Fire... Still Salvagable?

I hope the position of your drip slide in the pictures is a result of putting out the fire. If not, it's probably the cause.

I also notice that you have the side racks in the top holes. Unless I need extra room on the top rack, I always hang the side racks from the lower set of holes. It gives a greater slant to the drip slide, and helps prevent grease from pooling on the slide.

Hope things work out for you.

Yea, it was from putting the fire out and warping. I am about 99% sure I have never moved the racks.
thanks
Bryan

It really looks like everything should be OK. The top rack looks like a rib rack, but that makes no difference.

I to wonder if the grease shield was like that before the cook started?? With the angled lip I feel it would be hard for it to just jump out of the groove. If it had, the Wagyu puts out so much grease it could have been the cause of the fire.

RandyE

quote:

Originally posted by Randy E:
It really looks like everything should be OK. The top rack looks like a rib rack, but that makes no difference.

I to wonder if the grease shield was like that before the cook started?? With the angled lip I feel it would be hard for it to just jump out of the groove. If it had, the Wagyu puts out so much grease it could have been the cause of the fire.

RandyE

I have seen this before when the drip slide was inplace correctly and then after use i seen it out of the top notch just like that in the picture, i have come to relize that when you foil the drip slide you need to make sure that the foil follows the lip conture correctly of the drip slide and i also push it down to make sure that its locked in and seated before every cook, but the looks of the bottom of the FEC you can see the grease pooled up in the back corner possibly due to the drip pan falling down on top of the fire pot, looks like the FEC100 can be fixed and cleaned for future use... and a Must for a no fire situation is to be sure the FEC is Level so the grease dosent pool up and catch fire and clean the uniit out with every use.

I had a small one start in my sm45. It was my fault. I grabbed a rack full of ribs and ran them inside. I forgot to turn it off and left the door open.

Luckily I can see it from my couch. I was watching a game and out of the corner of my eye I saw flames. I ran out and took care of it. If it was not for the fact I was in the vicinity and could see it, I think my smoker had a chance to look like the one above. (lesson learned)

Hi To Everyone,

First I should say that if you look at the number of FEC100's being cooked on, fires are not the normal occurance. However with that being said we are still very concerned about them and do not want to see them happening. There are basically two reasons that most of the fires occur. The first being the drip tray not installed correctly. Either not slopping to the drain trough or pushed to either the front of back of the unit with meat over lapping it. Both instances allow for grease to drip below the shield.
The other thing we see from time to time is wind blowing back into the flue and actually blowing out the fire. Then the unit relights with too many pellets in the fire pot causing a large flane that will light the grease on the drip shield.
So, we caution everyone to make sure the drip shield is in correctly and that the unit is turned so the wind will not blow directly into the flue.
I hope this helps everyone, and happy cooking.

Thanks Stuart.

Yep,we are always picky to do that and thanks for pointing it out.

Ribdog and I were just talking about the number of FEC s out there,the number of cooks on each one,the number of cookoffs we see them without any problems,statistically what would be the historical chance of a fire?

We even wondered if Al foil over the small roof over the firepot could possibly flame,or maybe just break down?

We agree that even one fire to a cook is too many to them,but overall the percentage would have to be too small to even calculate.

As you know,Eddy has taught many of us to put our big meats on about 8-9PM at cookoffs and go to the motel, until we come back for breakfast and get the ribs ready to go on.

I read these reports and they would almost scare me,if we didn't have the confidence from doing this all the time.

Thanks for the constant study and field conversations to keep on top of these fine cookers.