I am sure there is a lot of second guessing going on all over the BBQ world and in the secret depths of Weber’s corporate offices. It all sounded really good. I believed that Weber had outsmarted the other pellet grill makers and then added some nice style to put together a winning package. Most of us here were pretty excited, and some were brave enough to jump in as preorder early adopters. Then the November dog and pony show fired us up all the more.
I am still sorting this out and have yet to even see a SmokeFire in person. It seems more and more apparent that this was a reach too far. I am now a lot more content with my Rec Tec that I was starting to describe here as “dated.” It is looking, instead, more like a solid, reliable choice for low and slow BBQ and maybe an occasional way to do grilling (with GrillGrates) just for a change of pace. I just used it tonight for an event where it did a fine job churning out hot dogs while enticing guests with nicely smelling smoke.
I am very concerned about all the suggestions that Weber knew about these problems and chose to actively suppress the truth from people like the guests at the big November show and now on social media. I don’t really know what to believe. I admit it is hard to see how their “extensive” testing would not have revealed these issues that are being so commonly reported.