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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tRidiot" data-source="post: 2781704" data-attributes="member: 9374">Ok, I've got a pellet smoker. It's got a chimney out the top, a hopper in the front and a drip tube on the right side. Lately I've noticed it is trying to burn back up the auger tube and smoke coming out the hopper. I've even once left it so long it burned all the way back up and started burning IN the hopper. Yikes.So I did some research, seemed most of the advice had to do with cleaning the ash out and such. So I've done that a couple of times, yesterday even emptied every pellet, let the auger run to empty it out and used the ShopVac to clean out inside the auger as best I could, but I don't think there was anything significant in there in terms of ash or dust. Everything was pretty clean. And yet, in spite of all that, it was still trying to burn up the auger tube and smoke was coming out the hopper again. WTF?So then I noticed something... I wasn't getting smoke out of the chimney in the top and back like I used to. Sure enough, when I checked it, it was all clogged with thick black grease/goop! It's a pipe coming vertically with a Chinaman's hat-looking metal shield on top. The gap between the vertical column and the hat was clogged. I took a butter knife and tried to clear that gunk out, and I got a good bit, but it still wasn't smoking out the top. So I'm assuming I'm going to have to remove the hat with the bolt in the top and clean out the inside... and the whole smoker at the same time. I'm not sure what the best method is, as when I took that stainless steel butter knife inside to clean it, it would NOT get the goop off with just hot water and a sprayer. I had to use a dry paper towel and rub that sh*t off almost like tar. Ugh. So I can't imagine how hard it will be to clean out of the whole inside of the smoker with something that won't leave behind a flammable or nasty-tasting residue that will contaminate my food.I thought of taking it to the car wash, but I dont really have a great way to transport it there - no pickup truck, I suppose maybe I could lay it down in my Tahoe, but even with something under it, I'm afraid of stuff draining out of it. Is a carwash my best bet for this thing? It's all gooped up, nasty, on the inside. I did think of a simple pressure washer (kinda been looking for an excuse, lol), but with cold water, it's gonna be next to impossible, I think. So this is my theory - the reason it's trying to back-burn up the auger and smoke is coming out there is because the chimney is clogged with crap and it's looking for an outlet. I've vacuumed it and cleaned the pot and grates and such, but never thought of cleaning the chimney and the drain tube in the 2 years I've been using it.Whaddya think? What are my options here?</blockquote>

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