To Sift or Not To Sift..That is the question!

[Emayo]

Hello my fellow smokefire brothers and sisters. I know we have had much talk about pellets and which ones are best. My question is, anyone sifting prior to putting in hopper? Trying to avoid any type of auger jam. I have the new welded auger and ran my smokefire all the down till i saw the auger moving. Did not notice any kind of dust or pellets being compacted in there. Running nice and smooth. Want to keep it this way. I am aslo about to get some buckets to store my pellets after blending them for different smokes. Any ideas on storage?? I figure 5 gal buckets are cheap and good. But should I sift before putting them in..????

 

[abmet]

I’ve been thinking about sifting mine, but haven’t yet. I’m using food safe 5 gallon buckets with screw on lids to store my pellets, and use a large scoop to put them into the hopper. I don’t get much of the pellet dust that way.

 

[topkatt4518]

I have been sifting since day 1. I have to say the Weber pellets have very little dust except the bottom of the bag has some. I have used Cook-in pellets and there was a ton of dust in those. I think part of the issue is how the pellets are made. The Weber has a sheen on the outside and Cook-in pellets have a more mat finish and rougher. The SF has enough issues on it's own, so sifting helps take another issue out of the equation.

 

[Bruno]

I refuse to get into sifting. That’s too much of a pain in the butt. If it can’t handle a little dust maybe the inverted auger want such a hot idea.

 

[topkatt4518]

Honestly, I do not disagree, this should have been part of their design to handle it properly. I do it to remove it out of the equation as there are so many other issues with this grill. I want to make sure that I am doing things over and above so Weber can not come back and try to say it was user error. Hopefully one day this will all be behind us and we will have great grill making really great food all the time.

 

[abmet]

Yeah I don’t want to sift either hopefully scooping from bucket will be good enough to avoid any issues with dust. Completely agree it should be able to handle it.

 

[Brad S]

Some guys over at the rec tec forum were talking about great way to clear the hopper and store pellets. Store your pellets in 5 gallon buckets and use a bucket head vac (Home Depot around 26 bucks) to suck them up out of the hopper into your bucket. Hope to pick one up next time i'm at HD.

 

[laketater]

Hello my fellow smokefire brothers and sisters. I know we have had much talk about pellets and which ones are best. My question is, anyone sifting prior to putting in hopper? Trying to avoid any type of auger jam. I have the new welded auger and ran my smokefire all the down till i saw the auger moving. Did not notice any kind of dust or pellets being compacted in there. Running nice and smooth. Want to keep it this way. I am aslo about to get some buckets to store my pellets after blending them for different smokes. Any ideas on storage?? I figure 5 gal buckets are cheap and good. But should I sift before putting them in..????

Weber pellets had really bad quality control and $$$$. They varied from 1/2" to over 3" so those would jam the entry. I took the guard off and switched to cheaper brands and haven't had any issues. As to sifting, I don't think you need to do that.

 

[tigermikie]

Not cheap, but the Traeger lid and filter kit works great. As I pour the pellets into the 5 gallon bucket, I continually shake the bucket. All the dust Sifts down through the filter. Pellets pour out very clean. Really think the excess dust is causing a lot of the problems folks are having. First time you put the top on the bucket is a pain if you don’t soften the top up. Once it has stretched it goes on and off in a snap!

 

[KevinD]

I agree with all. Dust is part of the "plug" problem caused by the auger reversing on shutdown. I hope in a future firmware/software update they minimize the reverse. I do not sift but anything like that would help. I am going to the bucket method.