fire on first cook

T

tbm 176

New member
Ok, so I seasoned my new mak 2 star general earlier this afternoon. After the seasoning was finished I proceeded to try to cook some pig candy. The bacon was whatever was on sale, thin fatty strips. And I sprinkled a bit of brown sugar onto the bacon after I placed them on the big poppa frog mats on the warmed up grille. I used the upper grille grates as well, with about a half full layer of more bacon. I set the temp to 350 and figured it would take about 25-30 minutes. About 5-6 minutes in I could see alot of smoke pouring out and I also saw a small flame coming out of the grease drip spout. I fanned the grease spout fire out then opened up the grille. The whole inside was on fire, and most of the bacon was burnt to a crisp. So I turned off the pellet boss and tried to put the flames out. Of course the 2 packages of bacon were gone, but both of the big poppa frog mats were now all melted and are garbage, the inside of the grille and the bottom of the warming drawer are all covered with soot. I also noticed that the left flame zone cover was slightly warped, but it seemed to bend back to normal after it cooled off. And the big square flame zone piece with all of the stamped holes is now warped and bent in to the middle. This did spring back a bit towards flat after cooling off but it is still noticeably warped. And to top it off the plastic "general" logo decal on the left of the lid is all bubbled up!

This was not a good first cook at all! Any ideas on what I did wrong? Also what would be the best way to go about cleaning the inside of the grille?

View attachment 2547

Tim
 
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Chili Head

Chili Head

New member
Your temp was set too high. I always cook bacon at 275. It comes out perfect every time!
For cleaning try some of Home Depots orange cleaner. It's in a squirt bottle..I don't remember the exact name of it.
 
T

tbm 176

New member
The manual that came with the grille says "for quick bacon, cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes"

I tried cleaning the interior parts in the dishwasher last night and it didn't do much. I'll try putting them in the oven on the self cleaning cycle after work today. Whatever is left I'll scrub off with some scotchbrite pads. As for the interior I have some simple green concentrate at home. Do you think that would work to clean it?
 
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Big Poppa

Big Poppa

Administrator
Mak Daddy is on the way.....something to remember when you have an internal fire....opening the lid makes it worse....
 
MAK DADDY

MAK DADDY

Moderator
Get any grill hot enough and add grease and you can get a flare up. Looks like you got it cleaned up pretty good to me. If you have pan issues send us an email and we will get you fixed up. The General tag is not plastic it is cast zinc, sometimes even that can't withstand fire temps.

Most likely your issue was loading the grill right after the seasoning and the grease pan was still too hot catching the grease on fire.
I cook bacon at 350 all the time, it usually doesn't take 30 minutes unless its the super thick sliced stuff. I always suggest you keep a close eye on things the first couple times you cook new foods until you get used to how the MAK works. Be extra attentive when grilling and when cooking fatty cuts of meat. As your grill seasons in it will react differently as well.
 
T

tbm 176

New member
Thank you everyone for help. I'll try to get it all cleaned up today after work, weather permitting. When it's all back together I'll post back with the results.

Thanks,
Tim
 
jimsbarbecue

jimsbarbecue

Moderator
Honestly we cook bacon at 250 for about 90 minutes. Flip at 45. At the lower temps the fire hazard is a lot less. We cook the bacon on the top rack. try it once and see if your not hooked. By the way straight from the package nothing added at all.
 
TentHunter

TentHunter

Moderator
Here my 2¢:

You'd just finished seasoning the grill at 450°. Remember, that 450° temp is the air temp being detected by the temp sensor, and I guarantee the actual temp of the FlameZone/Drip Pan itself was a lot hotter than that. Like MAK Daddy said, I'm willing to bet after only a few minutes it hadn't cooled down enough and was still too hot to handle bacon grease dripping on it.


Just a thought! :)
 
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T

tbm 176

New member
Just a quick follow up. I got the grille all cleaned up this weekend. I ended up scrubbing all of the inside pieces with a fine scotch brite pad. Then wiped everything down with some diluted soapy water. There are still some grease spots inside of the grill chamber and on the grease drip pan. Buy I got about 90% of it off. It's just going to get dirty anyways so I didn't spend too much time trying to get it all off.

I think my problem was, like mentioned above, that I didn't wait for the grille to cool down enough after doing the initial seasoning before I put the bacon on. It was a hard lesson to learn right off the bat. But you can be sure that I won't ever do that again! ;)

Tim
 
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