Years ago I got in on a group buy of Lumberjack pellets with some coworkers. At the same time, I was fighting an absolute lemon of a pellet grill that I could not figure out the root cause. Neither could a district rep for the company that made a personal visit to my home and spent probably an hour looking over my grill. Anyway, long story short I was busy chasing kids around and didn't have the time to do constant test runs and tearing down of that grill at that particular time in our lives. I just needed a grill that would work 1 day each weekend to make a bunch of food for the week.
The issue was that it would constantly get ash all over our food. If I cooked a frozen cheese pizza, it would come out grey. So that became my test case for the problem until I finally just give up. The district rep was convinced it was the Lumberjack pellets, so I tried a couple bags of other brands including the pellets from the grill company. I still had the problem but it was to a lesser degree. However, any ash/soot covered food is pretty unappetizing to me whether it's moderate or severe, so I never used any more of the LJ pellets and got rid of the grill disgusted with both products.
Fast forward several years and Lumberjack pellets are still around and popular. Since they are one of few that offer 100% hickory I thought I should probably give them another shot. I can even get 20/lb bags at our local grocery store for $9.99 so that would be convenient. I picked up a bag a couple weeks back.
Last Sunday night, I cleaned out the MAK, emptied the fire pot and decided to fill the hopper with those Lumberjack pellets to cook a brisket. It was pretty cold dropping close to zero overnight. So the plan was to just move it to the oven when it was time to wrap to minimize the trips out in the cold. About an hour from when I was planning to do this, my Fireboard started alerting me that temps were falling on the MAK. Luckily I wasn't in a meeting and watched it for a few minutes and temps continued to fall. When they hit about 140 I finally ran out and pulled the brisket, wrapped it, and put it in the oven.
I was kinda ticked and was grumbling to myself (words I cannot share here). Anyway, when I opened the lid to pull the brisket the fire took off again with the influx of oxygen and smoke started rolling. I left the MAK running for another hour before shutting it down. A couple days later, I went to empty the fire pot and found the pic below. The fire pot was full of ash all the way up to the auger. The whole top of the fire pot was covered in ash. I had just cleaned out the whole grill and emptied the fire pot before starting the cook. So this was after 10-11 hours on a single cook. I haven't found even half this much ash in the fire pot before ever, probably closer to 1/4 that much at most. I’ve used various brands of pellets, sometimes going 3-4 cooks before emptying it, and running several cooks that went 8-14 hours (long cooks always start with an empty pot), etc.
I know that a lot of people use Lumberjack pellets all the time and the pricing on them is great. On group buys you can often get 40lb bags for $12-15 a bag. I definitely see the appeal there. I also know that many people use them without issues as every pellet grill is different. However, considering what meat costs these days, saving a couple bucks on a long cook isn’t worth it to me versus the risk of problems from this much ash.
The issue was that it would constantly get ash all over our food. If I cooked a frozen cheese pizza, it would come out grey. So that became my test case for the problem until I finally just give up. The district rep was convinced it was the Lumberjack pellets, so I tried a couple bags of other brands including the pellets from the grill company. I still had the problem but it was to a lesser degree. However, any ash/soot covered food is pretty unappetizing to me whether it's moderate or severe, so I never used any more of the LJ pellets and got rid of the grill disgusted with both products.
Fast forward several years and Lumberjack pellets are still around and popular. Since they are one of few that offer 100% hickory I thought I should probably give them another shot. I can even get 20/lb bags at our local grocery store for $9.99 so that would be convenient. I picked up a bag a couple weeks back.
Last Sunday night, I cleaned out the MAK, emptied the fire pot and decided to fill the hopper with those Lumberjack pellets to cook a brisket. It was pretty cold dropping close to zero overnight. So the plan was to just move it to the oven when it was time to wrap to minimize the trips out in the cold. About an hour from when I was planning to do this, my Fireboard started alerting me that temps were falling on the MAK. Luckily I wasn't in a meeting and watched it for a few minutes and temps continued to fall. When they hit about 140 I finally ran out and pulled the brisket, wrapped it, and put it in the oven.
I was kinda ticked and was grumbling to myself (words I cannot share here). Anyway, when I opened the lid to pull the brisket the fire took off again with the influx of oxygen and smoke started rolling. I left the MAK running for another hour before shutting it down. A couple days later, I went to empty the fire pot and found the pic below. The fire pot was full of ash all the way up to the auger. The whole top of the fire pot was covered in ash. I had just cleaned out the whole grill and emptied the fire pot before starting the cook. So this was after 10-11 hours on a single cook. I haven't found even half this much ash in the fire pot before ever, probably closer to 1/4 that much at most. I’ve used various brands of pellets, sometimes going 3-4 cooks before emptying it, and running several cooks that went 8-14 hours (long cooks always start with an empty pot), etc.
I know that a lot of people use Lumberjack pellets all the time and the pricing on them is great. On group buys you can often get 40lb bags for $12-15 a bag. I definitely see the appeal there. I also know that many people use them without issues as every pellet grill is different. However, considering what meat costs these days, saving a couple bucks on a long cook isn’t worth it to me versus the risk of problems from this much ash.
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