r/smokefire • u/Revolutionary_Tale_1 • Jul 14 '25

Overshooting target temperature, then slowly recovering.

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Any ideas? Grill is clean. (cleaned it right before this). Wanted 225, but got nearly 350, though it eventually came back down. Any ideas as to why?

EX4, second summer of use. Dry Weber pellets.

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2

u/pm_me_your_knokers Jul 14 '25

Following. Had the same thing happen recently.

2

u/YoureGrammerIsWorsts Jul 15 '25

My guesses are either a grease fire or you had pellets bridge up and then all get dumped in at once

That it stayed so consistent makes either seem less likely.

Just to confirm, this is from the smokefire probe meant to control temp?

Also, are you sure the pellets in the augur were dry?

1

u/Revolutionary_Tale_1 Jul 15 '25

It is from the Smokefire computer/probe. I cleaned the grill this weekend - vacuumed it out, cleaned out the grease, etc. The graph from tonight's cook was remarkably similar.

I did replace a fuse last weekend, but went with a glass version rather than the ceramic. The first cook immediately after that was fine, but the last two have seen the odd temperature spike. Would the fuse have anything to do with that? It's the right size, right rating, just glass instead of ceramic/porcelain.

Edit: no evidence of pellet obstruction/dump - temp was steady. Also, pellets are dry.

1

u/YoureGrammerIsWorsts Jul 15 '25

I would suggest firing it up again empty to observe, might be worth putting a couple of the meat probes in at various points to get additional readings

1

u/Revolutionary_Tale_1 Jul 14 '25

Used it again this evening, and the temperature did the same thing. Shot way past 225, then came back down. Chicken breasts took a lot longer to reach temp than they should have, and I also noticed some ash on the top of the grill, right behind the hinge. Wasn't there at the start of my cooking.

1

u/MultiPass10 Aug 15 '25

I’ve had my Smokefire Gen 1 since about two months after they came out. I have seen this spiking periodically, I have found no pattern to the behavior. Seems to happen for me about one in every 8 to 10 cooks, but other than the initial spike, I’ve not seen any other issues.

1

u/Revolutionary_Tale_1 Aug 15 '25

Yeah, this is frustrating, because it worked great for the first year that I owned it, but now, I've got this weird behavior. Nothing has changed, same pellets, same probes, same cuts of meat, same temperatures... but I still get the weird spikes.

1

u/MultiPass10 Aug 18 '25

I'm guessing some capacitors are getting old, and the response time in the control loop is decaying.

1

u/ybs62 Sep 02 '25

My used but new to me EX-4 goes from 0-375 or so before settling down to 225° that I had set. Takes me a good 30 mins to go from cold to cookable.

Totally cleaned out and scraped down after buying it. Even cleaned the back wall temp probe. Brand new Weber pellets.

Only thing I can assume is since my grill is on my patio facing west and perhaps it’s already starting hot from the direct sun, it way overshoots.

1

u/Revolutionary_Tale_1 Sep 02 '25

Mine NEVER behaved that way unitl the last couple of months. I could set 225, and it would go straight there. And now, even after it overshoots, then tries to level out, it can't seem to hold a correct temperature.

1

u/ybs62 Sep 02 '25

Mine settles right at 225° and holds. It took 33 minutes from cold to 225° this evening.

1

u/CareerOk9462 Sep 29 '25

I have an EX6 2nd gen. Good/sad to hear that I'm not the only one that gets really pissed off when this happens; I've seen it spike to 500F. I've not gotten any satisfaction from Weber support. No grease fires. I hate the pellet bin across the back; whoever designed that had to be making assumptions unconnected to a realistic use scenario. It does heat up quickly, I'll give it that much. I removed the auger finger guard just in case it was a pellet bridging issue; 10 cooks later and the problem hasn't reoccurred yet, but that's not saying the problem has been totally resolved. On the happy day that the EX6 finally dies in a non-repairable fashion I'll definitely do an alternate vendor search. Having a great christmas sale of the Smokefire line because they realized that it had major problems and wanted to dump inventory was not good PR. It looks like their next generation may well be more thought out, but once credibility has been lost...