Flameout, explosion

[lsu]

This is totally user error, I understand. I'm just wondering what to do next.
Today while smoking some ribs my fire went out. I'm not sure how long it had been out for, maybe an hour or more. I turned the grill back on without thinking much of it. Within a minute or so, thick yellow smoke started billowing out. I knew I had some something wrong i just didn't know what. I opened the cover and it exploded, burning off a bunch of hair! I quickly unplugged it and took the food, grates, and broiler pan off before pouring water directly into the burn pot to put out the fire. I was able to get the fire and everything under control, I emptied out the pellets.

Did I ruin my grill? It still turns on and it seems fine. What should I do/clean to ensure my grill is ready for the next time I want to cook?

 

[petewphotography]

I had a similar thing happen also. The fire wasn’t that big because I was standing there with the lid up and noticed the flames. I’ve decided to clean my can out after every cook to prevent ash build up and I’ll also pay attention on longer cooks to see if the fire goes out. The main thing is that just because the fire goes out, doesn’t mean the pellets stop flowing and that’s why you got the explosion. When you restarted the gril those pellets ignited. I’m going to contact the manufacturer to see what can cause the igniter to stop working in the middle of a cook. I’ll keep you posted.

 

[MikeInFla]

FF to 15 seconds. Always leave the lid open when you have a flame out. As for the ignitor it only turns on when you turn on the unit. It only runs for a few minutes then it turns off. All pellet smokers are like that. You only need to get it started and once it does it turns off.

Not sure what the water would do but it will swell up the pellets. Make sure any unused pellets are out of the auger. If any pellets where still in the auger they will bind up when they dry out causing your auger not to turn.

I have had a flame out 2 times, once with a power surge then with the P setting set to high. Both times I left the lid open until all the white smoke died down and I had no explosion. I took off the meat because it got over 500 degrees when burning the excess pellets but it settled down after about 10-15 minutes.