Mak grill auger jamming

[Highcotton]

Replaced my Mak 2 Star with a new unit. Did the burn in and everything seemed fine. Started smoking a brisket and it gave me the flame out code. Ended up having a jammed auger. Cleared it out and restarted did the same thing after 20 minutes. Ended up giving my Brisket to a neighbor and he smoked it on his Green Egg. Today I went to check my unit out in more detail and it is jamming on the left side of the auger where it enters the auger tube. Changed to a different brand of pellets and it did the same thing.

Picture after it is cleared.

 

[NorCal Smoker]

I would call MAK and share pictures. I also recently replaced my old two star with a new one. The auger jammed once on the new one due to water getting into the hopper (this never happened in my old 2 star which I owned for 10 years). I have not experienced the issues you are having. MAK will help you. Their customer service is the best!

 

[Highcotton]

I was just curious if anyone had that problem. I owned my other 2 star for 10 years and ran over two tons of pellets through it and never had an auger jam. You are right that they have excellent customer support. Probably the best company I have ever dealt with as far as supporting their product.

 

[sschorr]

I was just curious if anyone had that problem. I owned my other 2 star for 10 years and ran over two tons of pellets through it and never had an auger jam. You are right that they have excellent customer support. Probably the best company I have ever dealt with as far as supporting their product.

A new MAK 2 Star owner on another forum also had auger jams with his new MAK (he bought it in the last couple of months). His jams seemed related to the Bear Mountain pellets that came with the new MAK. Jammed in the same exact way you document. Given the statistically high number (3 reports for newer MAKs jamming on public forums), somebody at MAK needs to really look hard at the current manufacturing processes to see if some issue has been introduced with recent builds.

 

[Pac Man]

A new MAK 2 Star owner on another forum also had auger jams with his new MAK (he bought it in the last couple of months). His jams seemed related to the Bear Mountain pellets that came with the new MAK. Jammed in the same exact way you document. Given the statistically high number (3 reports for newer MAKs jamming on public forums), somebody at MAK needs to really look hard at the current manufacturing processes to see if some issue has been introduced with recent builds.

We have not changed our manufacturing processes or the build of our grills recently. After talking to all of these customers and investigating the details, we believe this is simply a matter of a bad batch of pellets. Each customer swapped out for a new bag of pellets, and the issue has been resolved in every case. All the grills shipped around the same time, and would have had bags of pellets from the same batch.

We'll definitely keep an eye on the situation, but I am confident we'll be past it soon. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[sschorr]

I am not sure I understand that "each customer swapped out for a new bag of pellets, and the issue has been resolved in every case...." when the OP specifically states "Changed to a different brand of pellets and it did the same thing."

 

[Pac Man]

I am not sure I understand that "each customer swapped out for a new bag of pellets, and the issue has been resolved in every case...." when the OP specifically states "Changed to a different brand of pellets and it did the same thing."

Perhaps I misunderstood him on the phone, but after speaking to the customer he made it sound like a different brand of pellet resolved the issue. I'll follow up with him to make sure.

 

[Highcotton]

So I tried BBQ Delight pellets and did a 2 hour burn and thought that may have fixed it. Last night I put some chicken breasts on and it did the same thing. Mac customer support has been great and they are going to send me out a new auger motor. That is probably where the problem is. Sometimes stuff just doesn't work like it is supposed to. As long as a company is willing to work with me to solve the problem I have no problem with that. Did not have to go through a call center and have someone tell me to unplug the unit and restart it. Mak is being very supportive and I feel they will do everything in their power to make it right.

 

[sschorr]

So I tried BBQ Delight pellets and did a 2 hour burn and thought that may have fixed it. Last night I put some chicken breasts on and it did the same thing. Mac customer support has been great and they are going to send me out a new auger motor. That is probably where the problem is. Sometimes stuff just doesn't work like it is supposed to. As long as a company is willing to work with me to solve the problem I have no problem with that. Did not have to go through a call center and have someone tell me to unplug the unit and restart it. Mak is being very supportive and I feel they will do everything in their power to make it right.

Thanks for clarifying. I know MAK's support is top notch and very responsive. I was reacting to seeing 3 recent posts, 2 here and 1 elsewhere, in a very short time about auger jams. All 3, including yours, were for newer versions of the MAK 2 Star which I thought was very unusual. If you see 3, there usually are a larger number of non-posted situations, so it seemed inordinate.

 

[Pac Man]

Thanks for the update, Highcotton. We have only had a small number of these incidents reported. We'll keep a close eye on the situation and make sure everyone is taken care of.

 

[Highcotton]

Meant to provide an update sooner. Received a new auger motor from Mak a few weeks ago and have not had any problems with jamming since. Seems I just had a faulty motor. Mak was very supportive and followed up with me to make sure everything was right. They shipped me a new motor as soon as I told them I had a problem and it was at my house in 2 days. Thanks again for the support.

 

[briano52]

Hi All
I too have jamming issues with my auger. The jam is caused by pellets jamming in the hopper where the auger enters the tube in the upper left hand side. See pictures that were taken after I vacuumed out all the loose pellets. I am able to re move the jams with a screwdriver. The pellets are jammed tight. I have to break them up with the screwdriver to get the jam cleared. This has happened with two bags of pellets, including the one that I got with the grill from MAK. I have sent the pictures into MAK today.

 

[briano52]

Update on my stuck auger. Well, I reported the problem to MAK. They got back to me super-fast. They are sending a new motor. No arguing. They want to fix the problem ASAP. Apparently, this has happened before but not common. Otherwise, I love the cooker and I am very happy that they responded immediately with a fix. I will let everybody know how it goes.

 

[briano52]

The new motor from MAK arrived yesterday. I installed it this morning. It was a different model than the one that came with the new cooker but I think it was the same maker. Took about an hour to install but I am not familiar with the MAK inner workings.
I then did a 7 hour cook. And the new motor ran fine with no pellet jams or any issues. So, the MAK customer service has been quick and fast to replace the motor. I will keep everybody up to date as I put more cooks on the new motor. Thus far, the motor has fixed the pellet jamming issue and I really like this 2 Star grill and the help I got from MAK.