Other day was processing venison. Decided to smoke ribs instead of throwing into grind pile. Was in hurry so set for 220 and went back to work. Twenty minutes later burn pot is full of pellets and no smoke. This is the kind of stuff that happens when your rushed.

Pertneart every time.   Alleviates problems and hassles.

Pertneart every time.   Alleviates problems and hassles.

Yep

Depends on hours and temperature. For low & slow, around every 15-20 hours. For high temperatures, 350°+, every 5-10 hours. 

Other day was processing venison. Decided to smoke ribs instead of throwing into grind pile. Was in hurry so set for 220 and went back to work. Twenty minutes later burn pot is full of pellets and no smoke. This is the kind of stuff that happens when your rushed.

Did you catch it before the mini explosion?

B/4 every cook.

On my smokers I clean before ever cook as they are easy to access. On my charbroiler I must admit not ever time  .

I'll clean it out every 3-4 cooks.

Other day was processing venison. Decided to smoke ribs instead of throwing into grind pile. Was in hurry so set for 220 and went back to work. Twenty minutes later burn pot is full of pellets and no smoke. This is the kind of stuff that happens when your rushed.

Did you catch it before the mini explosion?

Yes I did. I know what your talking about. On my old CC I was not that lucky. Thought I was going to burn the paint off.

I had the lid on my MAK pop open once from the explosion but not a big fire.

I clean it before every cook.  Of course I only have to open a door and pull out the burn pot to dump it.  It takes about 10 seconds to clean mine out.  I've even cleaned mine out during one of my really long cooks.

 After or before every cook as advised by Greg @ Memphis. I always do a clean-up after so the pit is ready to go..As Greg advised; you don't have to vacuum, just remove the burnt clump of ash either

with your hand or the Genie tool... As the igniter in the Memphis is outside the pot, the small hole in the pot that allows the superheated air to be blown into it must remain open to work.

On my FEC-100 I scoop out the burnpot with a tablespoon before startup every cook, and scoop up what is laying on the floor of the cooker as well, or if soiled with grease I change the foil I keep on the floor.  This is because it is all easily accessible, and there is generally some ash left in the burn pot after the remaining pellets burn down.

When I had my Traeger, maybe once a month I would take it apart and clean it, and that's mainly because it was a pain removing the grates, drip pan, and heat diffuser to get to the pot.  Honestly it didn't seem to cook much different after cleaning the pot, so I had no real encouragement to do it more often.  Add to this, I updated to a later Traeger controller with a shutdown cycle, so after doing this the pot was always nearly empty when I checked, so I stopped worrying about it.

When I had my LG, the grates were easier to remove because they were split into 3 of them.  The drip pan could be lifted with one hand, while the pot was inspected.  I say inspected, because the pot never had any leftover ash in it due to the shutdown cycle.

Now with my PG500, when the fan kicks on, there is a small burst of ash out of the firepot, from the last cook, which settles outside on the removable ash tray.  Note the PG500 is like my FEC-100 in that neither have specific shutdown cycles to burn the leftover pellets and blow out the ash.  I empty the ash tray every few cooks when needed.  The fire pot is pretty easily accessible, so if I wasn't cooking on it several times a week, I might be more inclined to lift the grate and the deflector (both very easy to do), and scoop out the pot just so moisture in the ash doesn't make it crust over such that it would not blow out on the next usage.

On my Memphis Pro, every time after a low temp smoke (learned the hard way). If it's a short high temp cook, nah - burns clean.

On my Memphis Pro, every time after a low temp smoke (learned the hard way). If it's a short high temp cook, nah - burns clean.

Ditto here.  If my last cook was a high-heat cook and I am going to do a long smoke I will let it go - my thinking is I will have poorer combustion and more smoke.  Who knows.  Hard to tell.  ALWAYS clean it after a long smoke and especially before "burning off" after a long smoke.

Z