Where there’s smoke, there’s [grease] fire

[Blowin' Smoke]

So I’ve been really busy lately. Really busy. I was recently volun-told that I’d be moving into a new position at work. Way more responsibility, longer hours and no more pay. Actually, less pay if you figure my hours worked vs salary before (go Navy). Also travelled to both sides of the family for the Holidays, and realized that my normal family has had quite a number of issues that only I wasn’t aware of until now. But that’s neither here nor there. This weekend I’m smoking.

Last night I picked up a tri tip (first ever), two racks of beef back ribs, a rack of St. Louis ribs, and a whole chicken. The Tri tip was coated with Montreal and reverse seared last night. It was delicious. Best $14 piece of meat ever. Today was the big day for everything else.

I was using my OC Smokehouse. I started the cook with beef ribs on upper right and middle right, and pork ribs on bottom left (I’m weird about drippings from other meats). After about 3 hours I added my chicken to the top left and under it in an aluminum pan was my veggies. I love roasting them and getting the drippings from the chicken. Anyway, I was running along around 275*. After about 5 hours I pulled the pork ribs and was left with the beef and chicken. The beef was dripping into the bottom drip pan the whole time, and had accumulated a decent amount. I added a couple extra splits to pick the temp up to around 320, closed my firebox door and walked away. About 20 minutes later I walked out to check on things and my thermo was waaaaaaay past 500*. I opened the door and my beef ribs were on fire. Literally on fire. Chicken was burnt to a crisp and the poor veggies. Oh the poor veggies. Everything in the chamber was matte black like covered in soot.

I’m not quite sure what happened. I don’t think the flames would have come all the way through the baffle and caught the grease on fire, but it’s possible. I don’t think the grease would have heated up in the pan to the point it would just start burning. Or would it? Any thoughts from you guys? I guess maybe next time I’ll just add water to the pan, but im so bummed.

Luckily I have some Clyde Mays Alabama style to comfort me. I hope yalls cooks turned out better than mine!

 

[medic92]

My money is on the flames getting to it, but that's just my opinion.

If it makes you feel any better I let the water pan go dry in my double boiler today and scorched a 50 serving batch of mac & cheese. Doesn't sound so bad until you figure the cost of a gallon of heavy cream, 3 1/2 pounds of cheese, two and a half cups of pasta and four pounds of bacon that made up the batch.

On the bright side my ribs were superb.

 

[bonz50]

I don't clean my WSM very often and usually wait until the water/grease pan is pretty full before I have at it. well, I did a 5 run cook of pork butts on it when I did the football team banquet this year. and on t-giving day I fired it up for the bird and got that thing good and hot and during the cook it eventually started smoking a little. I thought no big deal, its the wood/coals. well, after an hour or so i decided to take a peep at the bird, as soon as I opened the lid the grease in the pan I had forgotten to clean out flashed up. whoops!! luckily still had my brothers WSM from the banquet cook so I cleaned out his pan and put the bird on his mid-section and put that over my fire. turned out good, but there was a little 'char' flavor that was a bit bitter. I was a bit luckier than you were, but sounds like we had a similar event

lesson learned.

 

[SmittyJonz]

I think it got Hot enough to ignite. I run water in mine.

 

[Blowin' Smoke]

Thanks guys! I guess I’ll do a good clean out and use water in the pan next cook. I may also throw in my maverick to keep an eye on CC temps. I’m thankful I wasn’t doing a cook for a party!

 

[hachi-roku_fan]

Chicken grease is pretty flammable I discovered yesterday. I made wings on my kettle using a vortex, and I lined the charcoal grate around the vortex to make clean up easy. After I temped the wings I started to pull them off. The grease that collected on the foil caught on fire somehow, and went up real quick. I was pretty quick and taking them off and shutting the lid so no harm was done, but it all happened pretty fast.

 

[Ag76]

I would recommend cleaning out the grease after every cook.

The best way to put out a grease fire is to shut off all of the air vents.

 

[BillATL]

Had two turkey on my Primo Oval XL last year at Thanksgiving with a similar issue. I think the flames got to my drip pans since everything was jammed in pretty tight with two turkeys. I managed to get the fire out by closing down all the vents and salvaged the turkeys but not before I created an incident on the local email list in my neighborhood...

 

[Beer/Meat/Victory]

I rarely use my gasser anymore with preference going to the kettle when grilling. So naturally I'm lazy and haven't cleaned it in a while. The lady wanted some quick Boneless/skinless chicken breasts done for a pot pie to cook later. I threw them on, went inside to grab a drink and within a couple minutes black smoke and flames were shooting out of the gasser. The pizza delivery was on point that night.

 

[Blowin' Smoke]

Yeah...whenever I cook whole chickens, I have a tray of veggies under it. They roast, and then cook in the drippings from the chicken. So there is rarely, if ever, any chicken grease in the drip pan. The only exception to this was on this particular cook. I had the two racks of beef back ribs that seemed to be pouring grease the whole time, so they put a decent amount of grease into the drip pan. I'm just going to clean out my chamber and use water in the drip pan on my next cook.

 

[Texan79423]

Say What?

Dude tell me you didn't burn supper again!

 

[jasonjax]

I'm with the flame too.

I was going to be "smart" and added a bunch of beef fat from brisket trimmings to a small pan next to the firebox in my FEC-100. BAD IDEA. Water cooked off inside the pan, beef fat was left, and POOF - burned so hot the gasket melted. I saved the cook, but it was a hard lesson learned!

 

[DubfromGA]

Dude tell me you didn't burn supper again!

:thumb: Awesome dog pic !!! :becky: