I'm going to make a guess here:
Well I followed your directions & I was able to get the pellets to burn & actually work correctly... Thanks so much for that!!! But now in doing so I ran into another issue with cooking temps... I have cooked baby backs religiously but yesterday I started a smoke base on the 2-2-1 method @ 225 degrees & never hit over 135-145 degrees on meat probes after 10hrs on the smoker... After I removed them from the foil I put them in aluminum pans to prevent the sauce from making a mess which i always have done that too just wanted to mention that since it's part of the cooking equation... I first thought my element was bad but I ran the temp up to 250 & it climbed correctly then I raised it to 275 & it followed & by 9:30PM I could see the heating element glowing red so I felt confident the element was working properly... The only thing I can think of was they were frozen ribs but had thawed in fridge for 2-3 days & felt thawed when I marinated them... So I am puzzled as to what happen but thinking by leaving the dumper pulled out 2-3"'s & cooking at 225 did that affect my cooking or is it possible they were still frozen in the bone??? Last question is I pulled the meat around 10PM because it was bedtime so I took them from the smoker & still showing 140 ish degrees & placed the aluminum pans in the fridge... Will it be safe to heat these up to correct temp in the oven or should I toss them???
I'm thinking maybe you blocked one of your mid racks with too much foil pan, and not enough space between them for the air & heat to pass through.
If you have your MES set at 250°, there is a little sensor on the back wall (looks like a toggle switch), and that sensor tells your heat when to stop & start.
So if you have one of the racks above that sensor blocked up with food or pans, the heat is trapped below the blockage.
This causes the the sensor to start & stop the heat, but the food that's above the blockage doesn't get the full amount of heat, like the food or air below the blockage.
It happened to me one time, but because I had a couple of Maverick probes in there, it was easy for me to figure out the problem.
If you're sure this wasn't the problem, let me know & I'll do some more studying on this.
Bear
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