Pellet hopper - RT590

dsandersus

Well-known member
Messages
312
Location
North Las Vegas, NV
Grill(s) owned
  1. Stampede
Recently I've ran into an issue where my auger would go empty during a cook, even with pellets in the hopper (above the protective grate). It happened after I changed my pellets from the Smokehouse to Cooking pellets (Hickory). When I open the hopper lid, the pellets right above the auger would fall in, but the sides remained built up and were not collapsing (landslide) to feed the auger. This has happened to me twice since switching to Cooking Pellets and each time I've had to manually push pellets closer to the chamber side. Prior to this, not a single issue with the smokehouse blend...

I'm open to your thoughts / ideas on this..
 
I have a similar problem with the RecTec pellets. In fact, when I pushed them down during a cook, it shot the temperature way up. I generally keep my hopper full to prevent that, but I'm interested in what others think.
 
I have a similar problem with the RecTec pellets. In fact, when I pushed them down during a cook, it shot the temperature way up. I generally keep my hopper full to prevent that, but I'm interested in what others think.
and if I remember correctly, aren't RecTec pellets provided by Cooking Pellets, just relabeled?
 
I decided to give RT support a shot and see if something similar was reported by another owner. About 30 minutes passed after I submitted the inquiry and got a call from Adam at RT. He was very friendly and we chatted about my issue. A possible factor could be wood type and size, there have been reports of maple pellets sticking together which would potentially cause issues. Another was moisture, maybe during bagging the batch was exposed to moisture.

I'm thinking I got a bad batch and will finish this bag off and see if the next does the same or if it fixes itself.
 
I had the same issue last week.. I swapped out a pellets before the cook using the same brand. Went from Oak to Apple, Lumberjack brand. Cleaned out the hopper of the oak, vacuumed out the pellets that were in the part of the augger that's exposed in the hopper, added in the apple. Just left what Oak was already primed down the augger shoot. At some point during start up it took a long time before the the smoker got up to the set temp of 225. I chalked it up to a section of the augger that was empty. But who knows..
 
This is what is happening - hopper before starting.

20190718_062901.jpg


Hopper after 3ish hours in:
20190719_160017.jpg


If I do not stir up the pellets, that hole will continue to empty out until the auger is no longer fed. Gravity is not working on these pellets..

Keep in mind, this only started after switching to 100% hickory cooking pellets, versus the Smokehouse blend I was using prior.. 3 40 lb. bags, no issue..

Got me bewildered
 
This is what is happening - hopper before starting.

View attachment 858

Hopper after 3ish hours in:
View attachment 859

If I do not stir up the pellets, that hole will continue to empty out until the auger is no longer fed. Gravity is not working on these pellets..

Keep in mind, this only started after switching to 100% hickory cooking pellets, versus the Smokehouse blend I was using prior.. 3 40 lb. bags, no issue..

Got me bewildered
Can you remove the grate thats in there? The Bull doesnt have that baffle grate!
 
This is what is happening - hopper before starting.

View attachment 858

Hopper after 3ish hours in:
View attachment 859

If I do not stir up the pellets, that hole will continue to empty out until the auger is no longer fed. Gravity is not working on these pellets..

Keep in mind, this only started after switching to 100% hickory cooking pellets, versus the Smokehouse blend I was using prior.. 3 40 lb. bags, no issue..

Got me bewildered

I'm intrigued by the amount of dust you've got on the bin sides. I started with Cookin Pellets blend which is what RT supplied in the package I ordered (I would tend to agree with you that RT just rebrands CP). I had close to no dust on the bin sides with that product. I've recently loaded Smokehouse blend from Sam's and there is a light coating of dust, but not like what your pic shows. I've speculated that the Smokehouse has a higher ratio of hickory in it's blend based on the smoke smell and food taste, but have no proof. It makes me wonder if the hickory is the issue here in that it's chemistry is less "slippery" for want of a better term, than say a the fruit woods in the blends. Also, I don't think my Stampede has a baffle/grate over the opening to the auger and so far I had decent slump of the pellets. I get that valley effect you show in the second pic, though not quite as pronounced, and whenever I check the pellet level I have a tendency to push it back to level (OCD driven more than anything), but have never had a failure to feed situation with either Smokehouse or CP, though they are both blends rather than single species.
 
I noticed this issue when I had a traeger. I removed it and the issue was gone. Once I got the RT that was the first thing I removed when I got it.

