My pit boss just exploded on video!

I have read where a high P setting can cause flame outs but 6 is the highest i have evet ran min for more than a few minutes, not sure what could be damaged to the unit when the gas cooks off like that but a clean set of shorts might be needed if I wasn’t expecting it, 1 of the other manufacturer have a relite feature and not sure how it works but looking at all the smoke it makes on start up not sure how they deal with that
 
Nuco59 said:
The title TOLD me it was going to explode....I jumped a bit anyway.

If I had been there, I might have had to "excuse myself" and come back with clean undies.

Glad you were OK- how did this change your dinner plans?
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We put it an our oven in the house (set to 250). We just pulled it an are letting it rest before pulling.

This is just a practice cook luau for a few friends anyway. I am doing a bigger luau for 35-40 in about three weeks and want to try all of the recipes first. Chris

I’m doing the pork for the luau next month on my WSM smokers.
 
I give it a 8.2 on 10 point scale. :mrgreen: Needs to eject the meat for a Higher Score........
I think the controllers just glitch sometimes ........ like my puter after I just typed a bunch of chit and then I lose it all........or has to do with fan shutting off for shutdown or temporary jammed in auger/chute and it cycled a few times and pushed it thru but dumped extra pellets........
 
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SmittyJonz said:
I give it a 8.2 on 10 point scale. :mrgreen: Needs to eject the meat for a Higher Score........
I think the controllers just glitch sometimes ........ like my puter after I just typed a bunch of chit and then I lose it all........or has to do with fan shutting off for shutdown or ?
Click to expand...

the controller only feeds pellets. the ignitor turns off after startup. if the flame goes out only a restart will ignite more pellets. if the firepot is already full then bang
 
smoke ninja said:
the controller only feeds pellets. the ignitor turns off after startup. if the flame goes out only a restart will ignite more pellets. if the firepot is already full then bang
Click to expand...

It can go almost out - to a smolder instead of a Burn - then smolder it’s way way back up, building heat till it reaches flash point temp or gets some oxygen. Much like a charcoal burn dying out till you open the lid or stir the charcoal......... could dump too much fresh pellets and smother the burn etc........like dumping fresh unlit charcoal on a small amount of burning charcoal when reloading a charcoal basket......
 
Shadowdog500 said:
I always start it up the same way. Open the lid, put it on smoke, let it run until the the smoke clears and the fire is burning hot, then close the lid and set it to temp. I let it stabilize on temp for a half hour why preparing and wrapping the pork. Then I put the pork on and closed the door and let it run for a couple of hours until this happened. I walked past the thing multiple times during the cook time ant the pit temp was good ant the meat was climbing the entire time.

Then after 2 hours I saw the the billowing smoke. I know these things can blow like it did after seeing all the videos, but was hoping that this was a momentary thing and let it go for a minute or so before deciding to shut it down. I started filming to document what happened and wound up getting the explosion.

I didn’t do anything different from the way I’ve done this before, so I’m thinking that the fire somehow went out in the middle of the cook and the pit boss was trying to recover. I’m thinking that they could easily add some logic to the controller program to automatically shut off if the temp still drops off after adding pellets for a while.

I opened it up this morning and didn’t see what I expected. I expected to see a bunch of pellets all over the place and all there was were pellets in the cup and a small amount that looks like it blew out during the explosion. Here is a photo link. The photo shows up huge when posting here so I am just giving a link. Chris
https://i527.photobucket.com/albums...-66A2-4D5D-A48C-CD72C291FF11_zps0vv2imzc.jpeg
Click to expand...

