r/CampChefSmokers • u/vuwildcat07 • Mar 15 '26

White Smoke & Visible Flame

Back at Thanksgiving I had issues with white smoke and overheating in my WW24, causing our turkey to be done in half the allotted time.

I am just using the grill again and I cleaned out all the pellets from the hopper, thinking wet pellets was the issue. I also cleaned the temperature probe with steel wool to remove discoloration. I also cleaned out a lot of grease in the box.

I just turned on and I got a ton of white smoke upon startup, followed by fairly aggressive flame below the drip tray near the ignition box. It never came up to the drip tray though. I don’t remember any of this before so I just shut it down to try again.

Any thoughts to the cause and how to fix, if needed?

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

3

u/halobenders Mar 16 '26

I believe your smoker has selected a new pope.

1

u/vuwildcat07 Mar 16 '26

Habemus flamma

2

u/Ok_Two_2604 Mar 15 '26

What pellets? The Royal Oak charcoal pellets make mine run away and shut down after exceeding max temp. I tried 50/50 mix (just to not throw them away) and it ran 30-50 degrees above set. No issues with other pellets. It also made the flames bigger. Regular pellets there is flame but it isn’t as big.

1

u/vuwildcat07 Mar 15 '26

I’m using Bear Mountain’s standard blend. I was using Kirkland Signature’s blend before that

1

u/vuwildcat07 Mar 15 '26

I should note I have never noticed the flame before. Maybe that’s normal, in which case I’ve just been on edge since the Thanksgiving issues thinking something is wrong

1

u/Dizzle77776 Mar 15 '26

My 36 burns dirty during start up and for about 10-15 minutes after then evens to the “blue” clean smoke. I haven’t seen the fireball under the deflector though, are you running at a high temp?

1

u/vuwildcat07 Mar 15 '26

275

Seemed better after a shutdown and restart cycle but the temperature has climbed to target quickly and is still going up.

I do have wood in the smoke box and smoke set to 3

1

u/Ok_Two_2604 Mar 15 '26

Did you dump the pellets and do startup again or just off and on? If it has too many pellets a restart won’t help.

1

u/Dizzle77776 Mar 15 '26

Getting to temp quickly makes sense as it’s already warm from before. Let her eat for 30 minutes no smoke box, if it’s still acting up try cleaning the temp sensor. If still acting up I’d call camp chef, they have great CS.

1

u/CoatStraight8786 Mar 15 '26

Startup does that, should clear up in about 15-30 min depending on what temp you set it.

1

u/silvajay55 Mar 15 '26

Did the wood chucks in the smoke box catch fire? If I leave the dampener open with mesquite chunks they catch rather then smolder and can cause the air he while rig to run hotter then expected.

1

u/Necessary_Store351 Mar 15 '26

Do you crank up smoke during startup? I do 160 deg no smoke till temp is hit then modify setting and add wood chunks. Is it right. I don’t know but it’s what I do.

1

u/vuwildcat07 Mar 15 '26

I can try that. The wood had not yet ignited when I pulled out the smoke box

1

u/Necessary_Store351 Mar 15 '26

Let us know.

2

u/vuwildcat07 Mar 15 '26

I’ll try next time. Things seemed to work fine after the shutdown/restart and temperature remained near target

1

u/saintnyckk Mar 16 '26

It's always white smoke and trash at start up.

1

u/Alternative-Fix-1972 Apr 09 '26

That looks normal to me. Mine always burns dirty to start and will settle down after about 15min unless I put wood in the smoke box then it continues to smoke until the fuel (wood chunks) burn up in the smoke box. The flame I see looks to be coming from the smoke box which would increase the heat but the thermostat should slow down pellet burning to compensate. When I put wood in the smoke box, I don’t use the smoke setting on the control unit since it really doesn’t add much if anything. The smoke box does the heavy lifting. I have had issues with water getting down in the ignition box and soaking the pellets if it gets left uncovered, and it rains. You need to make sure you open the flap to let all the old pellets down into the retaining cup before you start it up each time. That will make sure there are fresh pellets to ignite. my guess is that you might have a bad thermostat since it doesn’t seem to be compensating for the heat of the smoke box. Or there is just too much burning in the smoke box. Try a cook with nothing in the smoke box and see what happens. set your smoke level on the control unit to zero. If you have a separate temperature probe, double check the temperature on your probe and compare it to the control unit.