Time to get serious about a new smoker.

[kccougar]

After replacing the hot rod (pretty easy, other than having to clip the nylon cable ties in the machine's innards), we're up and rolling again. My wife took back all the mean things she said about the $700 hunk of scrap metal the first time she turned the traeger on herself. For the sake of experimenting, we made cookies and enchiladas with one half-batch of each in the traeger and the other half in our kitchen oven. The traeger definitely added a different flavor to both-- though I will be interested to see what different flavors different woods bring out.

We did burgers on Saturday and I tried out a Maverick wireless thermometer for the first time-- cool toy, though it lost the transmission from time to time even at pretty close distances (but never for long enough that we were ever going to miss anything important). We did corn on the cob and baked fries on the grill as well, using recipes from the Traeger site for both. All of them turned out as well as any we've ever done. I meant to get pictures, but I had a little scare toward the end. When I switched the unit from the high burn to the cool-down cycle, I noticed smoke coming out of the hopper within a few minutes. I turned it back on to smoke thinking that if any pellets in the auger were catching fire, that would dump them out into the fire pit. I switched it back to cool-down a few minutes after that, but there was smoke coming out of the hopper all the way through the end of the cycle when the fans finally kicked off.

I read around to see what might have caused the problem and have three candidates. I've read of a few instances where going from very high to the shutdown cycle led to smoke coming from the hopper-- a problem one can avoid by switching from the high cycle to a smoke cycle and letting it run a few minutes before switching to the shutdown cycle, the idea being to let some of the pellets in the fire pit burn off more gradually. Second, we had gone a few burns without cleaning the ash out of the fire pit-- that in conjunction with the quick shutdown may have raised the level of the burning pellets so that it could reach the pellets in the auger. Finally, we were starting to run low on pellets in the hopper, and I had been lifting the hopper lid from time to time to keep an eye on what we had in there. Some people have suggested that this allows air to flow into the auger and make a burnback more likely (though the customer service agent I called said this was unlikely).

So it appears to have been a one-time incident, quickly caught before causing any problems, that we can easily avoid in the future. The food was otherwise great.

What's a shutdown cycle? I've been using my Traeger for 4 years and never heard of it. I've always just turned mine off when I'm done cooking regardless of how high the temp is. Of course, I also only clean my fire pot out about 3 times per year :yikes:

[Jeff Lebowski]

What's a shutdown cycle? I've been using my Traeger for 4 years and never heard of it. I've always just turned mine off when I'm done cooking regardless of how high the temp is. Of course, I also only clean my fire pot out about 3 times per year :yikes:

Yeah, I have no idea what that is. I turn it off, rub down the grill with a grill brush, and walk in the house.

I clean out my firepot every 2-3 cooks. I had the fire go out once due to accumulated ash and I don't want that to happen again.

[Moliere]

Shutdown cycle


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[All-American]

I guess it's a newer feature, then. When you are done grilling, if you turn the dial all the way to the left, the grill's fans keep running so any pellets left in the fire pot burn out, though the auger stops feeding pellets into the fire. The fans stop running after about 10 minutes.

Anybody else ever seen smoke coming from the hopper?

[kccougar]

I guess it's a newer feature, then. When you are done grilling, if you turn the dial all the way to the left, the grill's fans keep running so any pellets left in the fire pot burn out, though the auger stops feeding pellets into the fire. The fans stop running after about 10 minutes.

Anybody else ever seen smoke coming from the hopper?

Once or twice I think I've seen some smoke come back up through the hopper after I shut everything down and while the fire pot burns out. It's never caused a problem though.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

My Traeger was having continual problems with the auger and fire pot. I hired a guy to fix it the was licensed by Traeger and he said that all the new models have this shut down feature. After he fixed mine for the second time last winter, the same issue happened again around Xmas, I instead went with the Cabellas model instead of the Traeger replacement, it also has a shutdown setting.

[Katy Lied]

Good to hear, AA.

I'm thinking of smoking a pizza next weekend. Anyone have any good pizza crust recipes?

Our friends grill pizzas all the time. They just get the pizza mix from the Winco bulk bins. It tastes great.

But seriously, no one has tried smoking tofu?

[Pelado]

But seriously, no one has tried smoking tofu?

Smoking makes most everything taste better, but why not focus on foods that already taste good?

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[All-American]

Good to hear, AA.

I'm thinking of smoking a pizza next weekend. Anyone have any good pizza crust recipes?

This is a pizza dough recipe based on one we've used in our family as long as I can remember. It's modified somewhat-- it uses whole wheat flower instead of just white, and it calls for par-baking the crust before putting on the ingredients. I think it works fine without par-baking if you want to keep it simple.

https://foodforthoughtrd.com/2014/07/17/white-chicken-pizza-plus-homemade-pizza-dough/

[Shaka]

When I'm in a time crunch I just throw anything from Papa Murphy's on the smoker. Easy and tastes great.

[mtnbiker]

I've got a neighbor who was waiting until his son got home from a mission to buy a smoker. His son got home a month ago, and yesterday the neighbor told me that he had purchased a Yoder and had already cooked ribs, brisket, pork shoulder, cookies, pizza, and I don't remember what else. Jumping in with both feet there. It was a revelation to him, though, when I told him to save the pellets and let the brisket and pork shoulder finish cooking in the oven after a few hours on the smoker.

[falafel]

Our friends grill pizzas all the time. They just get the pizza mix from the Winco bulk bins. It tastes great.

But seriously, no one has tried smoking tofu?

Those look like cinnamon roll bites. Yum.

[All-American]

Props to the dude for his stuffed salmon recipe. Mother's Day dinner was a smash hit.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Props to the dude for his stuffed salmon recipe. Mother's Day dinner was a smash hit.

Nice!

I cooked salmon today too.

[kccougar]

Out of the mouths of babes...