Pellet Fan
Pit Talk -- Comments and Questions Regarding These Pellet Pits => Dansons/Country Smokers...Louisana Grills...Pit Boss => Topic started by: reubenray on May 30, 2018, 03:00:54 PM
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I finally had the time and cooperating weather to finally do a long smoke. I had two racks of St. Louis style ribs ready to go. For about three hours everything worked great. I had it set on 225 and the grate below the ribs were reading about 235 and the grate above the ribs were reading about 200. Then it went crazy. I first noticed a huge amount of smoke everywhere. At first I thought something caught on fire. The smoker was cleaned before this including cleaning out the firepot. I had only used it twice for heating up sausage and not a long smoke.
I looked at the temperature and it was at 165 and it then started to rapidly go up all the way to 450 degrees. It was so hot the water was boiling. I then lowered the temperature setting and opened the door. I could hear the fire roaring and see the flames shooting at past the heat deflector. Within a few minutes it started to cool down. When it got down low enough I reset the temperature setting to 225 and closed the door.
This happened four more times before I was able to take the ribs off. Each time I would notice a huge amount of smoke out of every seam it could and I could hear the roaring fire. It was so much smoke I could not see through the glass door. Each time I opened the door and lowered the temperature setting until the temperatures would come down. Except for the first time I was able to keep the temperature down to around 300. Each time the temperature would drop and then go up rapidly.
There was hardly any wind blowing and the ambient temperatures where in the upper 80's. This was as much work as a stick smoker would be.
Any ideas what would make this do this and how to fix it?
Another issue is I could not get my smoke tube to smoke. It would smoke when the door was open, but it did very little smoke when the door was closed. I took it out four times and while it was out it would smoke, but when I put it back in the smoke would stop. I also tried different locations for it. I guess it had to be an air issue.
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I would most definitely call the manufacturer..It sounds like a controller issue to me..
Not 100% sure on this; the smoke tube may not getting enough air as the smoker is rather well sealed and may have a low volume fan. Where was the smoke tube located?
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I would call the mfg. Sounds like certainly an air circulation issue for the tube smoker. They won't help you with that. It may be a fan issue causing the over smoke issue too. Did you set the smoker to 350° at startup like the manual recommends and then dial back to your set temp when it hits 350°? Not sure why that would be an issue but that is what they recommend. Maybe it does something to dial in the controller.
I used it for a several hour jerky cook and didn't have those type of swing issues, but I was at a very low temp setting too.
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I left mine going all day just to see how it did and I had a similar experience. I only noticed it twice though in about an 8 hour period. At the 150 setting I had a spike around 300, hours after I started it. Then I bumped it up to 225 and had a spike a few hours later that went over 400. Both times the only reason I even noticed it was because I saw it billowing a lot of smoke so I watched to see how high it would go. Mine was empty and the ambient temps were in the 90s. Oddly enough I do not recall Bentley having any issues with temperature spikes when he was testing your smoker. Because of that I wanted to get a few more hours of smoke on mine to see if it happened again before I said anything, to the manufacturer or here. But now that you mentioned the same thing, I may not be alone.
On the other hand at the smoke setting it runs great. I had mine on the smoke setting for about 4 hours the other day and the temp just went from 150 to 180 on a 90 degree day. I was pretty happy with that. I was pretty happy with the smoke production too.
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I would most definitely call the manufacturer..It sounds like a controller issue to me..
Not 100% sure on this; the smoke tube may not getting enough air as the smoker is rather well sealed and may have a low volume fan. Where was the smoke tube located?
I tried the tube on the grate right over the water pan in the center and on the side. I then tried it on another grate about 4" of so above the water pan again on the side and in the middle. I have my five grates spaced evenly in the smoker. I even loosened up the latch a little to see if it would work, but it would not stay lit.
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I would call the mfg. Sounds like certainly an air circulation issue for the tube smoker. They won't help you with that. It may be a fan issue causing the over smoke issue too. Did you set the smoker to 350° at startup like the manual recommends and then dial back to your set temp when it hits 350°? Not sure why that would be an issue but that is what they recommend. Maybe it does something to dial in the controller.
I used it for a several hour jerky cook and didn't have those type of swing issues, but I was at a very low temp setting too.
