# Need Help w/ My Smoke Hollow Smoker Please!



## shelton573 (Sep 15, 2014)

Hello Everyone,
I have had a 30" Smoke Hollow LP smoker (Model #30164G) for 2 years now.  I have had very good luck with it and it has produced some very good food.  In the past 3-4 months the smoker will not get above 275 with nothing in it.  And when I say nothing, I mean no meat, racks, wood pan, drip pan, etc.!  When I put the wood pan in there with chunk wood, it will not burn the wood.  It just smolders and eventually the wood burns out and does not produce much smoke.  The wood retains its size, just looks like a black lump of coal when it goes out (it used to not do this).  It used to completely burn the small chunks.  I have had to resort to using chips and even then some of those will not completely burn.  I have tried several positions with the vents as well...top all the way open, bottom all the way open, partially closed on top and/or bottom, etc.  When the smoker is fully loaded, i have to run it on high to keep it in between 200-225.  While it does run MY ideal temp range for slow smoking, i would like it ot be able to run higher temps for chicken like it used to.  It would also be nice if it would run at least 250 for some things.  When I first got the smoker it could run all the way up to 375-400 on high when empty and easily maintain 275-300 when full of meat.  I pulled the burner out and cleaned the heck out of it and cleaned the fuel line this last week and still did not help.

What do you all think could be the problem?  Possibly a new burner needed?  New fuel line?  New smoker???  I appreciate any input you all may have.  Thanks!

Shelton


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## genek (Sep 15, 2014)

Hi Shelton, I have the same smoker and mine will certainly get hotter than that.

You seem to have eliminated air supply. Mine has all vents wide open and will easily get to over 300.

What do your flames look like? When I light mine I always move the chip tray holder to the side and watch to see that I get the full flames along both sides of the burner. I have a needle valve on the regulator and keep the knob on the smoker in the high position.

The only time I have low heat is if I open the smoker valve before the tank valve. The new type valves need to see a back pressure to open fully. I slowly open the tank valve and then open the smoker vale and then light the fire.I used to just open the tank valve real slow but I now have a second tank that is too sensitive so I shut off the smoker, then open the tank.

Try playing with that while watching the flames, if the safety valve kicks in you'll see it in the size of the flames.

GeneK


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## shelton573 (Sep 16, 2014)

GeneK said:


> Hi Shelton, I have the same smoker and mine will certainly get hotter than that.
> You seem to have eliminated air supply. Mine has all vents wide open and will easily get to over 300.
> What do your flames look like? When I light mine I always move the chip tray holder to the side and watch to see that I get the full flames along both sides of the burner. I have a needle valve on the regulator and keep the knob on the smoker in the high position.
> The only time I have low heat is if I open the smoker valve before the tank valve. The new type valves need to see a back pressure to open fully. I slowly open the tank valve and then open the smoker vale and then light the fire.I used to just open the tank valve real slow but I now have a second tank that is too sensitive so I shut off the smoker, then open the tank.
> ...



Thanks for the reply Gene!  The flame is nice and blue but looks smaller than it always has.  I have tried the turning it on really slow thing but have never sat and messed with it to see if i can get different sizes by valve opening speed.  The flame is the same size every time now.  Maybe I am still not opening the valve slow enough?  I have read about the safety valve thing so I started opening my tank slow, but just assumed it was slow enough!  I will have to mess with it tonight.  I hope that is the issue because cold weather is coming in iowa and I'm gonna need that thing to get real warm hah.  Thanks for the info Gene!  

Shelton


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## callaway (Sep 17, 2014)

You might need to disconnect the hose from the tank so it can kinda re-boot the system.  I have had the same problem you are experiencing so I turned everything off, disconnected the tank for about 30 seconds, re-connected everything, slowly opened the tank about 1 to 1.5 turns, waited another 30 seconds and then opened the gas valve.  This seemed to reset the system and everything worked fine.

If you haven't already, you might want to make sure you don't have a blockage in the burner tube that is preventing the proper gas flow.


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## shelton573 (Sep 17, 2014)

callaway said:


> You might need to disconnect the hose from the tank so it can kinda re-boot the system.  I have had the same problem you are experiencing so I turned everything off, disconnected the tank for about 30 seconds, re-connected everything, slowly opened the tank about 1 to 1.5 turns, waited another 30 seconds and then opened the gas valve.  This seemed to reset the system and everything worked fine.
> 
> If you haven't already, you might want to make sure you don't have a blockage in the burner tube that is preventing the proper gas flow.



Thanks for the response!  I will try disconnecting the hose to reset it!  I pulled the burner and cleaned it last week thinking that maybe the screens were blocked. I cleaned a bunch of junk off of them and blew out the tube and it still didn't work. I would say it's the way I open up my tank so I'm gonna give that a try. 

Shelton


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