Camp Chef Pellet ash?

[DamascusKnifemaker]

Yesterday I assembled and burned in my new Pit Boss 850 Competition Series pellet smoker. After the burn in I smoked a rack of spare ribs using the 3-2-1 method. I used Camp Chef apple pellets. The ribs were quite tasty. This morning I took up the task of cleaning the new smoker and found what appears to be a lot of ash. I would expect some under the searing baffle but there was also a thin layer on all of the grates. Since it was on the grates it's a good bet there was ash coating the ribs. Is this normal, are the pellets an inferior brand and is there a way to mitigate the ash?

 

[Ol' Smokey]

The fan will always blow some ash around. Wont hurt anything. Some pellets create more ash than others. The more you use your grill, the more the inside will develope a coating of grease mist and smoke deposits. That will greatly reduce the amount of ash that blows around as it will stick to the walls and grates...

 

[Ol' Smokey]

Another thing i did was put the sliding plate over the burn pot, then put the drip plate in. This did two things. The two plates sitting on each other was causing rust flakes to form as moisture was trapped between them. If you use your grill alot, this may not be a problem. The other thing it did was act like a flame tamer. My temps became more stable with smaller temp swings and it also cut down on how much the ash blew around. I never slid the little plate to get direct heat/flame on my food, so placing it over the burn pot worked out for me....

Edit....just noticed your slide plate is also slotted so it probably wont work the same for you....

Another thing i did to hopefully make life easier in the future was to pull the fire pot bolts out and coat with anti sieze...

 

[DamascusKnifemaker]

Another thing i did was put the sliding plate over the burn pot, then put the drip plate in. This did two things. The two plates sitting on each other was causing rust flakes to form as moisture was trapped between them. If you use your grill alot, this may not be a problem. The other thing it did was act like a flame tamer. My temps became more stable with smaller temp swings and it also cut down on how much the ash blew around. I never slid the little plate to get direct heat/flame on my food, so placing it over the burn pot worked out for me....

Edit....just noticed your slide plate is also slotted so it probably wont work the same for you....
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Another thing i did to hopefully make life easier in the future was to pull the fire pot bolts out and coat with anti sieze...

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Thank you for the tips.

 

[sparkyv]

Are you sure you used anti-sieze? Your fingers are too clean.

pull the fire pot bolts out and coat with anti sieze...

 

[Ol' Smokey]

Are you sure you used anti-sieze? Your fingers are too clean.

 

[Mike From R.I.]

Grease from the grease cup works well seeing there is food that you're smoking.