I understand the reason behind it but it does effect the flow of pellets..
 
I'm intrigued by the amount of dust you've got on the bin sides. I started with Cookin Pellets blend which is what RT supplied in the package I ordered (I would tend to agree with you that RT just rebrands CP). I had close to no dust on the bin sides with that product. I've recently loaded Smokehouse blend from Sam's and there is a light coating of dust, but not like what your pic shows. I've speculated that the Smokehouse has a higher ratio of hickory in it's blend based on the smoke smell and food taste, but have no proof. It makes me wonder if the hickory is the issue here in that it's chemistry is less "slippery" for want of a better term, than say a the fruit woods in the blends. Also, I don't think my Stampede has a baffle/grate over the opening to the auger and so far I had decent slump of the pellets. I get that valley effect you show in the second pic, though not quite as pronounced, and whenever I check the pellet level I have a tendency to push it back to level (OCD driven more than anything), but have never had a failure to feed situation with either Smokehouse or CP, though they are both blends rather than single species.
It's very odd to say the least. The 1st 3 bags were Smokehouse Blend (Sam's) and never once I had a feed issue. It was only after I ran through the SB's and went full CP Hickory that this became an issue. I would have never noticed until during a cook, I happened to check the app temp and noticed it had dropped 20 degrees from the set point. I thought "oh crap did I forget to fill the hopper", which I did once prior. I opened the lid and it was full other than right above the hopper which was empty all the way down.. As I mentioned earlier, the sides were intact and gravity wasn't causing the pellets to fall.. So I pushed the sides down, restarted the temp process and continued my cook. But I kept an eye on the pellet levels from that point and it did the same thing and is continuing to do the same today. I've since mixed in some Black Cherry (CP brand) to the Hickory mix, in hopes that rectifies it.

I also checked the level of the smoker, it's what I call "good enough for government work" and will continue to monitor it again over the next few cooks.
 
I noticed this issue when I had a traeger. I removed it and the issue was gone. Once I got the RT that was the first thing I removed when I got it.

I understand the reason behind it but it does effect the flow of pellets..
and I wouldn't disagree, but the first 120 lbs of pellets were not affected.. That makes me question the pellets over the hardware..
 
In addition to mixing in other pellets, I've gone ahead and added a couple pieces of floor tiles under the hopper wheels to bring it up a smidgen, just in case..(this is before the added tiles)
20190719_163744.jpg
..

After adding the tiles

20190719_174715.jpg
 
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I've seen a similar issue with Lumberjack pellets on mine but figured it was par for the course since my brother has the exact same results on his Camp Chef. I just took the grate out last night and after 5 hours of smoke this morning, it seems to a little bit better but that's completely anecdotal.
 
Update - mixed in other pellets in hopes it would resolve this but unfortunately it has not. Next step, I'm going to remove the protective grate and continue on my merry way.
 
I've had the Stampede for a month now. I removed the grate, and still have temperature drops and overheating when the hopper gets down to 1/2 - 1/3 full. It creates a noticeable divot, and I'm wondering if it is sucking air then, or not feeding enough pellets and the controller tries to make up for it. Sometimes knocking on the side helps, sometimes not. I'm going to try keeping it full to see what it does, but I'm worried about over night cooks.
 
I've had the Stampede for a month now. I removed the grate, and still have temperature drops and overheating when the hopper gets down to 1/2 - 1/3 full. It creates a noticeable divot, and I'm wondering if it is sucking air then, or not feeding enough pellets and the controller tries to make up for it. Sometimes knocking on the side helps, sometimes not. I'm going to try keeping it full to see what it does, but I'm worried about over night cooks.
So, I switched back to smokehouse pellets (Sam's club) and haven't had an issue since. Prior to this, I had picked up a few bags of Cooking Pellet brand - hickory, black cherry and kept running into problems with pellets not following gravity rules (bad pellets, bad).

I'm still not 100% convinced it's a pellet brand issue, more of a pellet batch as I'm going to order more of the CPs.

Maybe switch up your pellets?
 
Well. Ran into this issue today during my brisket smoke. Had my last bag of the cooking pellets (apple mash) in the hopper, left for the store and came back to my temp dropping in the 150s. Open the lid and all I see is an empty auger with pellets clinging to the sides of the hopper...

That's 3 for 3 bags of Cooking Pellets. Never again will I give them my money.
 

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