Recovering from a flame-out

Hi Madrona. Good to see you making a post over here. I have yet to have a flame out on mine. Hopefully someone here will chime in and get you some help.

If it goes out during a cook it can be tricky, but take the grates off, take the cover off and use a propane torch to relight them OR

just turn it off and turn it on, the ignitor will come back on think it was turned off.

Are there pellets in the burn pot unburned (and overflowing) or nothing in the pot?

Are the pellet feeding okay?

Something affecting the airflow?

I don't really adjust my settings, so I'd have to go look up nordy's post on those to see if that's the cause. Got back to the default.

I've only had it happen a couple of times... BUT...

On my PG1000 I have 1)shut off the power, remove the grates, use a large metal spoon to clean out most of the pellets and turn the power back on. (Usually will increase the LHT setting as well).

OR

2)(and I don't recommend this for safety reasons) keep the power on, remove the grate, squirt some fire starting gel on the pile of unburnt pellets and light with a long match or lighter... I used a lot of gel... and when it lit... it LIT!

Madrona - I would probably make sure the pot is clean and ash has not built up in the pot. (a mini-shop vac does a great job of vacuuming out the pot)As ash buildup can impede air flow. And I would increase your LHT setting by 5 until you reach a point that you aren't having flame outs. On my PG1000 that point is usually 10 for me, however with some pellets it could be higher or lower.

Another common flamout situation is when dropping the temp from relatively high to relatively low... say 400 degrees to 225. Sometimes the LHT will be on for a long time as the temp drops and the hot fire will burn down too quickly for the LHT to keep it going.

Nordy

On Saturday, I was doing some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I set the temp at 375, but I got impatient at about 280 decided to go ahead and put them on. So I opened the door, put the chicken breasts on, and at that time the fire was going just fine. Then I closed the door. About 15-20 mins later I went back out there and the temp was at 180, there was no fire, but the augur was still running and there were unburnt pellets in the fire pot. I turned the unit off, and back on again, hoping that would turn on the igniter but it didn't seem to (??). So I went and got one of those long lighters, and held it over the pellets until they caught fire w/o using an accellerant. Then I turned the unit back on, and waited for the flames to flame up, put the chicken back on, and shut the door.

Later, I opened the door and moved the chicken from Zone 4 to Zone 1 for the last few minutes as I was getting antsy for lunch. I put them on for about 3 minutes, then opened the door and turned them, left them for another 3 minutes, and went back again and noticed there was no fire... again.

So. Is the opening the door too much killing the fire? Maybe this is the big temp drop while I've got the door open?

Nordy do you vac out the unit every time you use it?

Madrona,
I leave my door open for long periods of time when using zone 1 with no issues. Out of curiosity what is the elavation were you live?

I don't vac after every use... usually once or twice a month depending on use. (and I use it a lot)

Ignitor didn't come on likely because the temp the pit controller was seeing was still above 130-140...

I would call Cookshack because this type problem certainly is not "normal"... they can walk you through some testing etc.

Blergh I don't want to call tech support.

One thing I noticed while at my dads Place today (he also has a pg500) is that it looks like our rain cap over the exhaust pipe got bent in shipping. When I go home tonight I'll see by how much. This could be restricting air flow leaving the unit... But it would surprise me if this was the whole problem?

Tim - I am at about 60'.

Also - it is worth noting that despite the drama, these were about the best boneless skinless breasts I ever ate.

quote:

Originally posted by Madrona:

Also - it is worth noting that despite the drama, these were about the best boneless skinless breasts I ever ate.

Madrona,
I'm gonna need a lesson. I just got done posting in Cal's thread about this. The
flavor on mine have been awesome but a little to dry.

Hopefully that is the problem as that should be an easy fix.
I remember reading a thread on a problem with the 1000 where someone
had the exhaust reatricted to much. Can't remember if it was causing
flameouts or not.

quote:

Originally posted by Madrona:
Blergh I don't want to call tech support.

One thing I noticed while at my dads Place today (he also has a pg500) is that it looks like our rain cap over the exhaust pipe got bent in shipping. When I go home tonight I'll see by how much. This could be restricting air flow leaving the unit... But it would surprise me if this was the whole problem?

That may have been me on my 1000. I was having problems keeping the temp down to smoke at low temps like 180 deg. Removing my rain cap helped it.

With the PG500, It very well could be the airflow with a bent rain cap.

Your situation which is very specific to opening the doors etc is a tough one... thus my Cust Serv recommendation. I am by nature a "tinker-er" and messed with my pit for a long time before breaking down and calling cust service. Took about 15-30 min of testing for Tony to say... "take off the cap and see what happens" It worked. These guys know the product and know what they are doing in trouble shooting, and won't stop until things are working right.

Glad you had a successful cook, but you shouldn't have to worry about flameouts with the PG500.

Play around with it and the settings... (may need to increase your LHT). See if you can re-create the flameouts etc.

