Check this out...

[VELPO]

I noticed on my recent cooks that it really seemed to take a long time for the grill to get going. During the first week of using the grill, I could get up to 600 in 15 minutes or so. This week though, it just seems to take forever to even get in that 400 range for regular cooking. Today I decided to set it at 600 and set a timer. After 20 minutes I was only around 140. I decided to play some ping pong with my son in the backyard and just let it go. I started to smell something weird at the 52 minute mark. I opened up the grill, removed the grates and the deflector to see this...

There was smoke coming out of the hopper. I put some gloves on and immediately put out everything.

I am now ready to contact Weber.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

I noticed on my recent cooks that it really seemed to take a long time for the grill to get going. During the first week of using the grill, I could get up to 600 in 15 minutes or so. This week though, it just seems to take forever to even get in that 400 range for regular cooking. Today I decided to set it at 600 and set a timer. After 20 minutes I was only around 140. I decided to play some ping pong with my son in the backyard and just let it go. I started to smell something weird at the 52 minute mark. I opened up the grill, removed the grates and the deflector to see this...

There was smoke coming out of the hopper. I put some gloves on and immediately put out everything.

I am now ready to contact Weber.

Thanks for sharing this. I too have seen some burned pellets at the auger tube end but not on the actual pellet chute. I fixed the hopper slide issue. I guess I need to start working on a way to slick up the auger pellet slide!!

Was there ANY chance that your pellets had any excessive moisture? Just asking because that would be a quick solution as to why it did this.

 

[VELPO]

I had an incident earlier this week where my entire slide was full of pellets but nothing was lit. The same thing must have happened but there was enough smoldering to get the thing going.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

I had an incident earlier this week where my entire slide was full of pellets but nothing was lit. The same thing must have happened but there was enough smoldering to get the thing going.

So if the pellets were not wet/defective/etc....... Would it be safe to assume the grill attempted to start up, controller thought it was started but could not increase temp as programmed so the controller decided to dump more fuel payload in the pot causing this issue? If so that is crazy it did not create some type of error shutdown code before hand. I am also starting to wonder what type of programming parameters are built around turning the glow plug off and on. It almost seems like once the controller thinks there is ignition it never turns the glow plug back on again regardless of temperature drop maybe? Just my thoughts and .02. but from all the posts I am seeing about failures to ignite, maintain temp, etc...it seems completely logical..

 

[VELPO]

The ONLY thing that I can also think of is that I have been using GMG pellets... a coworker of my wife gave me some Traeger pellets that I added to the top of the GMG pellets the other day while cooking.... they do seem super dusty. I wonder if they are a bad batch. It's weird to me that the glow plug never seems to reignite if the temp isn't going up after awhile... I've had to shut down and then reboot to get the fire going again in the past.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

The ONLY thing that I can also think of is that I have been using GMG pellets... a coworker of my wife gave me some Traeger pellets that I added to the top of the GMG pellets the other day while cooking.... they do seem super dusty. I wonder if they are a bad batch. It's weird to me that the glow plug never seems to reignite if the temp isn't going up after awhile... I've had to shut down and then reboot to get the fire going again in the past.

Not sure on the pellets but my observations of others posts about exactly what you said about shutting down and starting over makes me awfully suspicious the programming of the controller does not engage the glow plug after initial startup procedures. I would love to hear from Weber or someone that has inspected the programming or actual processes of the PID.

 

[VELPO]

Just to have 1 Weber technician on here answering some questions would ease so much pain..

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

Just to have 1 Weber technician on here answering some questions would ease so much pain..

Absolutely right! I would think by now (if not earlier) they are for sure lurking on this forum and other social media sights as users which is totally fine by me but at this point it would be AMAZING to have them actually post here. Obviously most of us here love their products to some degree for the most part and would be really forward thinking in branding and marketing to actively engage with their customers on all fronts of social media whether its good, bad, great or crazy convo!

 

[VELPO]

UPDATE: After shutting down the grill, I rebooted to see what would happen.

After about 30 minutes or so, I got the error that said the glow plug was out and that the grill would be shutting down.

I'm going to buy some GMG pellets tomorrow and retry.

 

[abmet]

I’d also contact Weber. Doesn’t seem like should continue dumping pellets and completely fill the pellet chute if they didn’t ignite. Hopefully the pellets are bad and not burning like they should.

 

[TheRedComet]

Have you checked the series model on your auger?

A lot of people here with auger issues have Series "D" and Weber had been replacing them with Series "F". It's easy enough to check, just remove the back cover you had to remove to install the glow plug and it's right there on the auger motor housing.

 

[TheRedComet]

The other thing I noticed in your initial picture, your flavorizer support rail is pushing down on your pellet slide creating a gap in the burn pot cover plate down in the front. I don't know that it will fix anything you're seeing but I noticed the same thing on mine while I was inspecting everything after I did my initial burn in. Trendkill talks about it in his cleaning video he posted earlier this week

 

[Cambridge Brian]

So I did ask Weber about the glow plug and I was told it only comes on to light the pellets. If they go out it will not come on again. I have had my share of issues and I found that using Weber pellets made a big difference and I also have a new auger on the way. I wonder if people who have the new auger are having better luck using other pellets.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

So I did ask Weber about the glow plug and I was told it only comes on to light the pellets. If they go out it will not come on again. I have had my share of issues and I found that using Weber pellets made a big difference and I also have a new auger on the way. I wonder if people who have the new auger are having better luck using other pellets.

Dang. Just as I expected. Would have been nice to program it to refire the glow plug in a temperature drop swing situation. It would probably remedy a lot of issues.

 

[SmokeMeister]

Dang. Just as I expected. Would have been nice to program it to refire the glow plug in a temperature drop swing situation. It would probably remedy a lot of issues.

Yeah, what's it hurt to have it come back on if it senses a loss of temp? Even if it's not needed, like you just opened the door?

Or maybe it's simply a matter of they haven't gotten to it yet? Maybe they were so behind schedule that they had to ship with only what is absolutely necessary with the thought that they can add it later?