Should You Leave Pellets In A Grill/Smokers Hopper?

If we are talking about the summer months and a dry ambient climate, you could potentially leave the pellets in the hopper and you wouldn’t experience any issues.

In this scenario, we are talking about very low humidity.

However, to be on the safe side, even under such weather conditions, please do not leave the wood pellets in the hopper for more than a week.

How long you can safely leave wood pellets in the hopper of your pellet grill/smoker depends on the time of year and your general climate overall.

For instance, even in the winter months, it’s obviously much drier in the Southern U.S. compared to the North. If you want to be as safe as possible, make sure to empty the hopper after every use.

Otherwise, you are just going to have to use a bit of ‘common sense’ to decide if it’s safe to leave the pellets in the hopper for days or longer.

Please remember though, it’s not just about protecting the pellets from moisture, high humidity will also destroy the pellets. So, when you do empty the hopper, they need to be stored in a sealed plastic bag/container.