I actually did do as the manual says to do it. I don't know why, but I did it anyway. It worked perfect for around three hours. Even when I did the required shutdown where the temperature are set to 350 it worked great for 15 to 20 minutes.
I was lucky that the ribs were just put into foil when the biggest spike hit. Even with all of the temperature issues the ribs turned out pretty good.
I have already sent an email to Pit Boss.
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I would most definitely call the manufacturer..It sounds like a controller issue to me..
Not 100% sure on this; the smoke tube may not getting enough air as the smoker is rather well sealed and may have a low volume fan. Where was the smoke tube located?
I tried the tube on the grate right over the water pan in the center and on the side. I then tried it on another grate about 4" of so above the water pan again on the side and in the middle. I have my five grates spaced evenly in the smoker. I even loosened up the latch a little to see if it would work, but it would not stay lit.
Not surprising. The firepot is going to consume most of the O2 and not leave enough for the tube. Just curious, is there not enough smoke flavor without it? More smoke flavor was the one reason I was considering one of these.
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It did seem to smoke more than my GMG does even when it was not going crazy. I would not plan on using the smoke tube the next time.
I do need to find out how much to adjust the smoke stack cap. I had it about a finger width like Bently showed it in one of his pictures. I thought I read somewhere the cap was adjusted different for cold or hot temperatures.
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It did seem to smoke more than my GMG does even when it was not going crazy. I would not plan on using the smoke tube the next time.
I do need to find out how much to adjust the smoke stack cap. I had it about a finger width like Bently showed it in one of his pictures. I thought I read somewhere the cap was adjusted different for cold or hot temperatures.
In the assembly manual it said for smoking temperatures, cap more open. At higher temperatures cap lower. I do not have the time to screen shot it right now but I will later
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Page 11 from the online manual mentions it
https://pitboss-grills.com/downloads/pbv5p1_manual_77550.pdf
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Not really related; but my Jr. has far greater temp swings when it's hot outside.
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curious to hear what the mfg says
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It sounds like it went out, dumped more pellets and relit! Take the chimney off!
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It sounds like it went out. dumped more pellets and relit! Take the chimney off!
This is what I thought it was doing.
The first time it did this I had some company and I was not watching it closely. But when the temperatures kept getting higher, more and more smoke coming out and then hearing the boiling water and fire after opening the door I knew something was wrong. I did open the vent a little to see if it helped, but it still did it.
I have been reading on the Pit Boss Facebook group about the 225 temperature setting not working correctly. They are saying to use either 200 or 250 instead. Some have said they had to replace the thermocouple.
The way it is working now I would not do anything overnight. When it was working great I was already thinking about doing a full packer brisket, but not now. The grate temperatures via two oven thermometers was showing great temperatures for three hours.
I am curious how full the firepot is when I clean it tomorrow.
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It sounds like it went out. dumped more pellets and relit! Take the chimney off!
+1
It Has to have O2.. and lots of it for the pellets to rekindle and light off after an auger cycle..
The first indicator that there was a lack of O2 is your smoke tube wouldn’t stay lit..
:bbq:
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I talked to tech support at Pit Boss and his first words was "he had never heard of this doing that". After I described that this was the first time being used for a long smoke he suggested to open the chimney cap more.
This seems to be the consensus here to do that also especially with it not getting enough air to run the smoke tube.
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It sounds like it went out, dumped more pellets and relit! Take the chimney off!
Mine does the same thing and I have the cap as high as possible without taking it off. It ran for 2 hours at 250 without issue that I noticed. I turned it down to 200 and a couple hours later it dumped excess fuel. The temp dropped from 200 to 155, billowed nasty smoke, then I heard the fire start blazing and the temp went up to 260. It stays within 20 degrees of the set point except when it does this. It is definitely an issue with an excess of fuel being dumped on a small fire. I am trying 225 now and see if I have the issue again. I am not sure what, or if anything can be done to correct it. I'll probably call the manufacturer in the morning. For the record, ambient conditions are right at 100 degrees with 10 mph winds with 20 mph gusts and 38% humidity.
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I am not the OP but I am having similar issues.
Last night I said I was going to try at 225 and about 2 hours after I dropped the temperature, I looked out and saw the temp at 300 and watched it climb to 335 before coming back down. I missed the billowing smoke part this time though. Normally mine runs at set temperature +/- 20 degrees which I find perfectly acceptable. I have actually witnessed the issue a few times. In my case the tipping point is when the valley of the temp swing hits about 20 degrees below the set temperature. At that point the temperature usually starts climbing back up. When it does not, it starts to make the nasty smoke and will drop another 20 to 30 degrees and then I can hear the fire roar to life and it will shoot as much as 110 to 120 degrees over the set temperature. This is with the cap as open as possible. There are only a few threads meshing with the nut, just enough to keep it from falling over.
As a side note it seems to do this when the temperature rise over ambient is less than around 150 degrees. I am experimenting today. I am starting at 225 and if I have the issue I will turn it up to 250, then 275, until it does not happen.
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What level do you have the water pan on? I had mine at the lowest level which was directly above the firepot heat deflector.
I am on a Facebook group for PitBoss owners and several of them are having the same issues. Some say it is the 225 temperature setting and some say it is a bad thermocouple.
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My other times I was running with water pan empty and at the lowest location. All of the temp I spoke before were what the controller displayed. For my experiment yesterday I raised the water pan to the second lowest location, filled it about 3/4 of the way full and removed the chimney cap. I ran it for at least a couple hours each at 225, then 200, then 175, and never had the issue at all that I noticed. I ran it for about 8 hous in all and the water pan was a 1/4 of the way full at the end. There were a couple times the temp display on the controller would go about 50 over the set temp but the cooking cavity was only about 30 or 35 over. The important thing was I did not see the nasty smoke all afternoon. If I can spend another 8 hour period in the 225 range without the issue I will be happy.
For the record, it was another 100 degree day here in South Texas.
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I plan on doing some testing myself in a few days. I will go ahead and move the water pan up one spot. I also want to see if my smoke tube would stay lit. I will take the chimney cap completely off like Slaga did.
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It finally quite raining for a little while and I tested this to see if the smoke tube would stay lit. It would not. I had the temperature set on 200 degrees with the smoke stack cap completely off. It must have to do with not getting any air from the bottom. I had it about 6" above the lowest point and the water pan.
I am smoking some Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage for a get-together tonight. After a hour and a half the temperature is staying pretty steady.
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I think that door seal is too tight and there is only a fan for the fire pot and not one to circulate air in the unit so it probably is not enough to keep that fire going in the tube. Hopefully, it still works out well for you on your cooks without it. I have yet to fix mine. Just haven't had the desire to get it done yet.
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I used an Amazn tray with bust lit at both ends and the middle set on top of the deflector to smoke some cheese, but I did not have the unit on. I would try putting the tube on top of the louvers on the water pan where you have airflow. I know in my RT I pu it along the back wall with the air coming up from the bottom, it stayed lit.
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Besides the smoke tube not working the smoked breakfast sausage was a big hit. I only had the smoke tube in there to see if it would work with the chimney cap off. I never had any flare-ups like I did before.
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If you really think you need to use a smoke tube, try to pry the door open slightly to let more air in.
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My other times I was running with water pan empty and at the lowest location. All of the temp I spoke before were what the controller displayed. For my experiment yesterday I raised the water pan to the second lowest location, filled it about 3/4 of the way full and removed the chimney cap. I ran it for at least a couple hours each at 225, then 200, then 175, and never had the issue at all that I noticed. I ran it for about 8 hous in all and the water pan was a 1/4 of the way full at the end. There were a couple times the temp display on the controller would go about 50 over the set temp but the cooking cavity was only about 30 or 35 over. The important thing was I did not see the nasty smoke all afternoon. If I can spend another 8 hour period in the 225 range without the issue I will be happy.
For the record, it was another 100 degree day here in South Texas.
I just wanted to update this. I did a 10-hour jerky cook yesterday and I started with an 80% full water pan and never had the issue at all. I really think having water in the pan (which the manufacturer specifically stated in the manual) is a must. Mine is running great when I have water in the pan like I am supposed to.
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I am not sure I did every time in the Product Review, but I think I did 85% of the time, and I do not remember having any issues!
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The water pan is a heatsink only with water or an other liquid in it... Working, it absorbs or gives off heat depending on the temperature differential of the pit and pan.
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I think there is a little more to it then heat sink...what about the evaporating water dynamic?
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I think there is a little more to it then heat sink...what about the evaporating water dynamic?
Has a cooling effect.
