Egg genius blowing ash

Dwdude102

i have a feeling that it’s because I have a small, but I haven’t been comfortable on longer cooks when the fan starts to run more often. I have seen ash blowing all around and on the meats bark. I’ve tried to research this and it seems no one has this problem. The only thing I could find was chefs were in a period of using ash on food for the looks. 

I dont think i reaaaally want that, maybe I can be convinced otherwise. Has anyone had this problem and fixed it? I thought about turning my firebox a bit so the fan doesn’t blow directly on the main ash part. Would love to hear from you all, though!

Skiddymarker

Seems to me the Genius is a rebranded flame boss. Maybe that’s the problem. I think the fan is either on or off, no speed control, hence the blowing ash. Much like microwave ovens,when you set the power at 50%, inverter types actually use 50% power for the cook time, non-inverter types simply use 100% power turning the power on and off, so power is applied for 50% of the cook time. Not the same thing at all. 
If your pit controller is either on or off, you will get ash blow if the fan speed is too high. Realigning the firebox vent might reduce the ash moving airflow, might be a workable solution.

TexasisBestest

I have a genius.  It DOES have a variable fan actually. 1. Use it with the standard iron grate. An ash basket will make it worse. 2. Yes it's much worse with a small due to the decreased height of the firebox. 3. Ensure your top daisy wheel or lid is nearly closed when using the genius and finally 4. Ensure your egg is clean before use, get it to temp the old fashion way (have the grate temp clip on but dont connect the fan just yet). Let it get to temp and THEN add your meat and the fan. The genius shouldn't have to engage 100% to maintain temp, but it will if you engage it before your rig is ready, especially if you add meat too soon.  My two cents.  Note the pic showing variable fan speed 

Dollinger

1. The pit probe cant be clipped to the grate or the thermometer or it will cause the fan to run a lot higher like 100% until it reaches temp and then you will get wild swings. Use a binder clip on the grate with the probe on the ear of the clip. 
2. clean the ash out with a vac to reduce excess ash. 
3. Bring up close to temp before putting on the meat.
4. Keep the vent as wide open as you can with out the temp rising with the fan at zero. This will help keep the fan speed slow. The higher the temp the more the vent opening. The idea is to use as much draft of the egg instead of the fan to keep the fire at temp with just a little fan to top it off. 
5. Use better or dry charcoal so the fire burns easier.  

Carolina Q

I have a DigiQ 2 from BBQ Guru with a 10 CFM blower. It has a sliding baffle to allow you to restrict airflow from 10 down to 0 CFM. The L-shaped slider at the lower left...

Looking down the barrel, you can see the crescent shape of the sliding baffle which closes off as much of the airflow as needed.


Pics from the ever helpful TNW. http://www.nakedwhiz.com/productreviews/nanoq/showphot.htm?nanoqblower3.jpg

According to TNW, there is no restrictor plate on the FB blower, but maybe you could fabricate something. Assuming the Genius blower looks like the FB unit. 
http://www.nakedwhiz.com/productreviews/flamebossblower/showphoto2.htm?file=fbnb06.jpg&caption=A view into the blower. You can see that there is no damper.


Unless I misread, the FB blower is a whopping 12 CFM! If so, and if no baffle, no wonder you're getting ash everywhere. I have my 10 CFM throttled down to 3-4 CFM, and that's on a large egg!

Perhaps @MichaelCollins could offer some suggestions. Rumor has it that those guys are quite good at customer service.

Yno

I have a Flame Boss 300 and an XL, but I believe the FB rebranded egg genius works the same. On all my low and slows, the fan typically runs between 0% and 20% throughout the cook, and sometimes up to 50% after I open the lid. The only time I see it climb higher is if I raise the pit temp mid cook, and then it might hit 100%. I  don't turn it on until the Egg is close to my desired temp, and then let it stabilize.