One last question, was the grills hopper full of pellets and were they flowing into the Fire Pot smoothly without any interruptions?? Just trying to help You figure out what happened... Sometimes the pellets in the hopper get stuck and hung up in the hopper and don’t flow through the Auger Tube smoothly... That delay can cause a flameout. Once the pellets starts to flow again, they will/can pile up in the Fire-pot and smolder, causing a lot of smoke to billow out and if not cleared out properly, can cause an explosion like your video. It’s always a good idea to check your grills hopper from time to time and if you’re going to leave your grill for any extended amount of time, it wise to stir the pellets in the hopper and if possible, add some pellets to the hopper. The added weight will help the pellets to flow down and not get hung up, thus possibly causing a flame out... 1. Proper Start up and Preheating... 2. Always check and stir the pellets in the hopper to insure a constant flow of pellets into the fire pot... 3. Check the bag of pellets for excessive sawdust that can cause issues with the pellet ignition... and lastly and I know You know is to always safely shop vac the fire pot after every cook... I’m pretty sure I covered everything, but if in doubt, You can always reach out to Pit Boss for their input and send them the link to your explosion video. If You do, post back their response and advice. Good luck
 
Wood gassification....

During WWII with the shortage of gasoline, a lot of gasoline engines were converted to run on "wood gas" in Europe. They even ran trucks on the smoke/wood gas. It's not super efficient, but it will burn as you captured on video.

If you go to youtube and search for "wood gassifier" you will find everything from trucks to tractors, to generators running off of firewood and pellets.
 
RCAlan said:
One last question, was the grills hopper full of pellets and were they flowing into the Fire Pot smoothly without any interruptions?? Just trying to help You figure out what happened... Sometimes the pellets in the hopper get stuck and hung up in the hopper and don’t flow through the Auger Tube smoothly... That delay can cause a flameout. Once the pellets starts to flow again, they will/can pile up in the Fire-pot and smolder, causing a lot of smoke to billow out and if not cleared out properly, can cause an explosion like your video. It’s always a good idea to check your grills hopper from time to time and if you’re going to leave your grill for any extended amount of time, it wise to stir the pellets in the hopper and if possible, add some pellets to the hopper. The added weight will help the pellets to flow down and not get hung up, thus possibly causing a flame out... 1. Proper Start up and Preheating... 2. Always check and stir the pellets in the hopper to insure a constant flow of pellets into the fire pot... 3. Check the bag of pellets for excessive sawdust that can cause issues with the pellet ignition... and lastly and I know You know is to always safely shop vac the fire pot after every cook... I’m pretty sure I covered everything, but if in doubt, You can always reach out to Pit Boss for their input and send them the link to your explosion video. If You do, post back their response and advice. Good luck
Click to expand...

The hopper was full to the top with the lumberjack that I bought from Dicks a couple months ago. It may have been a jam in the auger. I can say with 100% certainty that I didn’t touch anything on the controller since I lit the thing a couple hours before. The smoldering pellet theory is the only thing I can think of.

Chris
 
Since I know nothing about pellet cookers I am happy I burn sticks in my offset and charcoal and chunks in my grill. Thanks for posting glad nobody was hurt.
 
Shadowdog500 said:
I was half expecting to see an explosion when I saw the billowing smoke. Smitty posted a bunch of links to videos of this happening. This is not a unheard of event.

I did do a proper startup and the pit was running properly for a couple hours before this happened.

Chris
Click to expand...

Why why why would you stand that close to something you were "expecting" to explode?
 
I would have turned it off and opened the lid (with a grilling glove on) to dissipate the smoke *BEFORE* it poofed off. But in all fairness, there are a lot of videos of this happening and it's not going to actually explode, just a quick flashover lifting the lid, and the combustible smoke is gone. Show over....
 
MichiganBBQ said:
Why why why would you stand that close to something you were "expecting" to explode?
Click to expand...

I’ve seen videos of these blowing before and none of them are much more than what I got. It’s mostly just a flash. I was more concerned of the resulting fire if there was a pile of unburnt pellets in the bottom of the cooker. Luckily there wasn’t a pile of unburnt pellets in the bottom.

My wife always has the hose turned on to water the plants on our deck and I was ready to use it if needed. I also drained the pellets in the hopper into a bucket after I shut it down and unplugged it just in case a fire tried to back up the auger. Chris
 
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