Traeger?

[mfllood3800]

Just did plain Elk burgers on the Traeger tonight, and it was awesome as usual.
Just love these things

 

[Agross]

Did some venison and antelope tenderloins on the Traeger tonight. Turned out amazing.

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DAMN!!!! If that doesn't make yer mouth water, nothing will. Those look amazing.

 

[wytx]

Yoder makes a really nice pellet grill also. My Yoder stick burner is great, quality made.

 

[Pn8hall]

I have owned the Traeger junior and the Lil Tex. The junior was nice but a pain in ass for long smokes due to the small hopper. Had to really babysit the pellets every few hours to make sure they were feeding right. The lil tex was awesome. It could fit a lot of meat and pellets. Never had any breakdowns with the Lil Tex but did have issues with auger motor and igniter on the junior. I have another buddy that has a junior and has had no issues. Another buddy has a green mountain grill and he loves it. All that being said my only real complaint about the Traeger was that the smoke flavor was too mild in my opinion. I sold both Traegers and got a Big Green Egg and so far its amazing. Temp control is out of this world.

 

[Ridge Ghost]

I've had a propane grill for years but am looking into replacing it with a pellet grill. I love the idea of smoking meat, but my one concern is searing steaks. Is anyone able to get a good, hot sear with their pellet grill? I can easily get my gas grill super hot for searing, and I'm concerned I wouldn't be able to do this with a pellet grill.

 

[IdahoElk]

I've had a propane grill for years but am looking into replacing it with a pellet grill. I love the idea of smoking meat, but my one concern is searing steaks. Is anyone able to get a good, hot sear with their pellet grill? I can easily get my gas grill super hot for searing, and I'm concerned I wouldn't be able to do this with a pellet grill.

I'm in the same boat as you so I use pellets in a steel tray in my propane grill when I want to smoke something.I can set my grill from 200˚ to smoke a pork butt for hours to 500˚+ to sear a ribeye.
My friend has a Traeger and sometimes the smoke flavor overpowers what you're eating when you cook solely with pellets.

 

[mvmnts]

Maybe someone can tell me what I'm missing with this traeger/pellet grill thing. I did some ribs and some chicken and they came out great, but this situation happens a lot. I'll follow a recipe, for say chicken breast or chicken kabobs or whatever. It'll say heat to 450, then cook the chicken for 5 minutes, flip, 5 minutes more. Okay, well it's about 65F out, not too cold. I let the thing pre-heat for 15 minutes, it's still not 450. I let it go another 15min, it's still just sitting at 430. I let it go another 15min, maybe it's 440 or 450 now. PLENTY of time for all the thermal mass in this this thing to heat up. I open the grill, put the chicken down as quickly as possible because this aint my first rodeo. Whoops, there goes the temps, allllllll the way down to 350, nope, 330, and 320. Okay, now let's watch it slowly climb back up. 5min later, it's time to flip, temps are back to 350, flip again, and the temps are down. 5 min later, chicken is 'done', no char, no nothing, they spent 10 minutes cooking at 350 instead of 450. I'm not even sure it's possible to cook ANYTHING for 10 minutes at 450. So what am I missing here?

 

[backcountry_hunter]

^^^I'm not sure. The only issue I've encountered with traeger is it quiting very, very occasionally. Power is still there but it stops.... Its an early model before they became real popular, may have been remedied by now.

That said after reading alot on smoking/bbq forums my next pellet will be a cookshack fast eddys. An aquaintenace has their PG500 and that thing is pretty nice.

 

[mvmnts]

I went ahead and called traeger support and we ran through some troubleshooting and found no issues. He didn't really feel comfortable admitting that that's just how the grills work. I think there's a lot of people out there who see guys like Dudley pushing these things HARD, and they have never worked a smoker before and get a decent rack of ribs going and think their $700 purchase is justified. Surprised no one has mentioned how terrible they are at direct heat. It's an awful grill and a decent smoker. You can get a lot more for your money or spend less. I'll be returning mine. If I go ultra premium again, I may look at the big green egg or something similar, or just go to a simple gas grill and smoker and pocket the $400 difference.

If you really like the pellet grill concept, there are much better alternatives in the market, check out rectec, green mountain, and camp chef. Traeger has been around for 30 years and still can't compete on features, they just hired an exceptional marketing director and now their name is getting out there big time. And they're hitting the hunting market hard.

 

[blackpowderhunter]

I like my traeger..but it was free (buddy got a bigger traeger and gave me his old one)
I also see it's limitations.. but again, it was free, so i like it. I also have a nice gas weber that I use to grill.

