Ironwood 885 - Power Outage & Reigniting Smoker

[sfluegel]

Last weekend I was smoking ribs and the power went out for a couple of minutes. When the power came back on attempted to reignite, and smoke started coming out everywhere to include the hopper. Got extremely nervous so I unplugged and emptied the hopper. Note, I vacuum/clean the entire 885 after all smokes to include using a blower.

What is the correct way to handle restarting the smoker in the middle of a smoke session?

Thanks in advance!

 

[RayClem]

You are lucky. There are YouTube videos that seem to show grills exploding in such situations as the hot gases reignite. If you do attempt to reignite the grill, always do so with the grill lid open so pressure cannot build up. That is how I ignite my grill even when it has not shut down.

If you live in an area where there are frequent power failures, you might want to purchase a Uninterruptible Power Supply to allow the grill to operate long enough for a graceful shutdown.

One device that some forum members use is the Jackery Power Station. They are not inexpensive, but if you do have frequent power outages, they can save ruined cooks. If you ever smoke packer briskets, it would not take many ruined cooks to pay for one. Losing a rack of ribs is not that big a deal.

ttps://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Portable-Explorer-Generator-Optional/dp/B082TMBYR6/

I do not use one on my grill as we rarely have outages in my community and I never do un-monitored cooks. I have CyberPower UPS units on my computers, router, etc. but they use sealed lead-acid batteries and are too heavy to be useful with the grill.