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I`m curious if others are experiencing this with their FEC-100's.
I only have about 30 hours of cooktime on the cooker to date but have noticed that when set on the brisket or the chicken/ribs setting, the temp for the most part is pretty stable but there are times where the cooker will drop to between 214-220, dump more pellets in then smoke like a bandit.
It then will ramp up to about 230, then clear and settle back in or around the 224 range.
It actually happens quite a bit.
I cook in my garage where the wind is not an issue and there are times where I`ll be sitting in the living room and see the smoke rolling past the front window.
I always have a crossbreeze in the garage with the front and rear doors open but not enough to cause a draft within the cooker, plus I have a top take-off on the exhaust of the cooker.
I`ll go out, check on it and the temps are anywhere from 214 to even as high as 240,,,,,,,,thats without the cooker being touched.
Does that ring a bell with anyone?
I`m not complaining, If this is what its supposed to do then fine, but with that smoke barreling out like that I can only imagine that when the cooker drops to 214, the auger spits in a bunch of pellets, the ignitor re-ignites, flames are then present, temp increases then snuffs out the fire leaving sooty smoke to gather on the food.
The last cook I did there were a couple of spots in the cooker that were very sooty.
Mostly on either side of the heat deflector that sits above the firepot...the downpipe from the grease drain was very sooty as well.
Any thoughts?
Thanks very much.
Mop
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Take the side cover off the unit thats on the left side of the hopper. Some times they aren't quite on a 90 degree bend and they get to close to the draft fan and doesn't alow the right amount of air. Run it with it off and see how that works. If it's fine then just open the bend up a litte to like 80 degrees and reinstall. They ussually do better then the temps you were saying. If the pellets are real long then that can do it to but if those were the Traeger pellets that came with the unit , I doubt thats the trouble.
Hi guys.
I have emailed Eddy some close-up photos of several areas of the internal workings of the cooker just to see if something doesn`t 'look' right to him.
It all looks good to me but he may see something that isn`t quite right.
I hope to hear back after the weekend.
Anyways, I decided to vacuum out the firepot to see if there is a difference.
According to my manual it is to be cleaned out after 60 hours of burn time but I`ll try it anyways.
I vacuumed it out, set the cooker to ribs/chicken setting which as you all know is 224º for three hours.
After 10 minutes it was at 236º and seemed to become the new 224º as it stayed there for quite some time.
Much more stable mind you but 236º all the same.
After 40 minutes it seemed to like the 224 range and has seemed to settle in that range now.
I can still see the orange glow and flicker of flames when I look through the exhaust outlet from time to time.
Mostly after the temp drops a little below 224º.
Smoke doesn`t seem to roll out as heavy now but does puff some from time to time.....like I mentioned, mostly after the temp drops below the 224 mark.
I should note at this time the cooker is empty of any food........just the cooker with no contents to stabilize the temps so I`m sure that plays a roll in the stability of the interior.
Anyways, I`ll keep playing with it but I will say that after vacuuming out the pot the temps aren`t spiking up nearly as high.......I just went back out to the garage to recheck the temps and its still rock solid at 224º and like I said, no food in it.
Prior to vavuuming out the firepot I noticed a ton of dust on the ramp as well as the top of the firebox and the floor of the cooker.
I cleaned all that as well.
If thats all its going to take to keep solid stable temps, I`ll shop-vac the cooker out before every use....the shop vac is mounted on the wall next to the cooker so that little task is a breeze.
Anyways,,,,,,thanks for the replies and I`ll wait to hear from Eddy on the soot/flame situation..
I won`t be cooking on the unit til next weekend where I`m going to be cooking two 12 pound briskets so I'm good for time.
Roger
I should also mention that after a little over an hour now the cooker is rock solid at 224º to 226º......Its staying at 224º so long I was beginning to wonder if the display was stuck at 224..... Razzer
I have to go into work today to demonstrate a couple of motorhomes to purchasers but after that I may pick up a couple racks of ribs to cook up to check its operation.
So in a nutshell, the cleaning of the firepot has been the turning point.
Like mentioned, I`ll clean it out before each use.
Roger

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