New Member Pitt 1100 blew up yesterday

Paul G

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Jun 21, 2020
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Hello,
Been smoking on my 1100 for over a year now but it’s the first time I have had an issue. Still trying to figure out what happened yesterday. Starting smoking pork butts at 225. All was going well until 30 minutes into it, temperature started dropping. Turned off unit and let it cycle through and restarted. All seemed well, temp began rising so I went back inside. When I returned a couple of minutes later, my patio was full of white smoke, and I mean Full!. As I stood on my porch contemplating what to do, I heard a quick rush of air, as if air was sucking into the unit - then suddenly there was a large bang. The lid flew opened about half way then closed. Dark smoke then started pouring out. Shut the unit down and quickly removed the meat. Unit was only at 200 degrees and there was no visible fire but some ambers still glowing in the fire box. Pulled it apart, not much ash - I had just vacuumed it out two uses ago, but went ahead and cleaned it anyways. Did not see any issues. Put it back together and it started up fine. Hit temp and smoked for almost 8 hours without issue. Pork butts came out great. Any ideas out there? Yes, my son said maybe one of the pork butts farted.
 
Yes I think this is what happened:

If your unit ever shuts down or goes too low always start over with the lid open. This will stop these "booms" from happening. What happened was too many pellets were in the burn pot and they ignited all at once.
 
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I was told and this was from another manufacture of Pellet grills that this same issue on the cause was the auger was clogged and stuck. The user them shut it down and restarted without removing the current pellets from the pot. The auger then spun as it unclogged itself and release too many pellets int ehport which there where were already enough pellets.

If this happens again I would not restart it and let the grill cool down and clean out the pot and check the auger to make sure it is not clogged or locked up.
 
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