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[jgrayson]

Hello,

I have run into pellet feed trouble.  About a week ago I started a brisket.  The Yoder started and then climbed up to the temperature setpoint, and it held the temperature for a few minutes.  Then the fire went out.  I looked at the app on my phone and realized I had a problem and I was able to get the fire started again and finish the cook hours later.  The weather had been damp and rainy lately so I was behind on cleaning out the burn pot and running the vacuum, so I did all that before starting it on Saturday to cook a couple of chickens.

It didn't help.  I started the Yoder and it got up to temperature.  I got the chickens in the smoker and even stuck a temperature probe into one of the birds for monitoring purposes.  I had been working in my wood shop on a project and was fairly dusty so I went into the house to get cleaned up.  After taking my shower I checked the phone app and saw that the internal temperature of the Yoder was down in the 60's (it was in the 30's outside so the fire had been out for a while.

I went out and tried to restart the Yoder as I did a few days before with the brisket.  Nothing.  I took out the chickens and removed everything so I could see the burn pot.  I noted that the burn pot was pretty much empty.  I hit the Prime button on the controller to try to force it to feed pellets.  Nothing.  I took a handful of pellets and put them in the burn pot to test the igniter.  Yes, that started a new fire, but the auguer still doesn't feed so the fire went out again.

Defeated, I took the chicken inside to cook in the oven.

Has anybody run into a problem similar to this?  Winter came to town yesterday with snow so it will be another day or two before I call Yoder tech support.  I'm just not interested in working on the smoker while standing in 6 inches of snow.

[Canadian John]

 What comes to mind is damp/wet pellets. The first and easiest thing to do would be to remove the pellets. They should come out as they went in; individual pieces.

 Clumps = water. The source of entry needs to be located and sealed off..

 Damp, not wet pellets can be revived in a very low heat, ~ 200º  oven. Spread them out for max exposure.

 Just make sure that after the hopper was evacuated of pellets the auger is run so it evacuates all its content.  A leaf blower works great at this point to clean out the fines..

[jgrayson]

Thanks for the response.  Initially I discredit damp/wetness because it did run for about 15 - 20 minutes before stopping.

Once we get some melting I do plan to empty the pellet hopper so that I can see into the auger looking for evidence of pellets clumping together.

[jgrayson]

Hello,

We had good weather Friday, so I went out to the patio to work on the problem.  I dug out the pellets to get down to the auger.  Thankfully, I was was right about a possible moisture issue.  There was no evidence of pellets clumped together or forming a sort of cement (I had seen this years ago with an older Traeger).  I was unable to twist the auger at all by hand or by pushing the "Prime" button on the controller.

I was surprised by what I found though.  When I dug down to the auger I noticed that 4 or 5 pellets were jammed between the auger and the opening of the tube.  I was unable to totally break these free by hand, so I broke them up with a screwdriver.  They broke off and then I could advance the auger by hand.  I then turned it back on and the auger started turning to load pellets into the firepot.  Behaving normally. 

I then cooked dinner Friday and Sunday, so it seems to be ok.  I've been using pellet smokers for about 10 years, and I had never seen pellets use teamwork to prevent the auger from turning.  The pellets in the hopper were made by BBQers Delight - Hickory, so it's not a case of using weird pellets.

[Canadian John]

 Most interesting!  With millions upon millions of pellets being produced daily and the many processing operations involved, something just had to go amiss to some degree. Nothing in this world is 100%.. Just

 wondering what it could have been. A small stone, nail, or? forced into the pellet in the manufacturing process?   If it ever happens again, try and retrieve the offending pellet(s) for examination.

 

[Bar-B-Lew]

Were the pellets longer than normal?

[jgrayson]

Were the pellets longer than normal?

The one's that teamed up to form the jam didn't appear long, but part of their length was hidden from view.  Then I broke them.

This being said, I did not while scooping out the pellets from the hopper that quite a few seemed longer then others.  Generally, I burn Cookin Pellets, but I received 5 bags of BBQers delight for free with this Yoder, so I can't say if these longer pellets is normal for that brand.

[Bar-B-Lew]

I would pay attention to the length of them before you put them in the pellet hopper again.  They may need a soft breaking up to make them a little smaller before using.  I suspect that may be the issue.

[ofelles]

I have used BBQ'er Delight pellets in my pre "S" 640 since I've had it (about 3 years) and never experienced a problem with them.  So I don't think it's the pellets.   Maybe the stars aligned just right that a couple of pellets teamed up to mess with your cook.