Pellets catching on fire in small smoke house

[JckDanls 07]

The diffuser is meant to give you better smoke distribution

No.. It is for better heat distribution... Instead of all the heat being in the center ... Some reason i'm not finding my pics of it.... I'll keep looking... I know I posted some from the S. Fl. Gatherings...

 

[bill1]

You can buy the enclosed tray for burning pellets / wood chips . They choke off the air flow to the contents .
Could also use a cast iron skillet with wood chunks . To much surface on pellets to sit it on the heat source in my opinion .

I suspect that powerful heat source doesn't spend a lot of time "on" once it gets to temp. So like all are saying, when it comes on it just gets too hot for the pellets. But the cast iron trick works. You might need to limit the air on top, however. When I use one with a half-inch layer of pellets in it over my pellet grill crucible (now that gets hot!) I find I can avoid pellet fires with a lid (metal sheet, or I found a dog dish that fits perfectly) with just a few .25" holes in the lid--it gives plenty of smoke but doesn't flare up. And a little grease dripping on the top of it (yes the lid gets dirty) only adds to the flavor. The colander sounds like a great idea too, but it might have too many holes.

 

[Fueling Around]

No.. It is for better heat distribution... Instead of all the heat being in the center ... Some reason i'm not finding my pics of it.... I'll keep looking... I know I posted some from the S. Fl. Gatherings...

Found a couple photos of the smokehouse in the gathering from 2 years ago.

13th Annual South Florida Gathering (Dec 7th-8th 2024)

Mixed up 15 lbs of chipotle wildfire from Owens BBQ....got it iñ the smokehouse with smoke applied after 90 minutes of dry time,. C-YA in the morning.,.

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[JckDanls 07]

Thanks John II (@Fueling Around ).. For some reason I'm not finding any of my smokehouse pics in my picture folders... Had a bunch of them...

 

[chopsaw]

Nice setup .

 

[Forester579]

Thanks for all the replies. I took some earlier advice and tossed a couple fire bricks under the pellet tray. This seems to have worked so far. I have only done one test run but I ran the smoker about 20 degrees hotter than I normally would and had the air dampener mostly open. Ran for six hours without pellets going up in flames.

I am planning on making a diffuser similar to the pictures Fueling Around posted. The metal in those pictures looks decently thick? I have some 18g sheet metal lying around. Do you guys think that would work fine or is it better to use something a little thicker for the thermal mass?