Fire in MB Gravity Fed 1050

[2Scoops]

I've used my gravity 1050 about 20 times now and it's been rock solid. A few weeks ago I put on two slabs of ribs and was a bit overconfident and didn't set the alarm on my air probe to alert me of any issues. Everything was running smoothly for the two hours at 225 then wrapped them.

About 25 minutes later I randomly checked the temp via the app and it was well over 500 degrees. I ran out to the smoker and the inside clearly had some type of fire going and the ribs were ruined. - They were charred to a crisp, the brown sugar in my wrap caramelized, etc.

I'm getting ready to fire it up again for a 10lb pork butt and curious if anyone has any thoughts on what caused this or precautions I can take. I scraped down the insides to clear any debris and cleaned the grease pan. I've never washed the inside with a degreaser or soap/water and hoping it was an isolated event of some sort.

Open to ideas and thanks for any thoughts!

 

[Smokin Okie]

I would say you had a grease fire. I can't think of any other cause.

Before putting the ribs on, did you clean your grease pan ?

What grate did you put your ribs on ? Did you use a drip pan ?

What can happen with these MB gravity feeds, is grease can pool and then an ember can go from the coal bed, through the manifold, and hit the pool of grease. And then ya got a fire.

But at the temp your were cooking, I would think the fan was not running strong enough to push an ember into the cook chamber. That's only happened to me when I was searing and had the temp set up to around 500* .

But man, its gotta be a grease fire.

On my 560, I line the grease pan with foil and replace it about every other cook. And I always use a drip pan, which means cooking on the middle grate or buying the LSS mod that allows a drip pan below the bottom grate.

 

[2Scoops]

Thanks for the reply.

I always use drip pans but I do recall that I used smaller ones for this cook so there might not have been full coverage below the ribs. The ribs were on the top and middle grates, drip pans below on the bottom grates. I also have the LSS mod so could use the ones at the bottom as well but don't always do that.

The grease pan was cleaned out and I cleaned it again tonight just to be safe.

I was thinking maybe some liquid dripped out of my wrap and somehow started a grease fire but not sure if that makes sense. Definitely going to have to watch my overnight cook closely.