Yesterday was Christmas Lunch here at the pellet plant. Took the FECs out of storage and ran pipe out the wall of the warehouse. There is a cap vent on the outside end, but the pipe does not extend over the roof. Winds on Wednesday and Thursday were really, really bad here.
Biggest piece of beef (53#) went on the cooker about 1 on Wednesday, with 2 more 20+ lb. chunks on at 5 pm. Loaded the hopper up and I went home. Fire was burning good. The 2nd shift super checked it before he went home at 11 and added some more pellets to the hopper. When I got to work yesterday morning at 6, the warehouse was full of smoke, smoke was billowing out of the cooker's door and hopper! Opened the door and the fire pot was overflowing with pellets at the glowing ember stage. Hopper looked like moisture was dripping out from under the lid and down the control panel. Opened the lid of the hopper up and the pellets were swelled up from moisture all the way up to the lid of the hopper. The pellets down at the auger were smoldering. Meat was cooked (thank goodness!).
Near as I can figure, wind had blown in the exhaust pipe, blowing moisture up the ramp into the hopper. I had a drip pan to catch drippings for gravy, so very little juice ran into the drip pan. It was a mess! But the lunch was Great! The beef was tender and very flavorful. Gravy was superb!
Merry Christmas!
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