Yesterday I smoked chicken for my first cook on the Oklahoma Joe rider dlx 1200. The result lacked smoke flavor and I had some trouble raising the temp. Could the attached video be the reason why? Is this considered some leak? I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or it’s just factor fault.
TIA
by bewoulf1990
7 Comments
I have a similar grill, it’s never done that. The heating element is under the middle of the grill, so all your smoke should come from there. Seeing no smoke coming out of the actual grill chamber and all from the hopper, I would guess something is blocking the smoke from rising in the chamber and so it’s going back through the augur tube and into the hopper. Maybe tear it down and check for any packaging you missed, etc?
Smoke coming from hopper and not from chimney is not a good sign.
I have this exact smoker, and I’ve never seen smoke come out from that area.
My Traeger does that if it overheats and I shift the temperature down. For some reason the fans get stuck on reverse and create negative pressure in the auger tube sucking all the smoke into the hopper. I just have to power it down and restart it usually to fix the issue.
That’s not necessarily what’s happening here. It could be a sign the fire made it into the auger tube and is working it’s way into the hopper. If that’s the case you need to start vacuuming out the burn pit more frequently.
You have an auger fire, sir.
Are you turning the smoke on without opening the pellet box lid?
First cook? Weird. 🤔 This is something that sometimes happens if you don’t vacuum out your hopper on occasion. Dust from the bottom of a bag of pellets builds up in the hopper and can create a back fire. I don’t see this happening on a first time use though. 🤔
Hmmm.