Traeger

[Buckmaster]

Been fighting with Traeger put in new RTD sensor…then ran it with venison stix on . Ran for 1 hour and shut down low alarm… checked auger not moving at all…called Traeger…told me to take back the Traeger to where I purchased it… they sent me a code for the return …told me to get a new one …I told them nope just my money back done with Traeger…any suggestions on new grill/smoker???..thanks…

[gus4416]

Buy a camp chef love mine

[Buckmaster]

Wow i didn’t even know they made them…look real nice and they have bottle opener attached…thanks I will be looking into them…

[Tex_77]

Buckmaster will have Camp Chef grills for sale in the very near future, so buy it here!

[johnsbrewhouse]

Buckmaster I have that happen when I don’t turn the unit off at the switch. My Treager is seven years old. It’s a finicky basta*d. Sometimes it does like to be on the smoke setting for long periods. It will shut the hot rod down and load the firebox with un-burned pellets, then roar to life. I think the biggest problem is their board design.

[RON PARRISH]

johnsbrewhouse I have a pit boss and had the same problem! I upgraded the control board with one from amazon and it has worked perfect every since

[Jonathon]

Buckmaster I will have some more information on the Camp Chef soon. We JUST got them into stock and they have pretty good reviews but we’ve seen that happen before on things like the Masterbuilt Charcoal vertical smoker. Initially everyone loved them and one by one the positive reviews started getting pulled. So, I took one home and we have one here, we will be putting it through its paces and reporting back. We might do an initially review/test and then one in a month or so.

Also, they have a vertical pellet smoker, if you do lots of sticks/summer sausage/bacon and hams that may be worth looking into. We will have it online as soon as it comes in.

[Buckmaster]

Awesome that would be great information thank you…

[Buckmaster]

Thanks to all for sharing information with me its big help and great info…thanks again i am currently researching a few options regarding which smoker/grill I will be going with… I will keep all posted…

[johnsbrewhouse]

RON PARRISH I have a new Stanbroil board sitting on the shelf right now with the deal temperature probes. Just have not put it in. I just rebuilt the auger and fan motors a couple of months ago when the fan started squealing. I quit using Traeger replacements when their service turned to cr*p. Stanbroil uses the same manufacturer as do most pellet grill manufacturers. I bought the Stanbroil stuff off Amazon as well.

[RON PARRISH]

johnsbrewhouse That is what I replaced mine with!Really nice because my original didn’t have a probe

[Buckmaster]

Yep I bought a RTD sensor probe deal from Stanbroil…put in and it was running great and then the thing shut off on me …low temp warning…I looked at auger and was not turning…this thing is only a year old…so its going back for sure…auger is very clean as well .probably timer or something…thanks for info…

[johnsbrewhouse]

Buckmaster My Treager failed me today, it flamed out and went high on temp with a load of snack stick on it. Needless to say, about 3 lbs. of them popped open due to excessive heat. The digital was reading 549 degrees when I caught it and opened the door and pulled the racks out, before it proceeded to catch fire from the creosote and grease film inside. Shut the door and shut her down and let it burn off, needed a good cleaning. Managed to salvage about 7 lbs. of the 10 lbs. of sticks and put part of them in the oven and the rest back in the Treager. Think I’m going to build an offset box in place of my cold chamber, so I can hang my sticks away from the heat source.

[Buckmaster]

Wow…that sucks …i feel for you im not impressed with Traeger of late…

[Jonathon]

So quick history on our pellet grill experience with Traeger (never owned one this is just all second hand) initially people loved them and bragged about them constantly. Then they started making it out of thinner and thinner metal and using cheaper parts and people HATED them, then they came out with different (better) lines and people who have those adore them. It does seem like we are taking another swing down though. It has me wondering if they were forced to change manufacturers?

Buckmaster I fired my Camp Chef 24" grill up for the first time last night. I did a fast reverse sear and finished it up on the Sear Box Pro that replaces the side shelf. Initialy thoughts is you need the FULL hour at max temp to burn off the oils they use for manufacturing. Strong smells from the grill, nothing that others don’t do but it did standout to me. It was on the both the main box and the searbox. My initial thoughts are (and this is WAAAAY to early to do a review on) it was hard to stabilize the temp at 240° which seemed odd. The temp kept going as low as 170 and as high as 320°, now that very well might be because I was cooking at 500° for an hour just before I did this AND I had the sear box burning in as well and that was probably closer to 650° and it is attached to the main box. I tried it at a 5 smoke setting and a 1 and it still had same fluctuation.

So, I have another steak ready for tonight. I will not post a pic of last nights steak because I didn’t remember I gave away my last shaker of Walton’s Ultimate Steak and Roast Rub so I had to use Butcher BBQ Brisket and Steak which is better than a lot of steak seasoning but provides a slightly sweat finish that I don’t particularly care for.

Couple of awesome things are the ability to remove the heat shield and direct cook, the top racks it comes with are awesome and I like the wheel system they have for selecting different settings. Easier than holding the up or down arrow on my old pellet grill for ever. It also seemed to get to temp fairly quickly, I didn’t time it as it was initial time and I had 270 lb of dogs that wanted attention and RIGHT NOW so I didn’t want my house destroyed by their “playing”

I’ll be using this thing a ton in the coming weeks, both at home and at work so I will keep everyone up to date with mythoughts.

[Tex_77]

Jonathon that’s a pretty large swing in temps, I agree having it at 500 for an hour to start probably contributed greatly to that issue. With any pellet grill you are going to have swings just by the design of the controllers, but they should be much smaller than you experienced. Are you going to try searing your steak tonight over the direct flame, versus on the side sear burner?

[Jonathon]

Tex_77 No, I will get to that but I need to play with ALL the toys right away! I will eventually do that though for sure. I don’t think it will be as good as the sear box no matter what, thing was amazing.

Yeah, tonight I will be paying more attention to everything and seeing how long it takes to get to 220 and I will record the swings…oh maybe I need to try the firmware update on the grilleye pro sbtech was talking about and chart it with that…maybe I’ll do that and a Meater+ to see how accurate they all are. So many things to do, luckily they are FUN things to do!

[Buckmaster]

Thanks for the information Jonathon look forward to see what results and conclusions you come up with…

[Jonathon]

https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/3305/woodwind-24-pellet-grill I am very much enjoying it right now. In my early opinion, it is far superior to the old GMG I had. Now, that was an older model so I can’t compare it yet to the newer ones but I’ll happily keep at it!

[rutnbuck]

I have had Green Mountain Grill for 8 years. Love it. No problems and it has been used alot. Holds selected temperature perfectly.