Back burn (smoke in pellet hopper)

TxDuster

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So, I’ve been using my pellet grill without issue for over 2 years now. This week (Fourth of July) I’ve done a good bit of cooking. I bought two bags of apple pellets from a local hardware store. Cleaned the grill before I started the week out and cooked some ribs with the apple. I used some other pellets (the turkey pellets I had in the garage) for the chickens and then started a couple of butts this morning.

I cleaned the grill, vacuumed and changed the drip pan foil before starting this morning. About 5 hours in, I noticed some smoke in the pellet hopper. I also noticed very little smoke from the stack this is not normal running at 225 deg. I shut the grill down. Moved the meat to my gas grill to keep it going and broke the Traeger down. I found the pot FULL of ash and chunks of small clinkers. They were small and easily broken but the ash was pellet shaped and not thoroughly burned. I cleaned the hopper out and ran the pellets out of the tube. I got the grill going again and about 3 hours in this time, it was worse. Smoke POURING out of the hopper and no smoke from the stack. I repeated the process above and found the same issue Photos below.

This time I switched over to Signature pellets to finish the cook. I blew my best shot at good smoke in the butts anyway so….. It seems to be running fine on these but I really hate to throw out the apple.

Could this just be a bad bag? Could this be an OLD bag (I bought two so I may have to throw the other away if old Is a problem)? I did some internet derived testing such as looking at the appearance of the pellet…nice and shiny. I dumped some in water and they sank… and the snapped well not crumbled when I attempted to break them. I think the condition is not an issue.

Is the problem running 225 for a long time???? Is the problem just an issue of an anomaly? Is fruit especially bad for this? As I mentioned… Everything seems to be running fine at the moment finishing this cook.

Looking to not have this happen again if possible.

DSF
 

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Idk that’s really weird.....seems like you may have just gotten a really trash bag of pellets?!?
 
Bad pellets for sure, maybe old stock? When I had a flame out, the pot was full, this forces smoke and fire up the auger tube. Then it's tear down and auger purge.

Per the Traeger patent, they use a lot of soy and wood oil. Wonder if it goes bad over time.
 
I had this happen on 2 different nights when it was really humid and rainy , the last cook I did, I used the same pellets and the humidity was lower and this didn’t happen.

Is humidity the cause, I don’t know . The pellets were purchased the day before the cook, they were Bear Mountain Sweet Bbq.

FEA9541A-7F26-4B1F-BA34-4385755C0354.jpeg

this was the crud the was in the fire pot.
 
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That is bizarre, pellets should completely burn up into fine ash. Pellets in a smoke tube basically vanish, in the fan blown firepot they should vaporize.
 
I also get that crud in the bottom of my 885. I though it was normal. I just clean it out after long cooks. No issues with my Ironwood.
 
So to follow-up. I ran the rest of the cook on Sunday with the Signature pellets. It was only a couple of hours but the results were dramatic.

When I cleaned out the apple pellets the second time on Sunday I ran it on high. I had scooped most of the crud out to investigate. I decided to change pellet wood and with just the pellets in the auger/tube and running it on high filled the fire pot almost to the bottom holes with ash and the clinker looking stuff. I got the signature pellets going and as I mentioned ran the rest of the cook (about 2 hours). I took the grill apart when I got home from work yesterday (monday) and there were so few ashes and slag in the bottom, i could see the bottom of the pot through the ash. There was, as normal, some build up around the edges but it was quite powdery (dark color though) and well consumed.

In regard to an earlier reply... yes it was humid and raining on and off most of the day so lots of humidity. I read on another forum fruit wood seems to have more of this tendency than other woods. Fruit in the rain. For now, I will not be running pure apple on a long cook without more research. I will blend which is what I have done most of the time for two years.

Thanks for all the replies and I'm convinced nothing is wrong with my grill and its just the pellets I chose to use on Sunday.
Dusty
 

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Thanks for the update, clearly some pellets have a component that doesn't burn up, causing eventual firepot clogging. We should have a do not use list I suppose.
 
