Smokin' After Midnight!

Nope, I run mine many times overnight unattended.

The issue of fire is they old "grease build-up" and if you keep the smoker clean between smokes, you won't have a problem.

Me too. I generally wake up in the middle of the night anyway and go check the hopper (FE hasn't needed my attention though).

One nice thing...after I'm done cooking and burn all the pellets through, open the door and the FE cools down fast so it can roll right back into the garage.

I keep my FE on my side porch, right off the kitchen. Cook butts, chuck rolls and briskets all night long without any problems. There isn't anything that you can cook that would use a full hopper of pellets, so there is no need to open the cooker until the meat reaches the correct temperature.

eno,
to give you an idea of how comfortable i am with my fec during competitions i sleep in our trailer with it running.
the whole fire thing is like smokinokie says and my shut down procedure is just like candy sue
1-run all pellets thru
2-as soon as we park the rig we vacuum out both the hopper and firepot. lots of people dont but when they get the dreaded "pellet-crete" i'll bet they wished they did
3-racks,grease drain and everything gets cleaned up and that is everytime it is used.
the only thing my fec ever did that gave me pause was it burbed smoke thru the hopper. only did it once but i think it was because i had the rig door shut and i hadn't turned on the hood system and that was the only time i ever can remember it doing that
hope this helps
get an fec you will love it!!!!!
jack

I am one that has experienced a fire in my FE. Had I read and followed the advice of others, and cleaned it out, it wouldn't have happened. I have done many overnight cooks where I sleep like a baby with the knowledge that the FE is clean and has everything under control. Besides, when you do an over nighter,it's most likely going to be at a lower temp. such as smoke-190* as opposed to cooking chicken thighs where you may run it up to 450* to crisp the skin.
Joe

This forum is great. The info is very helpful and thanks for the speedy replies.

I guess I'll keep dreamin' a little longer. Maybe in the Spring!

the worst part is cleaning out the grease! Do that first, get all the greasy parts out, then do the vacuuming. After you get out the greasy stuff, hose those parts down, get them to soaking, vacuum out the pellet feeder, hopper, inside the smoker. wipe out the inside of your smoker with a lemon juice-water combo. Then you can scrub the racks of all loose stuff. Rinse everything and towel dry. After you place it back in the oven, leave the door open so everything can air dry real good.
Be sure to line all the parts that the grease will be dripping into and onto with heavy duty aluminum foil before you use it. As long as we follow these steps, I feel very safe with our FE running all night, even sleeping beside it!
Peggy