Grease in Barel/ Steam and smoke from burgers.

[Avillatoro316]

I purchased my Pro Series 820 about a month and a half ago. Initially I loved everything about it! It is my first pellet grill and everything just became way easier grilling wise. I'm new to the smoking game and successfully did my first set of ribs about 2 weeks ago with zero complaints and the entire family was extremely satisfied. Yet I have ran into what seems to be 2 issues...
1.) I am getting a pool of grease after every use of the grill inside of the Barrell between the burning pot and the grease exit side. I am not sure if it is a popped weld, I cannot see any hole and have ran a little bit of water in hopes to see where it might be with 0 luck. I am posting a picture of what it looks like, before every grill session. I shop vac it to keep it clean and make sure I have an easy and smooth light up process which I don't mind but now I also have to wipe grease up from the Barrell which I didn't initially until about 2 weeks ago give or take.


2.) When cooking Burgers (I cook them frozen) I am now getting a huge amount of steam/smoke from the burgers. When I first cooked burgers this wasn't the case but the last two burger grillings I have done have been horrible with steam/smoke. I took a video of the ones I grilled yesterday, mind you I grilled them at 350°F with the searing plate closed. I do not cover with foil, never have. While I don't feel it affects the burgers in anyway it does give it that burger smoky flavor to anything else that is inside of the grill at the time such as corn on the cob, poppers, etc which I do not like at all! Also its a pain in the rear having to have all that smoke in your eyes/face and you can hardly see the grates and food.


Any help or suggestions is appreciated, like I said both of these problems just recently arose and were there initially. I scrape and clean the drip pan very well before each use and I turn it up to 350 for a couple of minutes before each grill session to burn off any grease and pathogens left over. Any tips on how to post a video of the steam smoke so you can see for yourselves?

 

[MikeInFla]

Post video to YouTube and then link it here. I do the same thing, cook burgers from frozen at 350 and they turn out awesome but the last time I had the same issue. Lots of steam and grease.
I use this on it and it cleans up pretty good:

But I haven't had any grease pool like yours. No idea where it is coming from. I do cover the heat plate with foil but my Pit Boss is an older one and doesn't slide so keeping it in foil makes clean up easier.

 

[DaveXDm9]

check your sear plate that ones that slides back and forth and make sure it is in flat as sometimes grease builds up on the edge on the main deflector and when you slide it made ride up on built up grease which will lift the plate up. This will allow grease from dropping inside instead of flowing down to the end.

 

[Avillatoro316]

I did try covering the plate with foil as I had a birthday party for my son and I grilled a lot of meat. I would say about 25 lbs worth of steak, chicken, and sausages. While the foil was completely covered with grease build up and black ash the barrel was clean as can be (grease wise). So today I went ahead and removed the foil and deep cleaned the plate very well. I grilled some chicken breast tonight, we'll see if there is any grease when I cleanup as I did not wrap it in foil this time but I did clean it thoroughly and the plates sit flush with each other. Ill report back once I have more info.

 

[Straightravage]

I’ve smoked frozen burgers at 180 then ramped up the heat. I don’t get more smoke than average. And, I also enjoy sitting in the deck drinking beer and not being in a rush to grill.

And btw, if you guys haven’t tried Snake River Farms frozen burgers...you’re missing out. I have tired so many different brands. And by far the SNF burgers are my favorite. I have 8 boxes in the freezer!