Jul 07 2015
I have been using my Traeger 07E pellet smoker over 4 years
now. I cook summer and winter on it. Since a pellet smoker has to have
electricity to run it is a good idea to use a ground fault interrupter. It will
protect you from a shock hazard and may help save your equipment in case of a
ground. I have one on a short cord that I bought at Lowe’s for about $26 US.
My pellet smoker is on a covered wood deck so I can use it
in any weather. The deck is 6X6 feet and up against my house. This is not the
best example for a safe cooking area. I have a fire extinguisher handy and
there is a water spigot next to the deck. I also have the smoker setting on a
fireproof mat. I bought the mat at Lowe’s; it is rectangular and made with
cement. The manufacturer also makes a round one.
Any type of outdoor cooking equipment used on a wooden deck
should have one of these under it.
The most common hazard is probably having a grease fire. I
have never had one but I don’t do much cooking over 300 deg. F and I use my gas
grill for searing. I also keep my smoker clean, vacuuming out and changing the
foil on my drip pan. Some smokers have a searing area or a different drip pan to
use for grilling and searing and are probably more apt to have grease fires.
One problem with Traegers is burn back after shutdown. It has
an auger that lays flat (level) to feed pellets to the burn pot. I have had it;
the fire is seeking oxygen and draws it from the auger tube via the pellet bin.
It can burn back into the tube and if it ever got into the pellet bin you would
have a nasty fire and damage your smoker. You can make this less likely by not
shutting down after a 250 deg. or hotter cook. Turn the setting to 180 deg. and
let it cool down before shutting down.
Before I had the shutdown fan and I would turn the smoker
back on at the lowest setting and let it do a restart to get any burning
pellets out of the auger tube and then shut down. I even had it several times when I had the
fan switch and even once with my new controller. It was not bad but could see a
little smoke coming from under the pellet bin cover. I found that by leaving
the lid open it helps it to draw better and it soon goes out. Since my smoker
is on the wooden deck I keep a pretty close watch on it until it shuts down and
I also never leave it plugged in.
Most pellet smokers that came out later have a shutdown
feature that runs the fan until a low temp. is reached. I installed a manual
fan switch on mine and now my new Savannah Stoker V3 controller has the
shutdown feature and takes it down to 130 deg. before shutting down.
After I got my new controller installed I wanted to empty
out the pellet bin and run a cycle to clean out all the pellets from the auger
tube. I also wanted to check the burn pot in action to see how the pellets were
burning. I had done this a couple of times before but I had replaced the heat
shield and closed the lid until it burned out and cooled down. I knew it got
pretty hot with just what pellets were left in the auger tube it would get
above 400 deg.
This time I failed to put the heat shield back in; I assumed
it would just go above 400 deg. and burn out. Well it went past 400 and kept
climbing; it got up to about 760 deg. on the controller, the smoke stack cover
was glowing red underneath burning the soot off and the powder coat paint
blistered. I was ready to grab my fire extinguisher but it started to cool down
and I was glad of that. So a word of caution; never try to run your pellet
smoker without the heat shield in place!
One other thing to watch for is unless you are there to see
a flame happen out shut down the smoker and when cool enough take everything
out and check the burn pot to make sure it’s not full of pellets. The smokers
do not know the flame went out and most will keep on feeding pellets. After a
cook one night I had set the smoker on smoke mode to cool down. I forgot to
check it until late and when I did it was still on but clod. I checked the
pellet bin and it was empty. I assumed it had run out of pellets and the flame
went out.
The next day I was getting ready to cook and I loaded in
some pellets and started it like usual, on smoke mode 180 deg. with the lid
open and as soon as I saw smoke I closed the lid. I went inside to get some
meat ready. When I went back outside the smoker was at 350 deg. I knew that
something was wrong and shut it down. When it cooled down enough I opened it
and inspected the fire pot. It was clear full of pellets and some had run over
the side. I had watched the pellet bin enough to know it has some flat spots on
two sides of the opening to the auger and it would feed pellets forming a
funnel as it does leaving a lot of pellets still in there. I figured what
happened the day before was it did this and the auger ran dry for a period and
the flame went out then vibration caused more pellets to feed so it ran it out
and filled the fire pot.
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