Weber 900 NG - Flare ups


 
Carlos Estrada

Carlos Estrada

TVWBB Member
Hello all, I've been putting my gasser to work daily cooking dinner for the family & the food is amazing. Lately, on separate cooks I've noticed firey flare-ups & uneven heat cooking chicken wings & burgers. The uneven heat is cooler areas around outer grate, next to lid, & of course hotter towards center of grate. I normally scrape down the flavor bars & grates before the cook. The flavor bars are porcelain & hve slight rust & a couple of tiny bean size holes. The grates are porcelain & in excellent condition. I also noticed the flames are coming out orange out the burners, but I cleaned them real good & unclogged each hole with a micro screwdriver head, they look good. I also preheat my grill, give a good clean & wait for it to come down to temp by putting all knobs to direct medium. Any advice. & On my next cook I'll try to provide images.
 
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Your grill is a very good one but is sensitive to some very minor maintenance issues. First: Get some good flavorizer bars your best bet for them (and for quality replacement grates) is RCPlanebuyer on EBay. A little spendy but it would be the last $$$ you ever have to spend on those items. Make sure the burner tubes and spider guards are clean and clear. Pay close attention to keeping the grease tray and lower part of firebox cleaned and free of debris and excess grease buildup. DO these simple things and you'll enjoy this grill for many years to come. Ignore them and you'll have the problems you reported in your post
 
LMichaels, I'm going to spring for the RCPlanebuyer flavorizer bars, the price isn't bad. In the future I definitely want his SS grates, but mine are in excellent condition & the wife won't approve the finance right now. As for cleaning the grill, I do need to clean out the bottom of the firebox, everything else is good, I just rehabbed it. I'm starting to understand why old Genesis are so great with double layers of flavorizer bars & deep firebox, maybe down the road I'll spring for one.
 
Below are the images. The burners hve nice blue flames, so it has to be the flavorizer bars. They don't look destroyed but greasy foods like wings & burgers cause flare ups so I'm upgrading to rcplanebuyer bars!!


 
The bars don't look bad enough to cause trouble but are you sure you have a 900? This looks like the 5 bar shallow box not the 13 bar deep which means you have a "letter" series product not a number series i.e. I, II, III, 1000, 2000, 3000 etc.
 
I went off the label & weber pulled it as a 900, which is in line with the spirit 500/700. The box is shallower than a Genesis. It runs great, but I do think it was isolated to the greasy yummy burgers n wings that dripped too much fat. It's probably the shallow box??

 
If it was truly a 900 it would have a dual row of bars. Odds are the piece with the label was changed out at some point
 
It truly is a 900. The weber manual proves it per the attached images. Another member stated it was first year weber went to 5 bars.

 
LMichaels said:
If it was truly a 900 it would have a dual row of bars. Odds are the piece with the label was changed out at some point
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LMichaels,
The 500/700/900 were the first Weber's to go to the single 5 bar set up with shallower box. I bought my 700 brand new in 1999 and it came just like Carlos' 900.
Not sure why Weber still had the 1000+ series as well as the 700/900 as they seemed to be competing against their own grills.

Jeff
 
It's not only the single row flavorizer bars that have the flare ups-

While cooking on my 4900 it too was flaring up big time which it never has prior. I blame it on the cheap burger patties we were cooking.

Jeff
 
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Carlos,
Found your address, it was in my Visitor Messages folder not PM, mailing that owners manual out today via USPS.

Jeff
 
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Jeff MA said:
Carlos,
Found your address, it was in my Visitor Messages folder not PM, mailing that owners manual out today via USPS.

Jeff
Click to expand...

Hey Jeff, I think it was the burgers & wings being overly greasy, they were dripping a lot. As for the manual, thanks for checking for my address, I've been looking in my mailbox daily, but now I realize I messaged u incorrectly. Thanks!!
 
Fire!

Carlos Estrada said:
Hey Jeff, I think it was the burgers & wings being overly greasy, they were dripping a lot. As for the manual, thanks for checking for my address, I've been looking in my mailbox daily, but now I realize I messaged u incorrectly. Thanks!!
Click to expand...

Talk about flare ups! I have the same model pictured above. Last Saturday with only asparagus on the grill the third (rear) plastic knob starts on fire from the underside, dripping flaming, molten plastic!

Shut 'er down and dumped a glass water over the knob. Haven't had time to look since.

Regulator? Spider cover? Ever heard of this?
 
Either grease inside the grill caught fire (this can happen no matter what is on the grates BTW) and began burning through the aluminum (I have seen it happen). Or insects/spiders got inside the burner tube and fire backed outside of the tube. Frankly though you should have noticed other symptoms if that had happened. Like sooty burning from the offending burner, failure to properly light off and poor temperature at the back. I frankly always check the flame quality before I turn my back on a grill. If it was a grease fire burning through you will not be able to repair. If it was insects you need to remove the manifold and the burners. Clean the burners thoroughly and look for any damage to the manifold. Once properly cleaned you should be fine
 
Fire was localized to the underside of the rear knob. I'll clean out the manifold and burner and report back. Thanks.
Don't want to hijack the thread. Thanks again.
 
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