouse brand Apple blend for some ribs and they worked fine. I have my auger speed set at 3.5.
Interesting, I wonder if it's just the blend? I had my feed rate adjusted to 3.0 prior to this. Since this adjustment was done, and the grill in under a covered patio, I figured I had everything covered to keep a steady temperature. The only thing that had changed at the time was the pellets. I'll keep the Apple blend in mind.
 
I forget what the lowest setting on the controller feed rate is, but thats what i have mine set too. If it was going to have a chance at all with adjusting to hotter burning pellets that would be the only way.
 
I have been using the Smokehouse brand as shown off and on. The $15 price for 40lbs is hard to not use them. I have adjusted my feedrate down to 3 and so far have not had any issues. I just did a overnight pork butt and it was pirmarily the smokehouse pellets in the hopper.
 
I'm experiencing something similar. Since I bought unit in March, I've been using Lumberjack pellets. I mainly use 100% wood options, such as Cherry, Oak, and Pecan. I have a bulk order of pellets from Lumberjack coming in next few weeks. I was pretty much out of pellets and had about 5-10 lbs left in hopper, so I went to Academy and bought the B&B brand of pellets(Cherry). I know they are made by BBQers Delight from my research. I started a brisket at night and in the morning after wrapping it, I started to get temp swings. At times, it would go 20-40 degrees more than I set and once it went lower, like 20 degrees below set point.

Today I'm making ribs and getting about 20 degree temp swing up from set point. I've set the Feed Rate to 3.0% and hopefully that will fix issue.

My theory after it burned through rest of Lumberjack pellets for Brisket(pre-wrap), it finally got to the B&B brand(post wrap) and has been causing the temp swings since.
 
Lowering down to 3.0% didn't fix issue. It held for a while and at some point my grill shut off. Ended getting ERR 1 PF for a while, which is power fault. I was able to get it to power on after about 10-15 minutes, but I saw flames in back of barrel in middle, so I shut it off. During this too, I saw smoke coming out of hopper.

I powered it off and left it off for couple hours to cool off. I ended cleaning out grill out and it seemed like I had pellet dust caked/solidified in the fire pot when vacuuming it. I found grease that was at end of barrel on side where grease bucket is. I wiped it off best I could.

I ran it this morning for about an hour at 350 and had no issues. I did set it back to 6.50% feed rate too for my test burn this morning. I plan to make some pizzas in day or 2 and I'll see if I've fixed my issue or not.
 

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