Dave - Unixadm
TVWBB Super Fan
Hello,
I'm an avid BBQ guy, owning a whole lot of cooking equipment. From the little Weber Q1200 to a Southern Pride SP1000 trailer mounted rotisserie smoker. I've got lot of stuff in-between, but I enjoy outdoor cooking.
I ordered the Smokefire EX6 from Lowes on December 1st. It arrived to my residence on February 13, 2020. Shipping was delayed, so Lowes included a free bag of Weber pellets and a thank you card. Pretty decent service.
Upon receiving the EX6, I started to put it together and hit a snag. No hardware, so I opened a ticket with Weber. They responded in less than 10 minutes that they'd expedite me a hardware kit, I didn't hear anything from them the following day. Late this afternoon they replied saying they are trying to find a hardware kit to ship....
I took matters into my own hands and picked up the necessary hardware and got it assembled. Fired it up to be hit by a 15-20 minute firmware update that proceeded at a snails pace. Ok, got that taken care of and then I set it to 600. Nada, went through a cycle, thought it was going to light (some smoke) and then it fizzled out. I decide to cut my losses and turn it off after waiting like 20 minutes. Turn it back on only to be met by a "Improper Shutdown" message, which then made me wait like 15 more minutes even though the grill was cool. Waited and then power cycled it. This time it started right up with no issues. Came up to 600 degrees quickly and this thing puts out some serious heat. The fire was really raging inside, so it's definitely a lot different than the other pellet cookers I've had. Closest to it in terms of heat would be my Fast Eddy PG1000 by Cookshack. It has a direct grill option and will get quite hot as well.
Overall, fit and finish is good, assembly was easy and the ergonomics seem good. I'm going to upgrade the grates to stainless and install 5" casters. The app is bad at this point and from a software perspective, a minimum viable product (MVP) release at best. Back to the casters, I got the thread pitch while assembling for those wanting to upgrade.
Caster Thread Pitch: 1/2-13
I ordered a set of four of them off of Amazon which fully lock with a foot pedal for about $50. The stock casters are pretty meh as expected. More to come...
I'm an avid BBQ guy, owning a whole lot of cooking equipment. From the little Weber Q1200 to a Southern Pride SP1000 trailer mounted rotisserie smoker. I've got lot of stuff in-between, but I enjoy outdoor cooking.
I ordered the Smokefire EX6 from Lowes on December 1st. It arrived to my residence on February 13, 2020. Shipping was delayed, so Lowes included a free bag of Weber pellets and a thank you card. Pretty decent service.
Upon receiving the EX6, I started to put it together and hit a snag. No hardware, so I opened a ticket with Weber. They responded in less than 10 minutes that they'd expedite me a hardware kit, I didn't hear anything from them the following day. Late this afternoon they replied saying they are trying to find a hardware kit to ship....
I took matters into my own hands and picked up the necessary hardware and got it assembled. Fired it up to be hit by a 15-20 minute firmware update that proceeded at a snails pace. Ok, got that taken care of and then I set it to 600. Nada, went through a cycle, thought it was going to light (some smoke) and then it fizzled out. I decide to cut my losses and turn it off after waiting like 20 minutes. Turn it back on only to be met by a "Improper Shutdown" message, which then made me wait like 15 more minutes even though the grill was cool. Waited and then power cycled it. This time it started right up with no issues. Came up to 600 degrees quickly and this thing puts out some serious heat. The fire was really raging inside, so it's definitely a lot different than the other pellet cookers I've had. Closest to it in terms of heat would be my Fast Eddy PG1000 by Cookshack. It has a direct grill option and will get quite hot as well.
Overall, fit and finish is good, assembly was easy and the ergonomics seem good. I'm going to upgrade the grates to stainless and install 5" casters. The app is bad at this point and from a software perspective, a minimum viable product (MVP) release at best. Back to the casters, I got the thread pitch while assembling for those wanting to upgrade.
Caster Thread Pitch: 1/2-13
I ordered a set of four of them off of Amazon which fully lock with a foot pedal for about $50. The stock casters are pretty meh as expected. More to come...