Fire back along auger to fire box.

[frawil]

Last night I did tri tip at 350 for about an hour. When ready, I turned off the grill and it went into shut down mode. I checked back later in evening and a lot of smoke, even out of the pellet hopper. Still fire in the pot and smoldering pellets even in hopper. What did I do wrong? I spent today cleaning the entire grill. BTW, anyone have an easy way to empty the hopper on a RT590?

 

[v1per95]

Last night I did tri tip at 350 for about an hour. When ready, I turned off the grill and it went into shut down mode. I checked back later in evening and a lot of smoke, even out of the pellet hopper. Still fire in the pot and smoldering pellets even in hopper. What did I do wrong? I spent today cleaning the entire grill. BTW, anyone have an easy way to empty the hopper on a RT590?

How often do you clean out the firepot? My only thought is that the firepot overflowed. As for emptying the hopper, a shop-vac is just about the only reliable way to do it, other than scooping what you can out and then letting it burn through whatevers left.

 

[Jim6820]

These grills don’t seem to like being turned off when the temperature is above 250F or so. I had burnback occur a couple of times early on and now reduce the temperature to less than 250F before turning the grill off. Never a problem since.

As for emptying the hopper, many of us use a small, dedicated “Bucket Head” vacuum from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. Oh, and more than a few of us have removed the grid at the bottom of the hopper to allow access to the auger tube. I can’t officially recommend that procedure, however, since it involves removing a “safety feature.”

 

[v1per95]

This is probably going to make it more difficult to decide what to do, but I have to disagree with @Jim6820. The only times I've experienced backburn are when I did a very high temp cook, and then staggered the temp back down before shutdown. If I just shutdown from high heat when I'm done cooking, I've had no issues. But also know that @Jim6820 is an EXCELLENT source of knowledge here. I've learned many things from reading his posts!

 

[Jim6820]

This is probably going to make it more difficult to decide what to do, but I have to disagree with @Jim6820. The only times I've experienced backburn are when I did a very high temp cook, and then staggered the temp back down before shutdown. If I just shutdown from high heat when I'm done cooking, I've had no issues. But also know that @Jim6820 is an EXCELLENT source of knowledge here. I've learned many things from reading his posts!

Interesting…and, certainly no offense taken here for disagreeing with me; my wife does it all the time.

I rarely do cooks over 300F on my RT-340/Trailblazer (that’s what the Napoleon gasser is for), so haven’t had the experience you’ve had. That’s what makes life interesting with these little rascals; always something new and different.

My advice to @frawil is simply to try it both ways and see what works best.

 

[frawil]

These grills don’t seem to like being turned off when the temperature is above 250F or so. I had burnback occur a couple of times early on and now reduce the temperature to less than 250F before turning the grill off. Never a problem since.

As for emptying the hopper, many of us use a small, dedicated “Bucket Head” vacuum from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. Oh, and more than a few of us have removed the grid at the bottom of the hopper to allow access to the auger tube. I can’t officially recommend that procedure, however, since it involves removing a “safety feature.”

Thanks!

 

[Motodad1776]

Well.......I also say to throttle down the temps before shutdown, MANY more than a few here have had ZERO issues since doing that. I shut down religiously at 235, that is less of a hot fire/flames/pellets to be burning out, then the pellets adding to the pot on shutdown will snuff out any potential embers. All of this works best with a firepot not full of ash build up, as the pellets will stack up higher and closer into the auger.