 

[cornfedkiller]

I went ahead and called traeger support and we ran through some troubleshooting and found no issues. He didn't really feel comfortable admitting that that's just how the grills work. I think there's a lot of people out there who see guys like Dudley pushing these things HARD, and they have never worked a smoker before and get a decent rack of ribs going and think their $700 purchase is justified. Surprised no one has mentioned how terrible they are at direct heat. It's an awful grill and a decent smoker. You can get a lot more for your money or spend less. I'll be returning mine. If I go ultra premium again, I may look at the big green egg or something similar, or just go to a simple gas grill and smoker and pocket the $400 difference.

If you really like the pellet grill concept, there are much better alternatives in the market, check out rectec, green mountain, and camp chef. Traeger has been around for 30 years and still can't compete on features, they just hired an exceptional marketing director and now their name is getting out there big time. And they're hitting the hunting market hard.

I've never heard anyone complain about their traegers doing that, but maybe they all do and they just consider it normal? I have a green mountain and it doesnt do anything like that at all. It gets up to temp in a decent amount of time and then holds it right there. I have a thermal blanket on mine as well and can tell a big difference in my pellet usage, especially when doing longer smokes. The smoke flavor is also very light, even when smoking for several hours at sub-200 degrees.

I don't smoke a TON of stuff on mine, but grill with it quite a bit - burgers, steaks, chicken, chops, and I can't see myself ever going back to a gas grill. Heck I can't even order a steak at a restaurant anymore because its missing the wood-grilled flavor.

 

[mvmnts]

I've never heard anyone complain about their traegers doing that, but maybe they all do and they just consider it normal? I have a green mountain and it doesnt do anything like that at all. It gets up to temp in a decent amount of time and then holds it right there. I have a thermal blanket on mine as well and can tell a big difference in my pellet usage, especially when doing longer smokes. The smoke flavor is also very light, even when smoking for several hours at sub-200 degrees.

I don't smoke a TON of stuff on mine, but grill with it quite a bit - burgers, steaks, chicken, chops, and I can't see myself ever going back to a gas grill. Heck I can't even order a steak at a restaurant anymore because its missing the wood-grilled flavor.

The flavor is great, and anything that you want to cook for a while is great, but I couldn't get a good sear on my steak, and I couldn't get it on chicken kabobs either. If you want to cook a whole chicken or smoke some ribs, it works good for that. But then again, any sort of cooker would work well too. I thought about getting the thermal blanket because no doubt that'd help, but I just don't want to spend even MORE money fixing what I shouldn't have to. I'm probably just going to get a good grill and a good smoker. There's no reason a grill should dump 100F+ in a matter of seconds. If it cost me $300 I would be a lot more forgiving, but $700 is way way too much for a jack of all trades.

 

[Axlrod]

I've had a propane grill for years but am looking into replacing it with a pellet grill. I love the idea of smoking meat, but my one concern is searing steaks. Is anyone able to get a good, hot sear with their pellet grill? I can easily get my gas grill super hot for searing, and I'm concerned I wouldn't be able to do this with a pellet grill.

I have the Louisiana it goes to 500 and has a sear function- the plate under the grill slides over exposing the fire on the left half of the grill

 

[jmez]

Look at the Assasin Grills if you want a real grill!

Charcoal Grills

 

[Murdy]

Interesting discussion of pellet grills generally:

A Guide to Pellet Grills - Barbecuebible.com

 

[Ridge Ghost]

I have the Louisiana it goes to 500 and has a sear function- the plate under the grill slides over exposing the fire on the left half of the grill

Does this work well for you? Are you able to get good sear marks on steak?

 

[Whisky]

I went ahead and called traeger support and we ran through some troubleshooting and found no issues. He didn't really feel comfortable admitting that that's just how the grills work. I think there's a lot of people out there who see guys like Dudley pushing these things HARD, and they have never worked a smoker before and get a decent rack of ribs going and think their $700 purchase is justified. Surprised no one has mentioned how terrible they are at direct heat. It's an awful grill and a decent smoker. You can get a lot more for your money or spend less. I'll be returning mine. If I go ultra premium again, I may look at the big green egg or something similar, or just go to a simple gas grill and smoker and pocket the $400 difference.

If you really like the pellet grill concept, there are much better alternatives in the market, check out rectec, green mountain, and camp chef. Traeger has been around for 30 years and still can't compete on features, they just hired an exceptional marketing director and now their name is getting out there big time. And they're hitting the hunting market hard.

Yeah, before I seen this response, I was going to tell you, you're trying to GRILL chicken in an electric oven (basically what they are). Doesn't work too good.

 

[Billinsd]

I bought a premium pellet smoker and 33lbs of Traeger Gourmet Pellets at Costco for $19 to put on my propane grill!!!!!!!!

 

[jolemons]

Bought a camp chef pellet grill with the propane sear grill option. It's a great combo for a guy that wants the best of both in a single unit.

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[idcuda]

I run a camp chef deluxe, or something like that, and it's great. Good temp control, plenty of settings, and less expensive than most. I was skeptical at first, so I kept my old weber propane, but it didn't take me long to get rid of it.