Thanks for the update, clearly some pellets have a component that doesn't burn up, causing eventual firepot clogging. We should have a do not use list I suppose.
Yeah... Probably more like a "Use with caution". Pellets are a natural product that will have a level of impurities in them. I would imagine that blending and mixing of the sawdust that is used can cause issues such as pockets of too much bark (bark can concentrate minerals) or maybe even trees that have a high sugar content being cut at the wrong time so that the sugar can be too high. Of course I'm speculating here but I'm not going too throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet. I have had really good luck using traeger pellets and hope I just got a bad bag. That's the assumption I'm going on but I WILL be very very cautious of apple wood on long cooks. Experimentation on shorter cooks to see if it's the one bad apple (pun intended) bag or if its just problems using the configuration I was running 225 deg on long run and blending and not running those pellets on a rainy day are some things I'm going to pay a lot more attention to. I have to admit it's been interesting to learn but running the auger dry as a thunderstorm blew up around me was NOT my idea of a good time.

DSF
 
I had this happen on 2 different nights when it was really humid and rainy , the last cook I did, I used the same pellets and the humidity was lower and this didn’t happen.

Is humidity the cause, I don’t know . The pellets were purchased the day before the cook, they were Bear Mountain Sweet Bbq.

View attachment 6435
this was the crud the was in the fire pot.
I also used this brand and flavor of pellets in the winter and at really cold outside temp with absolutely no issue at all. This summer with more humidity, I think just be more aware and cautious.
 
I had this happen on 2 different nights when it was really humid and rainy , the last cook I did, I used the same pellets and the humidity was lower and this didn’t happen.

Is humidity the cause, I don’t know . The pellets were purchased the day before the cook, they were Bear Mountain Sweet Bbq.

View attachment 6435
this was the crud the was in the fire pot.
Replying only because I’m having this issue now with those same pellets. I’m convinced it’s the pellets and won’t be buying them every again major pain in the ass.
 
Clinkers are a "feature" of apple pellets. Unlike some species of wood, apple trees grow in such a way that it is impossible to debark them. Thus, when apple trees no longer produce a good harvest of apples, the orchard manager will take a chipper out into the orchard, cut down the tree and toss everything into the chipper. That includes trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves, including the bark. The bark of apple wood is high in silica. When the apple pellets are burned, the silica does not burn, but forms hard clinkers in the fire pot. There are some other fruit woods that are processed the same way and they can also produce clinkers, but not necessarily as bad as apple.

I do like the flavor of apple smoke, but you have to clean the fire pot after every cook to remove clinkers. Another way to minimize this issue is to blend the apple pellets with other wood species. I purchased applewood pellets early on after getting my Traeger. Once I learned of the clinker problem, I choose other types of pellets instead.

I use Bear Mountain pellets frequently and never have an issue as long as I avoid apple. Bear Mountain and Lumber Jack are my favorite brands of pellets; both come from the same producer.
 
Just a thought, If you use a smoke tube, you might try using those pellets in it and see if you have the same chunks that you noticed in your fire pot. I have used traeger apple pellets many times with no problems, but that doesn't mean all bags are the same. I have been very satisfied with Pit Boss comp blend, but like apple for ribs.
 
Just a thought, If you use a smoke tube, you might try using those pellets in it and see if you have the same chunks that you noticed in your fire pot. I have used traeger apple pellets many times with no problems, but that doesn't mean all bags are the same. I have been very satisfied with Pit Boss comp blend, but like apple for ribs.

Traeger apple pellets are a blend of apple and a base wood such as alder or oak, depending upon the region of the country.

Due to the issues with clinkers, most brands of apple pellets are blends rather than 100% apple. The higher the applewood content, the more likely you are to have an issue with clinkers.

In my initial post on this thread, I indicated that you can always blend apple pellets with other pellets to reduce the buildup of clinkers.
 
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