fire in the hole

[watchdog56]

Well was smoking 3 pork butts for super bowl party and everything was going well as could be. Had to turn temp on PID to 300 so temp in unit could reach 225 but living in Minn. I expect that in the winter. Have done it in the past so no big worry. We after 12 hours or a 2;00 AM check of everything it was all going well.
Had clean pan before smoke started so not to have to worry like other post I seen go up in smoke,water pan still had plenty of fluid in it so everything good there,just needed to move racks and go back to bed. Woke up and garage was filled with smoke and door was melted shut with beeps coming from my PID and SG. Well finally got door pried open with screwdriver and meat looked charred. Don't know if meat is salvageable or not but will find out.
Took at look at v-tray and it looked like it was pretty loaded with fat on there so next time I will have to double check and make sure v-tray is clear even after 12 hours of smoke. I am hoping that I only need to replace door and sensors as everything else fires up. Smoke generator turns on but I do get and E1 error so I am guessing that is just my sensor wire. It looks like I could still set temps on it.

[squirtthecat]

Yikes!  Good thing you caught it in time..

[TestRocket]

Yikes!  Good thing you caught it in time..

Yea buddy that could have been real bad! Glad it wasn't!

[watchdog56]

Back of smoker seems real solid like maybe it melted so not sure if wires in there are any good. Keep getting E! error.

[lumpy]

As strange as it sounds, when I do an overnight smoke/cook in the BDS, I have a timer that goes off every 90 minutes and I get up check the water pan and v-tray.
Most times I wake up anyways even before the timer goes off. Seen too many pictures of smokers on fire :(

Lumpy

[OU812]

Bummer.

Also with keepin the V tray clean you need to dump the water bowl even if it looks like it has water in it.

Most likley its not water but rather grease that looks like water.

Hope you get every thing up and runnin again.

[ADH]

Good to hear you and your family are ok.

[watchdog56]

I had a big food tray in for my water bowl and that still had plenty of fluid in it in AM.

[KyNola]

That was WAY too close for comfort.  If the door melted itself shut you definitely had a fire in there.  Lucky for you that it apparently burned itself out.

Happy to hear that the only casualty was pork butts and your smoker and not your garage.

[GusRobin]

A said above, on long cooks should change water often. Before going to bed, should always change water and scrape V tray clean. Don't understand why you set the PID to 300? The PID keeps the element on until it gets close to the set temp then cycles on and off to try to keep it constant. So keeping it at 300 to get it to 230 is like trying to get your cold house to 70* by putting the thermostat at 90. It doesn't make the furnace run any hotter, just longer.

[watchdog56]

When I had it set to 225,after 6 hours it was still at 170. I did have the smoke generator on to help bring up the heat also. I had the unit out of the wind and had a moving blanket wrapped around it. I only have the one element in and have not done the mod with the element only because when it comes to electricity it is totally greek to me. I have checked my sensors of both my PID and Maverick with the boiling water test and both check out. I think my main problem was not cleaning v-tray before going to bed,it was totally,shiny clean before smoke started.

[muebe]

Oh man :o That was close one for you! Did you remove the fat caps on those butts or leave them in tact? With three full fat caps that would be a grease overload and could have triggered a grease fire!

[beefmann]

caught it just in time AND GOOD  CATCH

[SouthernSmoked]

Man Oh Man, that was way to close. Glad to hear you and the family are OK.

[iceman]

Good catch. Glad we didn't have to find out about it in the news. Whew!!! Happy ending even if the meat was a loss.  :)