SmokeFire on Fire...


 
Joe Anshien

Joe Anshien

TVWBB Honor Circle
I sold my Smokefire EX4 Gen 2 a few months ago and was contacted by the person wanting to know where I got it as he has contacted Weber support about it catching fire. This is what he texted me. He also sent a video, but I can not download it to post it, but I did capture a picture from it. Looks like the fire is escaping from the firepot and traveling the dust up the shoot. Anyone else experience something like this?

It has been doing some odd things lately. The biggest concern is that it will catch fire even when set at a low temp (last time it was at 280). I have kept it grease free just like when I got it from you. Everything I cook is either in a pan or has a pan underneath the grates, so literally not a drop of grease has spilled to the flavorizer bars or below. Essentially what is happening is that the fire in the pot is climbing up the chute where the pellets drop and then the fire goes through the auger into the hopper. It's baffling to me why it is doing this since the machine is so clean! I am supposed to hear back from the team that handles "thermal episodes"

fire.JPG
 
Does appear that there has been a burn at the auger. The welded abatement seems to be to far back, as you can see the burn chamber, with mine you can't see the burn chamber. Also, that auger is pretty full, mine never has more that a few pellets in it an any particular moment. Lastly, he's not foiling the bottom (which isn't required) however foiling the bottom will capture the grease and you can throw re-line the foil as needed (which can be often if doing slow drippy cooks)

My 2 cents
 
That is how mine looks, as far as the location of the "welded abatement". The bottom feet on mine are just on the edge of that bottom plate. I've not had this issue with mine at all. With the problems that you had with it too Joe, I have to wonder if somewhere along the line something is not assembled properly. As I've said in a few post, I'm up to over 50 cooks on mine and not one problem. Hopefully Weber will be able to help him out on it.

Charlie
 
See if you can get a picture of his glowplug. I bet its' at end of life and the auger is dumping in too much pellets in attempt to bring up the temp. IMHO, that would explain the burn mark at the auger, but I'm new at the game and don't know that much about these bad boys
 
I probably shouldn't comment because I'm an infant with the SF but I will. Maybe I don't closely observe it but to Chucko's point on the occasions that I recall and from pics I have my auger chute has never been that full at the edge on my pellet smokers. And in the pic it looks to me like there is a considerable amount of pellet dust; I only have recollection of seeing fully-compacted pellets in my units.

Also; and maybe I place mine incorrectly but I place my diffuser more forward; I seat its toes off of and forward of the welded thingy.

None of this may offer remedy, though.

Reading C Lewis' reply I should have gone with "I place my diffuser more forward; I seat its toes off of and forward of the bottom plate," rather than writing "welded thingy."
 
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Luckily he has it registered with Weber and he said he would keep me updated as they are working the issue. I will let you all know when / if I find out what happens. Luckily when I used it the biggest issue for me was that it did not keep temps near what it reported a lot of times. The cooks still came out great in spite of that.
 
After giving it more thought, I wonder if he just has a large accumulation of dust in the hopper and auger, and needs to drop the pellets and give it a good vacuum out? More so, wondering if something in the auger is causing it to create more pellet dust than normal? Just a couple of thoughts.

Charlie
 
ChuckO said:
See if you can get a picture of his glowplug. I bet its' at end of life and the auger is dumping in too much pellets in attempt to bring up the temp. IMHO, that would explain the burn mark at the auger, but I'm new at the game and don't know that much about these bad boys
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The glow plug is de-energized about 4 minutes into startup. It isn't re-energized until the next start sequence. Glow plug isn't a player in this scenario.
 
I have never seen pellets that light colored and those pellets look chewed up but maybe it's my eyes. It looks like there's a lot of dust in the auger tube also. Usually when I see a pic of a fire in that area there are charred pellets in the auger tube but not in this case. If there's been a auger fire that got into the hopper the auger tube should be charred. What I'm seeing has me baffled.
 
I passed the suggestion to him to dump the pellets and vacuum the grill. It is only a few months in use so I agree not a warn glow plug. Though it would be nice if it could detect a fire-out scenario and re-energize the glow plug to start it back up. I will report back if when I hear something.
 
Joe Anshien said:
I passed the suggestion to him to dump the pellets and vacuum the grill. It is only a few months in use so I agree not a warn glow plug. Though it would be nice if it could detect a fire-out scenario and re-energize the glow plug to start it back up. I will report back if when I hear something.
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Joe, my Rec Tec had that auto restart feature. I flamed it out and, since it was my first pellet grill and learning on the fly, when it started billowing smoke I started to open the lid. Everything inside caught fire and hearing WHOOSH of the ignition I stepped back as the fireball shot out the door. Navy shipboard fire fighting school had introduced me to that sound and I;'ll never forget it. I'll stick with the Weber approach.
 
