Smoker Stopped Working

[SteveSpy]

Last night I was super pissed. I had two beautiful bone in ribeyes about 24oz each, two inches thick, and I decided I was going to cook them on my EX4 at 500 degrees. So I put them on, I inserted the probes and away we went, the first 25 minutes everything is going great, internal is coming up as it should, all of a sudden my temp starts dropping. Eventually it dropped to south of 150 and when it did, I shut the grill down and transferred my meat to my gas barbecue to not ruin the steaks. Because the smoker was hot, I didn’t want to open it up and investigate so I did that today.
I open it up and what do I see? The whole entire chute and hopper is full of pellets. It’s completely clogged and the entire fire box is full. What the Hell happened here, folks? I’m so confused. My last smoke was 3 weeks ago where I smoked a whole brisket. The only thing I can think of is that after that cook, I didn’t clean the inside of my smoker, like I always do. Was it my laziness that cost me? Are we really supposed to clean the entire smoker after every cook?

 

[Bruno]

Last night I was super pissed. I had two beautiful bone in ribeyes about 24oz each, two inches thick, and I decided I was going to cook them on my EX4 at 500 degrees. So I put them on, I inserted the probes and away we went, the first 25 minutes everything is going great, internal is coming up as it should, all of a sudden my temp starts dropping. Eventually it dropped to south of 150 and when it did, I shut the grill down and transferred my meat to my gas barbecue to not ruin the steaks. Because the smoker was hot, I didn’t want to open it up and investigate so I did that today.
I open it up and what do I see? The whole entire chute and hopper is full of pellets. It’s completely clogged and the entire fire box is full. What the Hell happened here, folks? I’m so confused. My last smoke was 3 weeks ago where I smoked a whole brisket. The only thing I can think of is that after that cook, I didn’t clean the inside of my smoker, like I always do. Was it my laziness that cost me? Are we really supposed to clean the entire smoker after every cook?

I clean mine every 4-5 cooks unless I do something greasy without a pan.
Good luck that sucks!!

 

[Goneincognito]

It could well be that you didn't clean it out after the last cook.
It could have been the condition of the pellets (age, type, how they were stored between cooks).
Could have been a void in the hopper.

All these things can cause a flame out but I would start with not cleaning since old pellets and ash from the last cook could have clogged the burn pot.

 

[AHoneyman]

It could well be that you didn't clean it out after the last cook.
It could have been the condition of the pellets (age, type, how they were stored between cooks).
Could have been a void in the hopper.

All these things can cause a flame out but I would start with not cleaning since old pellets and ash from the last cook could have clogged the burn pot.

No, it was not due to lack of cleaning if he was running at 500 for 25 minutes. At that point, it is way past the start up cycle.

 

[Goneincognito]

No, it was not due to lack of cleaning if he was running at 500 for 25 minutes. At that point, it is way past the start up cycle.

True...
Move on to the pellets then.

 

[MrPhilGrillTX]

Man, that would be upsetting to have that meat on there and have the thing go out like that. Sounds like maybe it went out, and then it kept feeding trying to bring the temp up, and failing.

 

[abmet]

Man that sucks. Does yours have the welded chute? As others said maybe pellet void so was starved for fuel, went out and then dumped bunch of pellets trying to bring temp up? Do you have the wire finger guard still?