Horrible smelly black smoke from my Timberline XL

[The Visitor]

After about 30 or 40 minutes my Timberline starts producing smelly black smoke. It has ruined a lot of food. Using new Traeger pellets. It is like a grease fire, but no grease. Does it without any food in it. And yes, I am cleaning it out real well each time. Has anybody else had this sort of thing? Service department seems to not know what is happening. Sent me a new heat shield (original warped bad) and new fire pot thing (looks the same). The problem persists. The thing is unusable as it is. My previous 500 dollar smoker never gave me any grief.

However, the induction side burner, love it.

 

[RayClem]

What temperature setting are you using? Black smoke is typically caused when there is insufficient air for proper combustion of the fuel. Thus, this is far more likely to occur with low cooking temperatures.

Have you checked to see if your RTD thermocouple is reading accurately? If you set the temperature to 200F, but the actual cook temperature is only 170F, you are more likely to experience an issue with black smoke. I typically set my Ironwood to 230F to achieve a cook temperature of 220F and always get clean, blue smoke.

 

[The Visitor]

What temperature setting are you using? Black smoke is typically caused when there is insufficient air for proper combustion of the fuel. Thus, this is far more likely to occur with low cooking temperatures.

Have you checked to see if your RTD thermocouple is reading accurately? If you set the temperature to 200F, but the actual cook temperature is only 170F, you are more likely to experience an issue with black smoke. I typically set my Ironwood to 230F to achieve a cook temperature of 220F and always get clean, blue smoke.

I have not checked anything for accuracy. When I first got the thing, it seemed to work okay. Temps it happens at are lower, 250ish but most often 350-380ish. Doing chicken, like to crisp up the skin. I have the feeling that a fan is failing or not being commanded to run. At times I do get a very loud hum from the smoker. The service people say they could detect such a problem. But that is if everything is working. If it isn't commanding the fan to run, then it doesn't know there is an error. Just thinking out loud there.

Now I cannot turn my back on the thing. And again, everything is coated in this horrible black carbon smoke residue. Ruined so much meat, and trouble shooting this is getting in the way of my day job. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. I will try to check the accuracy of things.

 

[RayClem]

If you are getting black smoke with temperature at 250F and higher, then it is quite likely that your fan is not operating properly. The fuel to air mixture is definitely not right.

Record as much information as you can and then contact Traeger customer service. Hopefully, Traeger will be able to resolve the problem. You might want to check the connections from the fan to the controller to make sure something is not loose.

 

[The Visitor]

I can look again. Service people seemed dismissive of my suggestion about the fan. The loud noise it makes, is as if the fan is not rotating, but humming.

 

[RayClem]

If the customer service folks do not think you are correct about the fan, what DO they think is causing the black smoke? They cannot dismiss your hypothesis without offering an alternative hypothesis.

If you can take a video of the grill when it has this event, I suggest you do so and then provide the customer service folks a copy of the video. Hopefully, the video will show the black smoke and will also capture the humming sound. Hopefully, they will believe the audio/video evidence.

 

[The Visitor]

I can try to get to that this weekend. Thank you for suggesting. Previously they have blamed the pellets and the warped heat shield and the fire pot has been changed. Nothing is damaged. But the interior is horribly covered in black mess from the smoke. I have wanted to return it, but the store says I have to deal with Traeger directly. FWIW, I think you are correct. Fan or a circuit board is messed up. Worked okay first few times. Now, not usable, and no trust in it.

The service people are nice enough, but are stuck going through trouble shooting flowcharts. And without a fan error message, they insist the fan is okay. I know from experience that when things are not right, the diagnostics can be wrong. I have spent days on the phone with them. Just getting so frustrated.

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[caper11]

Hate to sound negative, but welcome to the world of owning the worst designed grills by Traeger. I have complained about the fans lack of speed at a setpoint of 165-225f, super smoke is a must to get the fan speed up, especially when getting past the 125F in 20mins to avoid the cold grill error.
These grills are alot more maintenance than the foil lined grease pan models, if you’re cooking at those low temperatures, creosote buildup is a major issue with these new grill models.
I am done working with customer service, Im am tired of wasting my time and the problem still exists.

