I was in the middle of cook last week and ran the pellet hopper out. That's what I get for putting a piece of tape over the sensor. To make a long story short , after I added pellets and refired it, it was taking forever to get hot. I took everything out of the grill, brisket, rack, drip tray, racks, and the heat shield. I could see the hot rod was glowing and pellet were burning but the fire box as filled with a lot of ash. I wondered what I could use to clean some of it out. I grabbed a garden trowel and scooped some of it out and just put it with the rest of the ash on the bottom of the grill as I didn't want to put it in the trash due possible small burning embers yet. Combustion fan was still running and it blew some of the ash out also. I replaced everything and it proceeded to get back up to temp rather quickly. Lost about a 45 minutes when it was all said and done.