I was smoking two butts last weekend and mowing the yard at the same time. The pellet grill ran out of pellets just minutes before I checked on it, but fortunately the butts were done.
I refilled the hopper and allowed it to cool down, but wanted to restart it so it would be ready for the next smoke. I went through the normal start procedure 3 times before it caught and the temp started to climb. It has a default setting of 150° once the start sequence finishes and has always held that until I manually ramp it up to my desired cooking temp.
Expecting no problems, I got involved with other things and came back about 10 minutes later. I was shocked to see massive smoke billowing out of it and the temp indicator reading nearly 400°!!! I lifted the lid and could see flames in the bottom of the chamber, so my first thought was a grease fire even though the butts were in a pan. I killed the power and threw some baking soda at the end of the deflector where I saw flames, which almost put them out. I let it cool and removed everything to clean and was shocked to find several hand fulls of charred pellets in the bottom of the chamber that had caught fire and had smoldered.
After a thorough cleaning, I restarted the grill and it would try to ignite, but the temp indicator stayed on zero after the ignition sequence and it would go out. I did a hard reset on the control board and tried twice more with the same results. I e mailed GMG and they said it was a temp sensor failure and got one in the mail the same day. I am puzzled how or why the sensor failed and curious if it was a coincidence, or if the running out of pellets and subsequent runaway had anything to do with it? I sure hope the sensor cures the problem
I refilled the hopper and allowed it to cool down, but wanted to restart it so it would be ready for the next smoke. I went through the normal start procedure 3 times before it caught and the temp started to climb. It has a default setting of 150° once the start sequence finishes and has always held that until I manually ramp it up to my desired cooking temp.
Expecting no problems, I got involved with other things and came back about 10 minutes later. I was shocked to see massive smoke billowing out of it and the temp indicator reading nearly 400°!!! I lifted the lid and could see flames in the bottom of the chamber, so my first thought was a grease fire even though the butts were in a pan. I killed the power and threw some baking soda at the end of the deflector where I saw flames, which almost put them out. I let it cool and removed everything to clean and was shocked to find several hand fulls of charred pellets in the bottom of the chamber that had caught fire and had smoldered.
After a thorough cleaning, I restarted the grill and it would try to ignite, but the temp indicator stayed on zero after the ignition sequence and it would go out. I did a hard reset on the control board and tried twice more with the same results. I e mailed GMG and they said it was a temp sensor failure and got one in the mail the same day. I am puzzled how or why the sensor failed and curious if it was a coincidence, or if the running out of pellets and subsequent runaway had anything to do with it? I sure hope the sensor cures the problem