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Same issues here with the temperature spikes. Doing my first cook on the Copperhead 5. Temp set at 225. Then spikes to 450. Has happened 3 or 4 times over the last 15 hours. Lots of flames and smoke. Will call customer service when I have time.
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You have water in the water pan?
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Same issues here with the temperature spikes. Doing my first cook on the Copperhead 5. Temp set at 225. Then spikes to 450. Has happened 3 or 4 times over the last 15 hours. Lots of flames and smoke. Will call customer service when I have time.
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Good luck and let us know what they say.
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You have water in the water pan?
Most of the time. It evaporated out a number of times
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The manual says to replace the water "often". I try to keep the water pan about 3/4 full. I also moved it up one set of holes from the bottom. I have only experienced temperature spikes when the water pan was empty.
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The manual says to replace the water "often". I try to keep the water pan about 3/4 full. I also moved it up one set of holes from the bottom. I have only experienced temperature spikes when the water pan was empty.
I'll give that a try and I'll try reading the manual. Thanks
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Second try was ribs yesterday. Temp was set at 250. It stayed around that temp for 5 hours and water never evaporated out of the pan. A little over cooked but very tasty(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180703/8281936ec6b65c8115b9c162b4036f82.jpg)
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The manual says to replace the water "often". I try to keep the water pan about 3/4 full. I also moved it up one set of holes from the bottom. I have only experienced temperature spikes when the water pan was empty.
I'll give that a try and I'll try reading the manual. Thanks
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I also found that using a small watering can for plants is the easiest way to add water while smoking.
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Second try was ribs yesterday. Temp was set at 250. It stayed around that temp for 5 hours and water never evaporated out of the pan. A little over cooked but very tasty(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180703/8281936ec6b65c8115b9c162b4036f82.jpg)
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How did you have your chimney cap (off, wide open, etc.)?
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Second try was ribs yesterday. Temp was set at 250. It stayed around that temp for 5 hours and water never evaporated out of the pan. A little over cooked but very tasty(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180703/8281936ec6b65c8115b9c162b4036f82.jpg)
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How did you have your chimney cap (off, wide open, etc.)?
1/2+ open. I've never adjusted it.
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Thanks, I am trying to figure out what is causing my flare-ups. It did it about 1/2 open and it did it with the cap completely off.
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Best I can figure so far is what was mentioned by another member. Not having water in the pan. I feel like that was an after cause of the flare up but I have no idea.
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There's no P-setting? Sounds like the classic flameout ( or almost flameout). I'm not sure why it would be more prevalent at 225F than when set lower though.
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There's no P-setting? Sounds like the classic flameout ( or almost flameout). I'm not sure why it would be more prevalent at 225F than when set lower though.
Nope, no P-Setting. The Copperhead 5 has a PID controller.
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I do think the controller and the probe attached to it to drive the auger could be better especially the length of the probe. But, you get what you pay for and figure out how to make it work.
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Best I can figure so far is what was mentioned by another member. Not having water in the pan. I feel like that was an after cause of the flare up but I have no idea.
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I had plenty of water in the pan both times. The first time it happened it was boiling the water and I added some to it. I even raised up the water pan the second time and it still did the flare up.
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There's no P-setting? Sounds like the classic flameout ( or almost flameout). I'm not sure why it would be more prevalent at 225F than when set lower though.
But what is causing the flameout? I tend to think it is due to not getting enough oxygen. I could not get my smoke tube to work which I believe it did not have enough intake air for it to burn.
Also both of my flare ups happened about 3 hours into the smoke. I was thinking that maybe the control board was getting hot about that time. When I put mine back together from unplugging the auger I put some foil backed tape on the heat deflector and above the control board.
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I have had similar temperature spikes. I emailed Pit Boss and the reply message given me was to do this at startup: (1) With the door open, start the unit at 200, (2) Once the pellets catch fire, close the door, (3) Let the fire burn for another 5 minutes before setting the desired cooking temperature. This seemed to work on my next two long smokes--ribs and pork butt.
Another thing I found online was some people suspect another issue is in the water/drip pan. Many believe this prevents sufficient air circulation in the cabinet. So. I stopped using it and have replaced it with a large aluminum pan filled halfway with water. About every 3-4 hours I refill it with fresh water. I may in the future experiment with the original PB water pan by keeping it empty and place the aluminum pan with water directly on top.
I hope this helps.