Pit Boss Issues

[Quiganomics]

So when we moved into the new house, there was a Pit Boss PB820PS1 left here is like new condition. I cleaned it up and gave it to my daughter to use. Since running it, I've noticed the following two issues:

1. Lots of smoke pushing up through the pellet hopper. No fire or flame issues, just smoke from within the cook chamber. The exhaust is fully open, so this is confusing.

2. When the pellet hopper is full, only the pellets above the hole for the auger drop down, and it creates a tunnel, eventually leading the Pit Boss to believe it's out of pellets. This is pretty irritating as it forced you to have to go out and stir the pellets every hour of risk it flaming out. So at this point, we can't really use it for an overnight smoke.


I've never been one for pellet grills, I'm an offset guy with my easy button being a CharGriller Gravity. However, I did have a Z-Grill pellet grill that I sold when we moved that I rarely used but didn't exhibit any of these issues. Any guesses what's going on?

-Shaun

 

[Jim_C]

I may be simple minded, but if the outer part of the chute is not sliding, perhaps there's a bit of friction on the slopes. I'd consider a dry kitchen sponge and running it up and down the side slopes of the chute. Something to break up the "gunk" on the slopes to improve the slide. I would stay away from anything abrasive, and I'd be reticent to apply liquid to the slopes of the chute, but perhaps the dry sponge could dislodge the gunk and improve the slide.

 

[912smoker]

So when we moved into the new house, there was a Pit Boss PB820PS1 left here is like new condition. I cleaned it up and gave it to my daughter to use. Since running it, I've noticed the following two issues:

1. Lots of smoke pushing up through the pellet hopper. No fire or flame issues, just smoke from within the cook chamber. The exhaust is fully open, so this is confusing.

2. When the pellet hopper is full, only the pellets above the hole for the auger drop down, and it creates a tunnel, eventually leading the Pit Boss to believe it's out of pellets. This is pretty irritating as it forced you to have to go out and stir the pellets every hour of risk it flaming out. So at this point, we can't really use it for an overnight smoke.


I've never been one for pellet grills, I'm an offset guy with my easy button being a CharGriller Gravity. However, I did have a Z-Grill pellet grill that I sold when we moved that I rarely used but didn't exhibit any of these issues. Any guesses what's going on?

-Shaun

Hey Shaun I've used a couple of different models of the PB at friends and vacation rentals and had exactly the same experiences. Very frustrating when the temp starts dropping and still plenty of fuel in the hopper. Don't own one ....and probably wouldn't....unless there's a cure out there somewhere.

Keith

 

[Quiganomics]

I may be simple minded, but if the outer part of the chute is not sliding, perhaps there's a bit of friction on the slopes. I'd consider a dry kitchen sponge and running it up and down the side slopes of the chute. Something to break up the "gunk" on the slopes to improve the slide. I would stay away from anything abrasive, and I'd be reticent to apply liquid to the slopes of the chute, but perhaps the dry sponge could dislodge the gunk and improve the slide.

That was my first thought. I gave the hopper a good cleaning...I even went as far as to give the inside of the hopper a nice coating of carnauba wax. No luck.

-Shaun

 

[Quiganomics]

Hey Shaun I've used a couple of different models of the PB at friends and vacation rentals and had exactly the same experiences. Very frustrating when the temp starts dropping and still plenty of fuel in the hopper. Don't own one ....and probably wouldn't....unless there's a cure out there somewhere.

Keith

Agreed, it's very frustrating. What makes it worse is it appears that the ignitor only kicks on on the warm-up cycle, so if you run out of pellets due to the tunneling and go stir the pellets to get them feeding again, the auger just continues to drop the pellets into the burn pot and they'll never ignite. Forces you to take the dang grates off, pull out the deflector, and remove the pellets from the burn pot. Then you gotta start the whole cycle over again. I really question how this thing passed the smell-test to get to market. Luckily, it was left here with the house and I paid nothing for it.

-Shaun

 

[Jim_C]

Given what you have experienced, and Keith's comments, I might be inclined to grab some sheet metal and start playing with the slope. Of course that may impact capacity.