Dollinger

The resistor plate just causes a pressure drop and makes your fan work harder to control. Dumb idea on an automatic controller. If you need the flow, you need the flow. If you don't you don't.  I posted above how to ensure you need as little flow as possible.  So far what I have seen is it;s where you clip the probe and when you start the controller that will cause you to be near 100%

stlcharcoal

Flame Boss (or EggGenius) has a VARIABLE SPEED FAN.  Do not damper it down or you're going to screw with the logic.  The old Guru's are single speed on/off--that's why they had that manual damper.  

littlerascal56

@stlcharcoal is 100% correct, and on the older FB300, you bought the small CFM fan for all Kamado’s and the large CFM one for larger smokers.  Your BGE unit is sized correctly for kamado cooking, which requires the lower volume of air.
The variable speed fans in the picture all run on my FB300, but on different smokers, depending on CFM required.

Dwdude102

Thanks for the tips, everyone. 50% of the time, my food is wrapped by the point there’s enough ash to start blowing. It’s only when I’m testing not wrapping something that it’s a problem. 

And really, it has to be because at the 6 hour point, I’m needing to add some charcoal to my small egg. If I just add charcoal before that, maybe the fan won’t ever have to kick up to higher percentages. Wish I had a medium or large sometimes, but that’s ok! That’s how I become a true egghead.  I’m just holding off for the xl

TexasisBestest

Dollinger said:

1. The pit probe cant be clipped to the grate or the thermometer or it will cause the fan to run a lot higher like 100% until it reaches temp and then you will get wild swings. Use a binder clip on the grate with the probe on the ear of the clip. 
2. clean the ash out with a vac to reduce excess ash. 
3. Bring up close to temp before putting on the meat.
4. Keep the vent as wide open as you can with out the temp rising with the fan at zero. This will help keep the fan speed slow. The higher the temp the more the vent opening. The idea is to use as much draft of the egg instead of the fan to keep the fire at temp with just a little fan to top it off. 
5. Use better or dry charcoal so the fire burns easier.  

The issue with having an open vent is that the draft is letting the egg raise in temp vs the device.  You could have an issue maintaining correct temp if you open the top vent as the fire burns.

Dollinger

TexasisBestest said:

Dollinger said:

1. The pit probe cant be clipped to the grate or the thermometer or it will cause the fan to run a lot higher like 100% until it reaches temp and then you will get wild swings. Use a binder clip on the grate with the probe on the ear of the clip. 
2. clean the ash out with a vac to reduce excess ash. 
3. Bring up close to temp before putting on the meat.
4. Keep the vent as wide open as you can with out the temp rising with the fan at zero. This will help keep the fan speed slow. The higher the temp the more the vent opening. The idea is to use as much draft of the egg instead of the fan to keep the fire at temp with just a little fan to top it off. 
5. Use better or dry charcoal so the fire burns easier.  

The issue with having an open vent is that the draft is letting the egg raise in temp vs the device.  You could have an issue maintaining correct temp if you open the top vent as the fire burns.

Actually you do need a slightly open the top vent to let the fan air flow out. It's only if the opening is too large so the natural draft starts to control the flame instead of the air flow as I clearly pointed out above. The vent opening will slightly increase as the temp goes up. If you have too small or no opening the fan will try to run as a higher speed to maintain air flow. My point is to try open the vent to operate near the point where there a small amount of natural draft to assist the fan and keep it running slower. Of course, it you don't have issue with blowing ash, you only open the top vent enough to allow fan air out unless you want hot air blowing over your gaskets! Air will get out somewhere when the fan pressurizes the egg. A fan is just a differential pressure creator! 

MichaelCollins

Dollinger said:

The resistor plate just causes a pressure drop and makes your fan work harder to control. Dumb idea on an automatic controller. If you need the flow, you need the flow. If you don't you don't.  I posted above how to ensure you need as little flow as possible.  So far what I have seen is it;s where you clip the probe and when you start the controller that will cause you to be near 100%

This why your Egg Genius has a variable speed blower and no manual damper. Whether you have a damper or not, the controller is going to provide the air that your grill requires to maintain the set temperature. If little air is required, the blower will run at low speed. The controller will increase airflow to maintain temperature as the pit runs low on fuel. You can see the blower speed gradually increasing on the cook graph. Dwdude102, if you need to add fuel in a small to finish a cook, try to do it before the blower speed gets too high. This may be causing the ash to blow on your food.

Toxarch

With my Stoker, it runs the fan less with a small vent opening rather than the vent open a bunch. Stoker fan is not variable speed and I have the 5 cfm fan.