@BuckeyeBBQr , I would hold off on using those pellets for baking, in fact, I would advise against anyone using these pellets at any temp. I ordered the combo pack from home depot (bag of almond pellets, plum pellets, spice rub and a couple jars of honey). Used the plum wood on Friday with chicken thighs and drumsticks, smoked for an hour at 225 and then bumped the temp up to 375 to crisp up the skin. Doneness was fine but didn't like the rub (a convo/thread for another time).
The next day, my wife wanted to baked a blackberry pie, also using the plum wood. Set the temp to 425 baked it for about 20 mins, then dropped it to 375 per the recipe. We noticed the berries just weren't bubbling after an hour of cooking which was unusual for my Traeger. Bumped the temp up to 400 about 10 minutes after that and just kept an eye on it.
After an hour and 45 mins pulled the pie. We decided to make some BBQ chicken pizzas with the leftovers from the thighs/drumsticks so I opened the hopper to add more pellets and saw some smoldering coming from underneath the pile, around the auger opening. Weird, I thought, so I added more pellets and turned the temp up to 425.
Came back about 15 minutes later to find yellow, acrid smoke bellowing from the hopper and when I opened it up, it was so thick that I couldn't see any pellets. I immediately emptied the hopper into a metal bowel but the smoke kept pouring out of the auger area. I tried clearing the auger from the menu commands but the smoke didn't recede from the hopper side. At this point I removed the pizza stone, grates and metal shields, exposing the firebox. This is what I found:
Hard to tell from this perspective but that box was filled to the top with some sort of slag. I took a spoon and carefully removed as much of this as I could. The part that's not black was ONE single piece of what looked like plastic! It was too hot to handle but a smaller piece had broken off and I took it out of the Traeger to let it cool. Looked just like gray plastic or some kind of cured epoxy. I then primed the auger about 3 times and flaming pellets that had ignited due to the blockage and extreme trapped heat kept falling into the firebox. When the smoke had cleared (literally!) I surveyed the damage. The entire auger is black and there is a strange dark residue on the "tunnel" surface that the auger spins in. The firebox appears to be in tact but the entire inside of the smoker has a terrible plastic, horrible smell to it.
I would have taken more pictures but I was in emergency mode just trying to get the smoke and flames out. I haven't been able to get that smell and taste out of my head since.
Couple things that I think are important to know:
- I routinely vacuum out the ash in the firebox and inside of the grill and had JUST done a full vacuum and wipe down before Friday's chicken
- My wife and I have been using the Traeger all summer long for smoking, baking and searing without ANY issues up till this point
- I've used nothing but Traeger and Bear Mountain pellets with excellent results and nothing like this has happened before
- I removed all the Bear Mountain pellets before cooking the chicken so it was only the plum pellets for both the chicken and the pie cooking sessions
- This smoker has performed flawlessly and as expected since I purchased it last year from the Costco (Silverton 620)
I really don't want to just smear a company, especially since I was so excited to read about their products and try the plum and almond pellets. I like that they sound like a family run business and I will be calling them later this morning to explain the situation. I'll report back with how that goes. I just wanted to give a heads up so that nobody else has something like this happen to them.
But now I'm turning to the community here, as well as Traeger support to ask...what has potentially happened to my smoker and what needs to be done, cleaned, checked, replaced??? I'm really bummed and am worried that all I'm gonna taste going forward is that awful smell every time I cook with my Traeger. Is my auger compromised? How about the channel it rides in? Could the excessive heat travelling down the auger, now that it's been charred, have had a negative impact on the drive motor or electronics?
Thanks for reading my long post folks. I hope to come back with more information soon.
-Steve
Thanks so much, Ted, for letting me know about this!! I'm actually going to be ordering from home depot today so I'll be sure to look for those plum pellets. And I hope you report back about the pork butt. Before the Traeger, I would use a combination of plum and cherry when I cooked pork butt and they always turned out great. Happy smoking!
