I've been following Herb's startup procedure for 350F then set to your desired temp (225) since I got my YS1500 and I haven't had issues, however, on the last two cooks I've changed over to lumberjack pellets. I notice they burn much hotter likely due to the smaller diameter. This cooker REALLY does not like them or rather, I'm having to change the way I'm doing things significantly.
On the first cook, I set the temp to 350F and left it for 30 minutes to do its thing. Came back out, changed set temp to 225F, opened the cookers lid, added my meat, closed lid and walked away. 35-40 minutes go by and I come back and the fire is out and its beginning to overflow pellets. Temperature is well below my set point and is showing 125F. I pull the grates, remove the unburned pellets, and go through start up procedure again and set the temp to 260F in the beginning (no preheat). Fire goes all night at this set temp without issue.
Continuing off the same cook from 260F, drop to 225F put my ribs and bacon on, come back 2 hours later, same thing! Fire is out, temp well below 100F, 10# of pellets sitting inside the cookers body, food ruined.
Second cook, no food in this time. Start up to 350F for 30 minutes, then drop the temp to 225F, open the cookers lid for about a minute (to simulate putting food on it although I guess not really as cold food would drop the cooker faster). I watch the firebox through the fan and at around 300F you can see the fire is nearly gone and the pellets are just smoldering. I'm sure if I didn't drop it to 225F, it would maintain 275F from there. Additionally, as I was watching I noticed that VERY occasionally, because the pellets are smaller in diameter, you could see some of them making it through the wide slots in the burn grate. I'm not sure that ultimately matters given its frequency of occurrence.
I just fired it up this morning skipping the preheat and it was maintaining a set temp of 240F on the controller with a grate temp of 225F (probe laying directly on the upper right grate near the smoke stack).
I don't believe this to be an issue with the cooker itself, but rather a pellet issue or procedure issue. I don't mind running them at a higher set point NOR do I mind not preheating the cooker. From now on, I will just know the lower boundary for these pellets is 240F and not to do a preheat procedure with these. I'm sure if I did a preheat and dropped the set point slower in stages that I could get it down to 240F safely.
Normally, I'm sure it would be suggested that the pellets are moisture contaminated, but in both circumstances the pellets were brand new in a sealed bag. Composition is Oak-Maple-Cherry.
HMS fully closed on all of these as I don't really care about the temperature swings from side to side at this point.
Firmware is 620.
I have a remote temperature monitoring device on order from Thermoworks that will be shipping on the 21st. Now I'll have a better idea if the fire goes out. In either case, somewhat frustrating. I've never had an issue with it failing to start up.
I may have to try out the BBQ delight pellets in lieu of this issue I've been seeing, as I would really like to run the pit a bit lower. Pellets are finicky by default as there aren't any standards for size, diameter, length, and composition.
The bags are not moisture proof, and pellets can pull moisture right through the bag. From your description, I would say the pellets are in fact moisture contaminated.
You may find this helpful: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=354
I have never had a problem with LB pellets. That said, I live in Las Vegas and buy pellets at 2-3 bags at a time and keep them in large roll around dog food containers. They hold about 50 lbs of pellets.
- Joined: April 23rd, 2016, 10:22 am
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In my limited experience, I think pellets are a lot more susceptible to moisture than one would think.
Have had issues with BBQ delight , no problem with lumberjack.
I don't think it is a vendor issue, but rather a storage issue, before and after they wind up in consumer hands.
I had a bag of BBQ delight cherry that just would not hold temp. Ended up mixing with lumberjack to,work through.
I always keep a close eye to look for moisture problems early in the cook
Dang, that sucks! I guess it does make sense given the thin plastic of the bags. Any one ever try to put them in a sealed plastic bucket with painters desiccant to suck the moisture out of them? I'm betting its pretty difficult to save them once they've sucked up moisture.
My opinion is that they are garbage after moisture contamination. You might be able to microwave them in small quantities to use in a smoke tube, but that is still too much hassle for me.
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