Smoker upgrade… or not

I started with cheap Brinkman $69 charcoal smoker. Little tending but did a nice job. Then moved up to the $400 Masterbuilt electric on sale at Sam’s Club for $299. Other than adding chips every few hours. Pretty much set it and forget it. So I thought I moved up and bought the $800 Treager with another couple hundred in accessories. What a disappointment. Been fighting it for a few years. Have a brisket on today. Set at 225. it’s running 198 to 215. If I bump it to 250 it runs high 240s. So I bump it up and down all day, every half hour. Wind is 7mph. Smoker is outside my basement door. Behind a 4′ retaining wall. Treager swears this isn’t common. But having them on the phone 3 times. They have never offered a fix. My question. Do other Treager owners have this same issue? And recommendation of a fix or, better choice than Treager. Other experience. Fire goes out. Nothing to do with wind. Builds pile of pellets that re-light. Creating a fire that had I not been close. May have burned my house down. Since, I make sure its away from the house. Yes. I have cleaned it it new condition before using it. Treager blamed the problem on it was probably in need of cleaning. I also don’t think the pellets have the true flavor of natural wood. Thanks for any help. I’m getting frustrated, and ready to be done if I can’t fix it.. Happy 4th!!

Buy yourself a rec tec. I a master built and a pit boss. I do not care for the pit boss.
My buddy just bought a rec tec and that thing is the real deal.

I have a few buddies with rec tec’s and they love them.

I have a camp chef pellet grill and would also recommend that as well. This winter 20 degrees outside kept mine withing 5 degrees of 225 on a brisket.

I still prefer doing fish and pork butts in my masterbuilt smokers.

Sounds like you may have the manual control I think you can upgrade to the electronic control and it will be more accurate. That or buy a Memphis Grill. HA HA,

5 hours into the brisket. Temp dropped to 125. Relit and was blowing past 300 degrees when I shut it down. Ended up finishing it in the oven. Ended up really good, but what a hassle. Brisket was from half a beef we bought from local farmer. Mine has the best electronic control they had 5 years ago. They have a new control system. Just not sure I trust them with another couple hundred bucks. May give their customer service one more try.

So far I’ve liked my pit boss. If I was to do it all over again I’d buy a Rec Tec. I have heard nothing but great things about them. I know several friends who own Treagers and Have had the same problem as you have. That is one of the reason I went with Pit Boss ( Although others here have had various problems with them as well ) The temp on Mine does fluctuate some but not as bad as you described. Mine is more of a 6-8 deg. difference from the set temp. I am told ALL pellet grills have some fluctuation.

We really like our Traeger. Have not had any problems in almost 4 years. I did discover that leaving the pellets exposed to humidity does alter the temp some. I don’t fill the hopper full unless I’m doing an all day cook. I dump the open bag into a 5 gal pail with an airtight lid and it seems to solve the problem. Wind is a factor also, but I don’t blame that on the grill.

ive read great things about rec tec. ive had electric and charcoal and personally i really enjoy smoking on my weber kettle or weber smokey mountain. if you havent considered charcoal give it a look. its a great time

Return it if you can and get a recteq. I’ve posted about them here before, but they are absolutely amazing smokers. Build quality is amazing, super heavy gauge stainless hardware, super heavy duty cooking chamber(holds heat a lot better than the flimsy Traegers).

I’ve done prime rib on Christmas day at -10 degrees and the temp never moved more than 5 degrees off the set target.

They are online only unless you live in Georgia, so that scares some people away, but DO NOT HESITATE to purchase from them. They have by far the best customer service I’ve ever dealt with in any product/industry. All their customer service reps are experts on their grills and can walk you through fixes/troubleshoot issues over the phone.

I’ve had my RT-680 for like 4 years now, and have run a TON of pellets through it. The few issues I’ve had they took care of:

– Grill temp probe failed this year, they shipped me a new one free of charge.

– Igniter rod went out after a few hundred hours of use. They sent me a whole new firebox with their newer ceramic ignition system installed(FREE), which made the part swap about 2 or 3x as fast. Saved ME time at THEIR expense, few company’s do anything like that anymore.

– My model had a powder coated black side shelf, I mentioned that it had rusted pretty bad when I was troubleshooting the temp probe issue and the rep found a batch of production line extras from their newer models that are full stainless steel, sent me that along with another set of mounting hardware. Free again.

I think there’s more that I’m forgetting. Basically though, these guys have impressed me so much that I’ll drop what I’m doing and write them a rave review if I see the opportunity. I’ll add that none of these issues ever felt like a defect or anything like that, with how much I’ve used the thing I fully expect parts to wear out.

And after all of that, they really aren’t much more expensive than a Traeger! And the price alone doesn’t take into account the quality/features. Bigger hopper, heavy gauge stainless grates instead of porcelain coated iron, etc.

The other thing that’s nice is that they are really easy to work on if something does go wrong. Everything’s put together very simply. I upgraded my shelf and controller and it was a breeze.

