I recently bought the camp chef Smokepro DLX pellet smoker and so far it is awesome. However I have an issue with the ashes. The longest cook was for 5 hours worth of ribs. When the unit cooled down I had most of the ashes outside of the cup. Is this normal? I have had to vacuum it out with a shop vac every time. 
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I have a Camp Chef hopper on another cooker it makes a good amount of ash. So does the new GMG for that matter. There's a lot of air running thru that firepot.
This does not look unusual to me.
You dont need to vacume it out every time but you can. You manual should give you a recomended time frame for it.
Last edited by Jon Solberg; December 29, 2017, 06:44 PM. -
I have a Traeger and it does the same thing!
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I think that this is typical — happened in both my pellet cookers.Comment
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I have a Camp Chef PG24 DLX and I wouldn't see that much ash with a 5 hour cook. But it certainly does deposit ashes exactly in the pattern you have. Just not that much for the amount of cook time.
What type of pellets? I use B&B Pellets which I believe are a re-brand of BBQr's Delight, which is 50% oak + 50% the flavor wood, so it burns clean and doesn't produce much ash, from my experience.
I usually vacuum mine out every other cook or so though, because it is so easy with a shop vac. I have a el-cheap-o shop vac dedicated to cleaning my grills...
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Totally normal. I scrape and vacuum about every third cook.Comment
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Happens to me too on the Grilla. Vacuum every third or fourth cook usually works for me.Comment
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I have to used a shop vac every third cook on the RecTec.Comment
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Yep - same ash build up on GMG Davey Crockett.Comment
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my SE looks exactly the same. I vacuum it when I change the foil on the drip pan. I use a "bucket head" vacuum from home depot. costs about $21, and goes into a 5 gallon bucket. I also use it to change pellets. The small hose fits in the holes of the safety grid, so I can get to the pellets.Comment
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Thank you guys. I'll relax now. I did a slab of bacon today and I'm doing a boat load of wings tomorrow. I'll have a beer and clean it sometime next week. I love this site.Comment
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I’ve been using my Grilla as my main baking device for 50 lbs of pellets. Burning it almost everyday. Just took this photo of ash buildup. Haven’t cleaned it yet! Mostly oak pellets, with some cherry for reverse seared rib roast for Christmas. The finger swipe at right shows the ash isn’t very deep!
Note! The Grilla is very efficient burner of pellets, this cuts smoke flavor. Yoder burns less efficiently and there’s lots more smoke flavor.
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I've cooked on many, many pellet cookers and used a variety of pellets, not just ours. The FEC100 (by Cookshack) was my first "real" competition cooking machine. I stuck with them through the early days with the Traeger burn system and the IQ system. Watched efficiency grow as smoke flavor went down. Experience!
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My Woodwind looks like that after every cook. I just wipe it down, moving the ash to one side, empty the burn cup -- I do a complete cleaning, vacuuming and such, every fourth or fifth cook, regardless of the length of the cook.Comment
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