Lew Newby said:
Joe, my Rec Tec had that auto restart feature. I flamed it out and, since it was my first pellet grill and learning on the fly, when it started billowing smoke I started to open the lid. Everything inside caught fire and hearing WHOOSH of the ignition I stepped back as the fireball shot out the door. Navy shipboard fire fighting school had introduced me to that sound and I;'ll never forget it. I'll stick with the Weber approach.
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I guess that could be a drawback;-)
 
I just got this back.
I spoke with the customer service rep today and that was one of her suggestions. It seems it’s the pellet dust causing the fire. She said I need to take apart the auger and clean it out after each cook… seems excessive to me, but I guess I need to take her advice. She also informed me that I have a 1st gen Smokefire and that it needs replacement parts, which she is sending out to me this week (welded pellet chute, a glow plug, and an updated pellet slide). Also, she suggested I do not use anything under the grates or on the grates to catch the drippings… I had been using a large aluminum pan lid as a drip tray, but she thinks that is why I am experiencing flame outs (not enough airflow). So all in all, it sounds promising. You were correct, their customer service is fantastic. She said if this doesn’t solve the problem to call her back and they will make it right.

I do think that it is a gen 2 as the #s and hopper where correct for a Gen 2. But we will see.
 
Joe Anshien said:
I just got this back.
I spoke with the customer service rep today and that was one of her suggestions. It seems it’s the pellet dust causing the fire. She said I need to take apart the auger and clean it out after each cook… seems excessive to me, but I guess I need to take her advice. She also informed me that I have a 1st gen Smokefire and that it needs replacement parts, which she is sending out to me this week (welded pellet chute, a glow plug, and an updated pellet slide). Also, she suggested I do not use anything under the grates or on the grates to catch the drippings… I had been using a large aluminum pan lid as a drip tray, but she thinks that is why I am experiencing flame outs (not enough airflow). So all in all, it sounds promising. You were correct, their customer service is fantastic. She said if this doesn’t solve the problem to call her back and they will make it right.

I do think that it is a gen 2 as the #s and hopper where correct for a Gen 2. But we will see.
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Hmm, while I no longer have a SmokeFire, I find that support absurd. I burned over 1000lbs of pellets through two SmokeFires never cleaned the auger, used drip trays and the only flameouts I had were pellet feed issues with the day one hopper and/or the finger guard. Only reason I don’t still have a SmokeFire is because of software issues.

If dust is your issue, you might try scooping you pellets versus pouring and watching the bottom of the bag more closely. Rough handling (by anyone in the distribution chain) can get a lot of dust in the bag).

For drip trays I used 1 or 2 wet smoke kits in an ex4 when smoking depending on what I was cooking and how much coverage I needed. The fact they sell a kit specifically for under grate grease collection on the SmokeFire and advertise you can use 2 in EX4 and 3 in EX6 and she’s telling you not to use it is a really big concern. It is possibly what you are using is much larger than that I guess?
 
Weber customer service is great but sometimes a rep gives really bad advice. That rep may have been nice but she doesn't know what she's talking about. Removing the auger and cleaning after every cook is not the solution. He doesn't need to remove it. Just empty the pellets and vacuum out the area at the auger chute. Who in their right mind would own a grill where that's required to operate it? As Shane said "absurd". Joe, send him this link.
It's a Weber video advocating the use of drip pans in the Smokefire. Also, my welded abatement is further forward than his is but when I look at Weber videos I'm wrong and the guys picture shows the correct position. Pellets are the last thing I look at when looking at a problem but I keep thinking that his pellets just don't look right.
 
You would think with all the problems Weber has gone through
with these, and still have a special prompt on the phone tree
when you call customer service, they would at least connect you
to someone competent.
 
Weber will take care of you but those suggestions are not correct at all. The only way that I have been able to get the thing to work is with a big drip pan that acts as the diverter found in other pellet grills. And I only clean every 10 plus runs and then it is a simply 5 minute job.

And I hate to get on this horse again but the main thing that I have found that effects the grills operation is the pellet diameter. Small diameter = better/good; large diameter = less good.
 
With all the other problems I have now I'm glad the SmokeFire isn't one of them. kudos to those that have worked through the issues and have their SFs working like they should, though even if I had one and got to that point I could never trust it.
 
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