Wow, I hesitated to reply to this post right away as I didn’t want to jump on and say you should have bought this or that! Well, now that everyone else has, buy a Rec Teq!! I have had a Green Mountain for years and needed a new one so I could have one at the cabin and at home. A friend of mine told me to take a look at the Rec Teq. SO glad I did. I bought the 700, and it is a tank! I would recommend these grills to anyone!! The amount of clean blue smoke this thing puts out is amazing! I have also never seed a controller hold temp so steady! Great product!

Also has a 6 year bumper to bumper warranty on it!!

sounds like the controller may be bad unless its the old style knob with big increments or can it be adjusted to smaller increments? i had my old treager for 7-8 years and it was awesome. only reason i upgraded was because i wanted a bigger one and now have a green mountain with wifi and all the bells and whistles.

if rec tec sold local or had somewhere i could physicaly look at one before buying i may have bought one of them. im not the type to pay over $1000 the phone and hope for the best when it arrives

Well, I done a lot of research. Have a laundry list of things to try. Also learned Treager has found the answer to temp swings. Their new acceptable temp swing is 25 degrees. Yeah, they said that! Also I’m far from alone. Going to super clean. Including disassembling the auger box. Make sure there is no corrosion. Buy new pellets. Even though mine are stored in 41% humidity basement. Lower in the winter.
On another note. What’s left of our half a beef. We are very heavy in roasts. Any good pointers for doing a roast. Rump, shoulder, chuck, one better than another? There is also 2 packages of short ribs. Thanks for the replies!

im guessing you have the older style controller then. the newer ones hold temp within a coulple degrees. my old treager was the same way and had big temp swings. but mine was bought around 2012 and there much better now days. my green mountain holds perfect within a couple degrees

Mine is about 5 years old. Has the dial. It goes smoke-180-225-250 etc. I know a couple guys that bought them and loved them. One guy got one for home and one for his shop. At the same time I did. It’s got one foot out the door. Rec Tech and Green Mountain sound like good choices. Treager was all the rage when I bought.

yes those controllers have the big swing to them

Take a look at the masterbuilt gravity series and the chargriller gravity. I have the masterbuilt 1050 and it holds temp within about 3° or just maybe go with a tried and true big ole stick burner. I like all these fancy electronics on grills but at some point it is ridiculous, I mean like what do you do if you are 2.5 hours into a brisket cook and the power goes out? Dang it now I want another stick burner for the apocalypse.

If you put a good digital thermometer, in almost any pellet grill, (or your indoor oven for that matter), you will see temp swings. the displays are not an accurate indicator of the actual temp at the cooking grates, The controllers use a algorithm to display a number close to the set temp not the actual temp. I own an older Green Mountain. Don’t sweat it, your food doesn’t care. just cook until its done, ether by internal temp or by probing for tender depending on what your cooking. buying a good dual probe digital thermometer was the single best thing I have done to improve the consistency of my cooking in all my different cookers.

catnip wrote:

Take a look at the masterbuilt gravity series and the chargriller gravity. I have the masterbuilt 1050 and it holds temp within about 3° or just maybe go with a tried and true big ole stick burner. I like all these fancy electronics on grills but at some point it is ridiculous, I mean like what do you do if you are 2.5 hours into a brisket cook and the power goes out? Dang it now I want another stick burner for the apocalypse.

I have the 560 Masterbuilt gravity series.
I use the hell out of it. At least twice a week so far since March.

Low slow cooks like beef or turkey jerky, pork butts, smoked salmon and turkey thighs and drumsticks.

425 degrees for regular grilling and I crank it up to 700 degrees for pizza.

Big Green Egg.. Grill, smoke, Pizza oven, Indirect and direct cooking all in one. Just held pork belly for bacon at 200 degrees for 5 hours never budged. Next day burgers and steaks at 500 degrees.

What sucks the most. At the 225 setting, it runs right at 200. The next setting is 250, where it runs about low 240s. Most smoking calls for 225. So I’m over 15 degrees too hot or cool. What ever I do. Going to try again in the next few days. After extensive trouble shooting. We’ll see.

Steven, don’t sweat the temp swings as long as it will average the desired cabinet temp. I own one that has a bunch of +/- temps of 50 degrees and I monitor it with a 3rd party Thermoworks probe setting next to my meat.

I also have a gasser that I’ve done modifications to that I can dial it in to +/- 5 degrees.

I have a charcoal Weber Performer and I can do steady temps with it too.

My point is get used to the pits that you have and learn how they work. ALL will give you a great finished product. Use each of their characteristics to your benefit in regards to your product.

ok fine, I’ve got a GOSM big block gasser, PitBoss Copperhead series 7 pellet, 3 Weber Performers (2 original and one recent model) charcoal, Weber Q220 gas. I’ve been playing with this stuff for over 50 years, started with a little hibachi grill that was a pita!

have you messed with your P setting on your grill? on my old one i would adjust that setting when switching from winter to summer cooking. its basiclly just adjusting the pause time from when the burner reaches temp and feeds pellets again

https://www.traegergrills.com/support/p-setting

That’s close. Mine doesn’t have the call service light, and knob is different. When get a decent day. Got it super clean, and will get new pellets. See what happens. Thanks for the replies.