Sparkly, sharp "slag" in pellet cup on Camp Chef pellet grill...

[Stiege]

Hi, new to the group with a couple of questions.

I bought a Camp Chef pellet smoker and two types of pellets. Barbecuer's delight and Louisiana Grills brands. Both claim to be 100%hardwood.

After initial success smoking some ribs, and without cleaning out the pellet cup after first usage, I had trouble keeping the smoker's temperature up then the fire went out. I checked the cup and it was filled with brittle, sparkly, sharp edged slag, as though something had not burned but in fact melted together. I vacuumed out the cup and the temp seemed to stay up ok the second time. Today I vacuumed out the cup (not so much slag) and fired it up. It ran ok, then went out.

I checked the pellet cup and sure enough, there were a couple large chunks of this slag mixed with the ash.

The trouble is, I mixed the two brands of pellets, but I believe there was mostly the Louisiana Grills brand in the hopper today. Has anyone seen this with these two brands or any other brand of pellet? BBQ Delight seems to get almost universal praise on this forum.

Thanks in advance,

Jason

 

[TentHunter]

I burn BBQer's Delight almost exclusively and have never had anything like that.

You might want to also look at the gearing, etc of the grill too (not just the pellets), just to rule out something being misaligned and scraping metal against metal.

 

[sptucker]

I tried Louisiana brand pellets ONE time in my MAK (long story), and had the exact same problem. Slag is a great description - it was like a hard casting of melted pellets. Melted/unburned glue or binder? Dunno.

Since then, I have burned Lumberjack, BBQers Delight, B&B, Pacific Pellets, and Cookinpellets. None of them have exhibited this problem...

 

[mcschlotz]

Like TentHunter, I'm exclusively burning BBQer's Delight. Never a problem and therefore nothing to compel me to change.

 

[Stiege]

Thanks for the replies. The REAL problem is that I ordered the grill from WOOT and it arrived damaged. The bottom of the pellet hopper is slightly dented in. They nor the manufacturer have a replacement to send me so I'd like to keep it.

Both have been really good about returning it, so I'll try one last smoke with the BBQ'ers delight pellets and see what happens.

Interesting that at least one other user had a similar problem with LG pellets.

Thanks again,

Jason