 

[The Visitor]

Wow, thank you for writing! I don't have it in me, to spend more time on the phone with service. I did go into the store where I purchased it. I have asked, and they are going to try to help. I am dreading another round of....try this, try that and send more pictures. It gets in the way of the day job. They are paid to spend hours on the phone with me. But myself, I have to take off work to do it.

I am not really cooking at low temperatures. I have this problem with it running at 350. Though I have not tried a low temp cook of anything. Nor will I try to cook anything on it anymore.

As it it, it is not useable. It is a huge smoker. Imagine loading it up and having company over and then it does this. It already has ruined so much meat, to be a shame. I have had other pellet smokers. Never any problem, ever. I gave my last one away when I bought the Timberline. Thinking I now have the ultimate. Nothing but heartache.

 

[caper11]

Wow, thank you for writing! I don't have it in me, to spend more time on the phone with service. I did go into the store where I purchased it. I have asked, and they are going to try to help. I am dreading another round of....try this, try that and send more pictures. It gets in the way of the day job. They are paid to spend hours on the phone with me. But myself, I have to take off work to do it.

I am not really cooking at low temperatures. I have this problem with it running at 350. Though I have not tried a low temp cook of anything. Nor will I try to cook anything on it anymore.

As it it, it is not useable. It is a huge smoker. Imagine loading it up and having company over and then it does this. It already has ruined so much meat, to be a shame. I have had other pellet smokers. Never any problem, ever. I gave my last one away when I bought the Timberline. Thinking I now have the ultimate. Nothing but heartache.

Try giving it a burn at 450- 500 and see if you can get it to clear up. I also have to scrape my grease pan often to clean it, than shop vac it out.

I have my grill set at 500 right now knowing it cooks colder in the fire box.

 

[The Visitor]

I have tested it at over 400, still does it. If by "clear up" you meant the problem, that did not. As for any grease and such, the thing is spotless. I have not put food in it for several months. The underside of the heat shield is black with carbon smoke, not wood smoke as well as around the fire pot. Both the heat shield and fire pot are new, having received replacements from service. Fire pot, I don't know why, but they seemed to think it should be done. Heat shield (3rd) because previous one again warped badly.

 

[caper11]

Oh wow! That’s different than I expected. Seems like there is a lack of air to the fire pot.

 

[Like Smoke]

Just a thought, I am not familiar with you model but somthing you might try. If the bottom of the controll box is open like mine, you might use a hand mirror and a flash light and look up under the control box and verify that the fan is turning. My fan started making more noise and I noticed it was taking some time to get up to speed. I saved a smoke with a shot of oil on the bushings and have since replaced the fan. I also don;t know if your unit has a set speed fan or a variable speed. Just somthing to think about. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[smoker123]

What temperature setting are you using?
Black smoke is typically caused when there is insufficient air for proper combustion of the fuel. Thus, this is far more likely to occur with low cooking temperatures.

 

[The Visitor]

Just by way of update. Finally, after almost so long, I have some support happening from the Traeger rep and has arranged for the inducing fan to be replaced. Service person came over and changed it. He has confirmed that the problem is incomplete combustion. (He is aware of the black carbon smoke that happens during this sort of event. When there should be wood smelling white smoke or very light gray.) And that a new fan has fixed others.

This unfortunately didn't solve the problem for me. It still does it, and I can confirm the inducing fan (a large biscuit fan) was turning. Another time, I did again get an ignitor failure alert and it said it was going to shut down, but didn't. And when I selected a higher temp, it went up. Eventually to re-enter the incomplete combustion failure mode.

Temp sensor feeding bad info to the board? Bad components on the board? This seems to be somewhat dependent on the ambient air temperature. Over 70dF it takes 40 to 90 minutes to fail. Much longer when it is cooler out, such as is now with the cold weather coming. Also I don't think it gives off the jet turbine sound but that is replaced by a loud sort of hum.

When it worked, it was great, nice even heat, lots of wood smelling smoke, loved the thing. Induction burner, love it too!

Store I bought it from will be picking up the unit and troubleshooting it with help from Traeger service.


Just found out that they will be replacing the smoker. So a big Thank you to my store and Traeger!
THANK YOU!