Trailblazer Trailblazer Not Holding Setpoint

[Nick D]

Hello everyone! I'm new here and new to ReqTeq grills. I've been looking through the forum trying to figure out why my grill is having trouble holding proper setpoint, but haven't found a thread that details the issue I'm having. I picked this grill up second hand and the top of the grill had a dent in it right at the right side lid hinge. I got the dent out for the most part, but the lid doesn't close quite as tight as I feel it should. This could be a big part of my problem, and I plan on continuing to work on it to get it to close a little better.

This is my issue. I can set the grill to 225 and it will come up to temp and hold around 225. Great, right? Well after awhile the temp will go up and stay up. The other day it was set at 225, but holding a steady 285. I was able to look at the temp charts and it had held 225 for about 2 hours then just went up to 285. The whole time the grill is above setpoint you can hear the fan constantly kicking on and off. I would think that the fan and auger would not come on that far above setpoint. Seems like it should stop and let the temp drop. Again, I'm new to this grill and pellet grills in general, so I dont really know what it should or shouldn't do. I can see where the lid letting in extra air could cause an issue, but would it cause something like this?

I've seen some information about the auger feed rate settings, but I dont want to just go adjusting things like that without asking for advice first. I have not tried setting up a different temp probe to verify the temp the grill is telling me. I plan to do that soon.

Thanks in advance for any advice, and I look forward to learning all about cooking with this grill from this site!

 

[ol' stonebreaker]

If the fan is cycling that means it's trying to lower the temp. It could be a bad RTD or even a bad controller. Try a different brand of pellets to see if it makes a difference. Check the auger feed rate setting, it should be about 3.0. These are just my guesses so don't chisel them in stone.

 

[Waterboy]

As @ol' stonebreaker said the fan kicking on and off is normal and what the grill does to stay at lower temps. I agree the feed rate needs to be checked. This is exactly what the feed rate setting is for. If your grill can’t hold lower temps you need to lower the minimum feed rate of the pellets. The controller will compensate at the higher temps so changing the feed rate will not have an effect on higher temps.

 

[Buckeye1]

If the fan is cycling that means it's trying to lower the temp. It could be a bad RTD or even a bad controller. Try a different brand of pellets to see if it makes a difference. Check the auger feed rate setting, it should be about 3.0. These are just my guesses so don't chisel them in stone.

Had a similar challenge last spring when the temps warmed up and I switched pellets for the Recteq pellets. I slowed the feed rate setting down and problem went away.

 

[Nick D]

I checked my feed rate and it was set to 7. I slowed it down to 3. We cooked a brisket on it last Saturday and it performed a lot better. The brisket turned out great!