Last night I made pizzas and found this in the burn pot this morning. Its a hard deposit that almost looks plastic like. The pellets were Bear Mountain Cherry I got at the Chef Store on sale. The un-burnt pellets look normal and they swell up and come apart when water is put on them. The pellets don't have any plastic mixed with them and the swelled pellets only have sawdust.
I've used Bear Mountain pellets lots of times in the past and haven't had any problems. Maybe I got a bad batch? I'm now concerned about the three other bags I have (not cherry).
by 1911ACP
10 Comments
They’re called clinkers and they indicate that there was a fair bit of bark and sap in the pellets.
Whether that’s good or bad is up to you – Knotty Wood tells people they will for sure get some because they are grinding up entire (dwarf) trees, for example.
Looks like a clinker, just a residue clump of whatever non-combustible minerals the tree pulled in during its life. Relatively common with fruit tree and high bark content pellets.
I’ve seen something similar with traeger pellets before, I assumed it was a bag bag because the problem went away…mine was more sandy and less “plastic” as you describe but a very similar solid build up
I got that for the first time ever after using a flame tamer. No idea why, don’t particularly bother me, just noticed it.
Common in fruit wood.
I get them when using maple.
Thank you for the quick feedback. Never heard of clinkers before. I think I’ll toss this bag and try another, my other cherry bag has a different date code on it.
I use Lumberjack and thankfully have never had a “clinker”
Did you use traeger pellets? I saw a thing that people been finding lots of plastic in it.
I use Bear Mountain Mesquite mainly, add some apple (about a 1/4) and get a few after a couple of smokes. Never really investigated much. Wondered about it though. Thought it might be interfering with the pellet flow and burn.