What's your favorite Treager tip?

Pirate Lady said:
You never had burnt ends? Obviously you ain’t from Baltimore, it’s the best part.
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I've had them! Haven't made them yet...next time I do pork belly I'll try cooking it that way.
 
My Treager is tits up right now. I screwed up the last time I used it, well actually I didn't know you're not supposed to try to restart it if it shuts down. Well, I did that and ended up with a 4-alarm fire inside the Treager. Smoke and flames coming out of everywhere.

So now I'm going to disassemble it and first, free up the auger. If it works then I'm lucky. If that doesn't fix it then I'll have to do more surgery on it to see what isn't working.
 
That stinks GFC. I hope it gets figured out soon, we're in the season for outdoor grilling.

Hot restarts are key, but I believe for the Green Mountain, only good for 3 minutes then you have to let the grill shutdown and do a complete restart. The Hot Restart just continues monitoring the heat and uses the fan, instead of dumping more pellets like a complete restart. I bought my dad one last Christmas and told him he needs to learn how to do that just in case the power drops out or gets unplugged.

Hopefully Traeger has good CS and can walk you though getting it back up and running.
 
As you learned Mike, if it goes out, shut it down, open it up, and clean it out before restarting.
Chances are you didn't hurt it though. There's really nothing inside the grill area to hurt.
If it shut down on the smoke setting, you may want to do a little research on the P settings on the controller.
 
For the record, I do not endorse the use of Kentucky.

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It's entirely possible that this is as bad as a Honda generator on a swim platform.
 
I love my Green Egg... but have been considering a Traeger for the convenience.

Could someone explain the hot restart issue to me, curious to learn more.
 
FootballFan said:
I love my Green Egg... but have been considering a Traeger for the convenience.

Could someone explain the hot restart issue to me, curious to learn more.
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For the Green Mountain I use, a hot restart allows you to basically keep cooking where you left off if the grill loses power. You only have about 3 minutes to do a hot restart otherwise you have to shut it down, and restart the process.

If you are familiar with how they work, you know that the only thing heating the grill up are the pellets and the fans, there is no heating element used in maintaining temperature. The heating element is only used to ignite the pellets.

When you start the grill, I'm assuming Traeger is the same way, Stage 1 puts pellets in the heating box vie an auger from the hopper. Stage 2 turns on the heating element until the pellets ignite. Once ignited, the grill shuts down the heating element and uses fans to control the temperature while feeding more pellets as needed, up to 150º. Once at 150º, the final stage is complete and you can start cooking.

So, if you lose power by accidentally unplugging it for instance, you can plug it back in and do a 'hot restart'. Basically it is telling the grill to measure the temp of the pellets and add fan as needed to go back or maintain the selected temperature. If you wait too long, the pellets smolder and will not reignite other pellets, so then you would have to do a full shutdown.

The full shutdown activates the fan and does not deploy anymore pellets (obviously). The fan basically burns out the remaining pellets in the heater box which takes anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on how hot you had the grill. Anything over 400º actually does a two step shutdown process. Once to get to 150º and then another to get to fully extinguished. Doing a full shutdown and restart could take anywhere from a 1/2hour to 45 minutes which isn't good in the middle of a cook.

What some people do is panic, is add more pellets by doing a full restart without fully shutting it down. You could either have a fire (rare but happens especially if dirty with meat grease) or you could get smoldering which is more common and tastes awful. The meat tastes like it's been under an exhaust pipe if that happens.

Clear as mud?
 
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TY @OllieC for that explanation.

I was not aware of the start up process and/or the impact of a shut down.

If I am understanding correctly the grill will do fine as long as it has electrical power. If for any reason power is lost during the cook, and not caught in a couple of minutes, then you have a 30-45 delay before restoring head.

Something for me to keep in mind.

Curious for those with this type of grill, how often do you experience this scenario?
 
FootballFan said:
TY @OllieC for that explanation.

I was not aware of the start up process and/or the impact of a shut down.

If I am understanding correctly the grill will do fine as long as it has electrical power. If for any reason power is lost during the cook, and not caught in a couple of minutes, then you have a 30-45 delay before restoring head.

Something for me to keep in mind.

Curious for those with this type of grill, how often do you experience this scenario?
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I have had my Traeger for over two years and have never had a flame-out. It's been set it and forget it. I use it at least once a week.

That said, we've never had a power outage during a cook either. My plan would be to grab the generator if the power went out. Assuming it is here and not bungee corded to the swim platform, of course! ;)

You need to remember to clean it out once in a while. I do it every couple months, or after a really long cook (12+ hours). It's easy...take out the grill and the heat deflector and shop vac everything out.
 
FootballFan said:
TY @OllieC for that explanation.

I was not aware of the start up process and/or the impact of a shut down.

If I am understanding correctly the grill will do fine as long as it has electrical power. If for any reason power is lost during the cook, and not caught in a couple of minutes, then you have a 30-45 delay before restoring head.

Something for me to keep in mind.

Curious for those with this type of grill, how often do you experience this scenario?
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I will add that my buddy has the Traeger Tailgater and it has gone out a couple times. I think at really low heat / smoke settings both times...
 
FootballFan said:
TY @OllieC for that explanation.

I was not aware of the start up process and/or the impact of a shut down.

If I am understanding correctly the grill will do fine as long as it has electrical power. If for any reason power is lost during the cook, and not caught in a couple of minutes, then you have a 30-45 delay before restoring head.

Something for me to keep in mind.

Curious for those with this type of grill, how often do you experience this scenario?
Click to expand...
I've experienced it three times in the two years I've had it. All were my fault.
 
I have had my Traeger for 14 years. I've only had a flame out once or twice.
On mine, if it flames out, you have to shut it down, open it up, and clean out the hopper, otherwise you'll have a big ol fire.
The newer ones probably gave something more different now.
I highly recommend getting some kind of pellet grill, they're so easy to cook on, and the food is delicious.
We have a Green Mountain Grill at work, and their customer service is second to none.
They gave is a bunch of new parts well past warranty, the biggest part was a complete hopper and auger assembly.
 
wyrman said:
On mine, if it flames out, you have to shut it down, open it up, and clean out the hopper, otherwise you'll have a big ol fire.
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Yup, I can attest to that BIG ol' fire comment. Here's my confession:

Mine ran out of pellets part way through the cook. Without knowing any better, I opened the hopper and filled it. The auger was churning pellets into the firebox like there was no tomorrow. Then all of a sudden all those pellets started burning then all of a sudden there was a HUGE fire. Flames were coming out of every crack, opening of any kind, etc.

I shut it off and that may have kept it from exploding. PHEW!
 
Yeah, mine has done the “WOMP” once, but was smoldering afterward. Smoke coming out of everywhere. I think it was a similar reason. I had bad pellets, meaning they were cut too long and formed a bridge across the chute not allowing pellets back in - well until it must have dislodged itself. :eek: I heard it, looked and smoke was billowing out everywhere. I think the lid even popped up.
Changed manufacturer of pellets and it never happened again.
 
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Speaking of pellets, there's a guy in Racine Wisconsin that manufacturers what I believe is one of the best pellets out there.
Cookingpellets.com. I use the perfect mix, and have used the hickory, both are really good.
I was a reseller of them for a while, now I'm just a consumer.
I usually buy by the ton.
 
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Now his business will quadruple and he will never know it came from a group of boaters.
Gotta love grass roots marketing.
 
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