The best thing I did was stick a remote thermometer on the indirect side and start up the pit while not cooking anything. I messed with the LHT and HHT settings to see what happens... I logged the settings and temps... and drank a few "pops"... That 2-3 hours of watching a thermometer and logging settings and temps and exhaust cap heights etc as well as pellet types was some of the best "learning" I've done on this pit.

My aversion to calling CS has nothing to do with Cookshack and everything to do with my ability to have an intelligent conversation while having a 4 year old constantly pull at my leg.

I completely agree re: temp logging being good learning. I PM'ed SavannahSmoker a while back to find out what equipment he is using to make those pretty temperature graphs on that other site we read. Turns out it is something like $500 worth of equipment! What kind of remote thermometer do you use? I should probably get one of those, at least.


Here is a pic of the bent rain cap:


Bent rain shield by seahills, on Flickr

Hubs has now removed it. We're under a covered porch so perhaps it isn't necessary to put it back on again? Anyway, I'll cook something tomorrow and see how it goes.


Tim: I think of BSCB as "poultry steak" insofar as you want to cook it the same way you might cook a steak... so I used FE's steak method -- 20 minutes on zone 4, switch to zone 1 for the last bit -- 5 mins/side, maybe. Try that next time and see how it goes. But I think I saw in that other thread that you like your BSCB "charred?" If that's true, when you flip to Zone 1, I might bump the heat up some?

I have to admit I rarely eat a hot BSCB. I did on Saturday cause I was friggin' hungry but usually when I do BSCB I'm also doing something else, and I cook the BSCB to be put in the fridge and cut up on salads for lunches.

Agree on the 4 year old... I did it on a day I was off and they were at school!

I used a Maverick 732 remote thermometer. Good range, fairly accurate. I got tired of the probes failing though... So...

I went to the overkill side of temp monitoring and got a Stoker, I obviously am not using the "stoking" side of the stoker for temp control, but it's a very accurate temp monitor both for food and pit temps. And you can make pretty graphs. It is quite expensive for just temp monitoring but the probes have been very reliable and the alarms and twitter integration are nice.

I did all my "testing" with the Maverick though.

With the stoker graphs I got way too concerned with temp swings etc since I could see them on the graph... Bottom line IMHO, unless the unit is swinging 50-100 degrees... it probably doesn't matter much.

A LOT of the flameouts we see, in the FE's are because of two things.

Buildup of ash around the auger and
Airflow changes.

Now of course there are other areas, like fans, pellets not feeding, etc.

Troubleshooting can be lengthy, so I highly recommend trying the above and then calling CS. They're quicker than we can be in the forum.

Open the lid doesn't cause flameouts for me, it actually just changes the temp inside the grill with all the air incoming and it causes the auger to send more pellets to keep the temp up (since the temp outside will always be below most grill temps unless you're cooking in Hell

I wonder if the LHT is running such a lean fire that when the temp drops with the doors open... the HHT kicks in and effectively smothers the fire?

I guess you could 1) Increase the LHT or 2)decrease the HHT or 3)decrease the set temp when the doors will be open, then increase it back...

I love a good mystery

Good point Nordy.

When in doubt, go back to the basic settings and see if it happens.

I think I need to re-read your post about LHT/HHT cause those settings and what they do still confuse me.

I wish there were two sets of arrows on the controller - one for the LHT/HHT and one for the set temp.

I didn't get anything thawed out to cook today... I'll pull something out and see what happens tomorrow. Maybe I'll do a rump roast or something else that takes a while, and see what happens. If it doesn't work, I'll break down and call CS.

Your not alone Madrona. I've found myself scratching my head at times with lht hht. So far for the most part I've been leaving the lht @ 10 and only adjusting hht.

I took your advice on chicken and tonights was the best yet. Thank you.

Tim - Honestly thats what I do... LHT at 10 and adjust HHT. But if you really want to dial it in...

The LHT and HHT take a bit to get a feel for, but now it's just kind of second nature. That night I spent several hours testing temps and watching what the pit did with different settings pretty much locked it in for me in my head...

Cost me a few pounds of pellets... and a six pack, but was well worth it...

quote:

Originally posted by Madrona:
I think I need to re-read your post about LHT/HHT cause those settings and what they do still confuse me.

It's a sticky at the top of this forum for those that haven't read it:

http://forum.cookshack.com/eve...3105064/m/6422990417

I had the pg500 going for about 3 hours yesterday with no issues.

quote:

Originally posted by Madrona:
I had the pg500 going for about 3 hours yesterday with no issues.

Did you change something? Flue? LHT/HHT?

Hubs removed the rain cap the other night. Other than that, no changes. I'm still running 20,100.

Two more successful cooks this weekend (9 chicken breasts on Friday and salmon on Sunday) have made me think the problem was the bent rain cap. Who knew.

Good news Madrona. Hard to believe. It didn't look like that was restricting much.

I finally called customer service. The problem has gotten better but not completely solved. We had another flame out at the end of a butt cook a couple weekends ago, so I decided once the kiddo was at school to give them a call.

Tony was very nice. He told me that I do actually need a rain cap on the unit even though we are under cover, as the rain cap protects the flue from downward pressure. So they are sending me a new rain cap.