It’s to bad that @Roo hasnt followed up. All we can do now is speculate.
That said, I’m guessing we are dealing with a pellet grill with a central fire pot, and we were smoking at that Magical 225* temp For an all night’er.
Most pellet grills with a central fire pot are pretty decent grills, but they are poor low/slow smokers. These machines are marketed as “smoker, grill, and oven” all in one. They are marketed, or perceived to be “a set and forget” grill/smoker. It is this perception that has sold more of these grills than anything else. Think of it,,,,,, a set and forget “smoker”,,,,,, How cool would that be? Why, with one of these I could be a “pit master” and low and slow a brisket or pork butt to perfection over night at that Magical 225* pit temp, all while getting a good nights sleep. Seems pretty smart, doesn’t it? Trouble is, if something sounds to good to be true, it generally is. This concept is at its best, naive, and at its worst, irresponsible. No cooker is ever “set and forget” really, not to a responsible cook. At Bear minimum you need remote thermometers with high/low alarms, and a few trial runs where you are actually tending to the cooker and learning how it operates at low cooking temperature For extended cook times. The idea that someone would fire up a cooker, throw a piece of meat on it, then walk away for 9 hours with no prior experience and not a care in the world, speaks volumes to me. This subject is actually all to common on these forums. The subject line is almost always the same, and the series of events is almost verbatim in all of them. It’s like a get rich quick scheme except it’s buy this grill and be an expert pit master scheme.
Pellet grills with a central fire pot have a continuous fan forging the fire while the auger feeds pellets into one end of the pot. This design works fairly well for high heat grilling temperature say 300-500* at low temps say 225 down to 180* when running for extended time, the continuous air flow on the fire tends to burn up the coals at the auger point before more pellets are introduced. (This always seems to occur at the 3-4 hour mark) and the fire goes out even though there may be hot coals on the opposite side of the pot, there is ash between the fresh pellets and hot coals, the fire simply dies. This design simply doesn’t lend itself to extended time cooks at low temperature.
Some grills auger pellet from above the firebox and gravity drops them in the fire. This design works better because the pellets fall randomly in the pot from one end to the other not just in one specific location of the pot. (Yoder is one) At any rate, pellet grills as a general rule make poor low slow cookers. They can work, but all to often struggle. I’ll get off my soap box now.
