Near Meltdown for newbie....

[ddbones]

Hello all, after having my BS for nearly 6months I decided to fire it up this past weekend... wanted to do some brisket and ribs... well...as a nervous hen, I followed the seasoning instructions then loaded it up for a 6-8 hr slow smoke... I checked it every 30mins or so seeing as I had no idea what to expect.  By checking I mean checked the temp, resisted opening it up...  

However I must not have read the entire "safety" instructions as about 6hrs into the process, I noted a lot more smoke coming from the vent as previous checks...  Upon investigation, i.e. opening it up, I noticed that the auto feed mechanism had "accumulated" more than it should have...and apparently it caught on fire and melted the seals at the lower end of the cooker door... after shutting it all down and pulling everything out, I'm still not sure what I did wrong other than not open the door every 30 mins... but I'm sure I did something wrong...

I did notice that the temp never read above 150-175 until the fire started at which time it read 250... I thought I should be able to get around 200F on the unit, perhaps again I'm missing something...

Anyways, the long and short of this is that I need to repair the door unit and have no idea what the best alternative is, suggestions would be helpful?  Do I need to replace the entire door or can the stripping be replaced?

Thanks all for your patience in reading this (btw, the brisket turned out ok even though it was a little short on time... :)  ribs, so so... don't have a good rub for either yet...)

[car54]

If you have had it for only 6 months it should be under warranty. Call up Bradley, you should get a whole new one.

[Habanero Smoker]

As Car54 states, you are still under warranty. In case it was an error on your part, I'm sure you do not want to repeat this problem[:)] With more information I am sure someone can give you an idea of what went wrong.

Can you explain this statement in more detail <font color="green"> <i>"I noticed that the auto feed mechanism had "accumulated" more than it should have.." </i></font id="green"> Are you saying that the bowl was overfilled with burnt pucks.

How many briquettes did you load? Did you place any water in the water pan? If so it doesn't sound like you changed the water after 4 hours, which should be done.

[Oldman]

Without a doubt we need more information for sure. If it is indeed under warranty I think you will be very please with Bradley.

I'm guessing here, but it sounds like to me the water bowl was not emptied at 4 hours and then refilled as you were smoking for 6-8 hours. Thus the burnet pucks stacked up and that is what cause the fire.

As to the cooking heat the unit has a 500 watt element. If you max out the racks with heavy meats then it will take much longer to get above 200 F.  Next don't trust that door thermometer. It is never correct.  When I do just one large item in my unit I can get 260-275 if I want.  If it is empty I get over 300 F.  Personally I like 205 F as my target temp. for the larger  items. Whole Chickens, briskets boston butts.

Good luck and keep us in the loop.

Olds

[Oldman]

BTW When smoking 4 hours of smoke is about all you are going to need to do. Then the box becomes a slow roaster.

Olds

[ddbones]

Thanks everyone! it definitely was my fault, and I believe the problem was the 8 hrs of pucks I put in-commonsense left for the day!

I'll have to check when I purchased it & give Bradley a call but it's definitely user error.

 I wished I found this forum before I tried it out...

 I really appreciate all the feedback-when I get a solution I'll post it!

 thanks!

[ddbones]

Oh, BTW -yes J did have water in the bowl-but should have cut down on the # of Pucks? :) thanks again!

[Phone Guy]

Ok you said this happened after 6 hours thats 18 bisquettes that fed through if all was working as it was designed. 18 is not enough to cause the kind of fire you stated, especially if you had any amount of water in the bowl. I'm sure the BS is designed with that safety in mind. I mean if lets say I had a few to many while waiting for my brisket or just fell asleep, there shouldn't be a fire in my smoker after 6 hours. Now if you put gasoline or some other flamable liquid in the bowl I would suspect user error. In this case I can't see how this could be your problem. Now if you placed the V pan upside down and grease got on the heating element you could start a fire. Its a V man not an A pan.

[Habanero Smoker]

Even with 12 bisquettes, there have been a few times when just that many have backed up on me and interferred with the advancing of the bisquettes. Also with that many bisquettes in the bowl, the water will evaporate faster, especially if some are in contact with the burn plate. With dry spent bisquettes being feed rendered fat from what you are cooking and those combustables being that close to the heating element that is at full power; a fire can happen.

[ddbones]

Well I received an email from Bradley and they will take care of it. They definitely rate at the top for service.

 On the topic of how-I'm still at a loss but suffice to say next time I'll be double checking everything! That's Fumy on the A tray vs V tray! Ha Ha-I'm pretty sure that if was a V:)

 I'll update again when I Know what they will do.

[nsxbill]

ddbones

I just sent you a private email.

Bill

<i>There is room on earth for all God's creatures....on my plate next to the mashed potatoes.</i>

[Oldman]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">That's Fumy on the A tray vs V tray! Ha Ha-I'm pretty sure that if was a V:)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Well believe it or not some folks have made that mistake...[V]

For those who are new the bottom pan goes V not / ~~!

Olds

[JJC]

Welcome to the Forum, David.  Glad you had good result with Bradley CS--they're tops.  Still can't figure out how that fire started, though . . .

John
Newton MA