Shut Down - Keeps on smoking

Roaniecowpony

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  1. Bull
Looking for other's experiences. I shut down my Bull going on 25 mins ago. It is just now diminishing heavy smoke. The smoke was about twice what I see when running on LO. I checked the hopper that was about 1/4 full and there was no smoke coming from there. I haven't noticed this in the past, but I may not have been paying attention. Anyone have similar experience? Oh, and I had initially shut down from a 350 burn and noticed this, then started it up again and lowered the setting to LO and let it run for 20 mins or more before shutting down again.
 
Mike,
I vacuumed the pot and screw on both ends just before this run of a few hours.
 
Not sure if this is exactly the same, as I haven't seen really heavy smoke, but after the shutdown fan cycle it dumps pellets into the firepot. This isn't a problem if you were smoking but if you were grilling at high temps those pellets will ignite and burn off. I've had this happen many times and it's quite annoying. I don't know why RecTec doesn't do that at startup instead of at shutdown.

Usually setting it to LO and letting the temp come down to about 250 or so resolves it. That can take even longer than just letting them burn out, but my logic is that it may reduce the chances of an auger tube fire.
 
Any thoughts on leaving the lid open during shutdown? I've done that to help with cool-down and hopefully avoid burning the pellets added after the FAN cycle. Not sure if it truly helps though...
 
I've left the door open as well, just to cool it down faster so I could cover it that evening.
 
i tried with lid open and found the shut down cycle just takes longer. I do what has been described already. From high heat i got back to 225. When it hits temp i turn it off. I start and end all cooks at temps of 225. Just my thing... not any science to it. Does take a few more minutes.

I clean mine when the grease pan tells me too. Likely every 2 or 3rd cook depending on what i cook. And when cleaning I always vac out all pellets from cook pot. And put a handful of fresh in. I share that in this string because it is always half-full of ash which is clearly what causes my longer smoke (and fan) run times after i shut down..(used to be worse when i shut off from high temps). When i used to clean after a high cook quick shut down fact pattern that pot was almost flowing over with ash which i have to believe is the smoldering effect you see.
 
I had this happen and found that my cause was when I finished the cook and taking off the meat etc., I had left the RecTec on so it was calling for more pellets to compensate for the heat drop all the time I was emptying the grill, and then I would shut the grill off for the cool down leaving a ton of fresh pellets in the pot to smoulder. The fix was to shut the grill off for cool down before I opened the lid and started pulling off the food.
 

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