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Pellet grills have become extremely popular and can be found on many backyard patios for everything from cooking hot dogs and hamburgers to brisket and pulled pork, thanks to their ability to maintain specific temperatures for hours on end. With a wide variety of different wood pellets to use as fuel, any dish cooked in them will have a delicious, smoky flavor. Whether you’re cooking for a large group on the Traeger Ironwood XL or just the family on something smaller like the Brisk The Origin 580then you are in for a treat.
Despite their many strengths, pellet grills can be tricky. These products aren’t simple charcoal grills or even gas models. The complex machines rely on a combination of mechanical parts, electronics, and even gravity to operate.
Sometimes, when chugging, something goes wrong in the normal chain of events. As a result, you may experience a flare-up, where the fire goes out. Or, in a more dangerous situation, an excessive fire may occur. However, there are ways to avoid these scenarios. If you implement them, you can quickly resolve these issues or prevent them from occurring altogether.
Prevent Pellet Grill Failures With Regular TLC This case started with a lot of smoke and escalated into a dangerous over-fire situation.
Cooking with a clean grill
Like every outdoor grillPellet smokers need to be cleaned regularly. Grease, ash, and other gunk build up over time. All that excess grime not only adds an unpleasant flavor to whatever you’re cooking; it’s also a serious fire hazard. At a minimum, make sure to scrape the grates clean before every cook. You’ll probably need a more thorough cleaning every month or so, depending on how often you grill.
Use a vacuum cleaner to quickly clean the firebox of your pellet grill.
Empty the firebox
Weber calls it a “burn pot” while Traeger calls it a “fire box.” Either way, it’s the part of your pellet grill where wood pellets come out of the hopper for ignition. Repeated cooking sessions without cleaning this area will lead to problems down the road.
Too many unburned pellets left over from the last cooking, along with a lot of ash, can prevent the fuel from lighting completely. This in turn can put the fire out in the firebox. Worse yet, it can cause fresh pellets to build up in a weakly smoldering firepot.
If all that excess wood ignites completely at once, you have an overfire. It’s a potentially dangerous situation that will generate massive amounts of smoke and uncontrolled flames in your grill. You might even experience a terrifying pressure burp as hot fumes fight for a way out of the cooktop.
Minimize the chance of these happenings by cleaning your firebox before every cook. The best tool for this job is a shop vac utility vacuum. It does the job in seconds and with almost no effort.
Empty the pellet hopper and check for any blockages.
Check the delivery of pellets
Sometimes your pellet grill can catch fire for no apparent reason. I recently had this problem with the Weber SmokeFire EX6. With a rack of baby back ribs on the line, the internal temperature of the smoker began to drop 4 hours into my 5 hour cook time. My target temperature was 225 degrees F, but the cooker dropped to ambient outside air temperature at that point.
There were also plenty of pellets in the hopper. I also didn’t see any tunneling — if fuel isn’t sliding down the sides of the hopper. This can cut off the flow of pellets to the rotating auger below that feeds the firebox.
The next step is to check for any obstructions between the pellet hopper and the auger. Turn off your grill and let it cool. Now place a large container under the pellet hopper. A bucket or sealed cardboard box will do. Now open the hopper release door. Pellets should quickly flow out of the hopper into your container. With the hopper empty, check for any obstructions or debris blocking access to the auger.
Clear the pellet auger and check for blockages.
Check that the drill is not stuck
Another cause of pellet grill problems is a clogged auger. This motorized, corkscrew-shaped component is what propels wood pellets from the hopper into the firebox. Sometimes augers can become clogged with ground pellets or other debris. To check for a clog, you may need to unscrew and remove parts of your smoker to access the auger. You should also unplug the grill before doing anything.
In my case, the SmokeFire’s drilling system isn’t hard to spot. On the back of the grill is a metal panel that covers the drilling assembly. I unscrewed four screws holding it in place and then removed it. I then disconnected the drill’s power cord (held in place with a pin harness) and then unscrewed the drill (two large screws).
I found a pile of crushed pellets blocking the fuel supply.
Then I carefully removed the auger from the grate. At the end of the auger I hit a piece of debris, the likely cause of my performance problem. There I found a mass of ground pellets stuck to the auger blade. I quickly removed the debris from the auger with a flat head screwdriver.
Start cooking again
With the auger system cleaned and tied off, I fired up the freshly cleaned and pellet-filled SmokeFire. The smoker easily reached an internal temperature of 225 degrees F. I had successfully solved my problem.
Of course, there are other things that can go wrong with pellet grills. For example, you may have a problem with the ignition of the fuel. The telltale sign of this is an excess of pellets building up in the firebox while the auger is turning to add more. If this is the case, the solution is likely to be replacement hardware.
Hopefully the advice in this guide will cover the most common problems you may encounter. And with a little maintenance you will be cooking again in no time.
