Dave's Smokefire EX6 Experiences


 
A paperclip, a piece of duct tape folded into the shape of an arrow and a road flare. haha. JK.

I bought some brackets and a stainless shelf to see if I could put something together that doesn't look like crap. Time will tell. :)
I knew I recognized you, welcome to the form McGyver!
 
Did he say "oh, hi Dave Unixadm! I mean, uh, hi Dave may I have your last name?"

LOL. He said that "You seem to be a very advanced user" or something to that effect. I did check my Weber order history and it looks like he's also sending me a new lid assembly, since mine wasn't right from the start. He told me the auger assembly had to be processed via a different method, but that the part was revised. He also mentioned that there was some pellet bridging going on, so perhaps that's what the new chute addresses. While the additional ramp in the hopper is an option I'm exploring, and now there's a guy selling parts to do that, most of the issue seemed to occur with pellets going into the chute first. He also saiid they were VERY busy and it's been a learning experience thus far for them.
 
I just got an email from FedEx. Weber shipped me an auger and chute assembly FedEx Priority Overnight with Saturday delivery. To be fair, I'm having a couple of issues with my auger, so it was good to see that they stepped it up versus the ground shipment they told me to expect. I'll post up some pictures if it arrives tomorrow before installation. I'll also offer up any comments I can about the differences I see with the auger and chute.

-McGyver D
 
I just got an email from FedEx. Weber shipped me an auger and chute assembly FedEx Priority Overnight with Saturday delivery. To be fair, I'm having a couple of issues with my auger, so it was good to see that they stepped it up versus the ground shipment they told me to expect. I'll post up some pictures if it arrives tomorrow before installation. I'll also offer up any comments I can about the differences I see with the auger and chute.

-McGyver D

Awesome to see Weber getting after it to get this thing right. Personally I expected nothing less, but it's nice to see confirmation of that.

By the time I can afford a SmokeFire they should be perfect. Lol. It's fun to watch you tinker and experiment with it too. I'm definitely watching this thread with continued interest.

Well done, Macgruber!

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Awe. The poor Smokefire, sitting half torn apart while I play around with the Woodwind 36. The stainless brackets I ordered for the front shelf showed up today, so I decided to attach them to see what I thought. It is going to take some work and modification of the shelf I have on the way, but the brackets bolted up clearly and are sturdy using the factory hardware:

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That's WAY stronger than the pop out pins that holds my Rec Tec shelf. Still, I have never had a problem with it holding a turkey or a tray full of ribs/brisket/chicken. Extremely nice work!
 
Well the easy/simple fix for the hopper problem would be a spring loaded pin that the auger would power, the pin or slim plate would move back and forth as the auger ran,a couple pf screws to hold the bracket and it would be a self stirrer imo. Wish I had 1 to play with, coarse it could be set up to run on any pit
 
Product NamePart #QtyPriceDiscount PriceItem Total
Lid assembly, black, 36" SmokeFire689921$0.00$0.00
Hopper Pellet Slide 36"692301$0.00$0.00

Scott got back to me from Weber and he confirmed the order of a new lid and pellet slide for the EX6. The auger and chute assembly is in Sacramento via FedEx priority overnight with Saturday delivery. I expect it to arrive this morning sometime. Good service from Weber and Scott in their technical support team.
 
Well the easy/simple fix for the hopper problem would be a spring loaded pin that the auger would power, the pin or slim plate would move back and forth as the auger ran,a couple pf screws to hold the bracket and it would be a self stirrer imo. Wish I had 1 to play with, coarse it could be set up to run on any pit
Like I said a couple of weeks ago, kind of like the thing that spins around in my icemaker to break up the pieces so they flow down into the auger/grinder.

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The way Weber is responding now it appears their not getting hammered 24/7 and getting some time to work out some solutions to the problems.
That's a good thing.
 
I'm going to start off by saying that I didn't follow Weber's instructions. I removed the auger motor and then the chute. Reinstalled in reverse order, while adding a touch of high temp RTV to the gasket between the auger and the chute. I also added RTV around the auger tube where it penetrates the main body. I did this because I found a lot of smoke and ash residue in the auger compartment.

First was the priority overnight with Saturday delivery. Thank you, Weber!
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New Parts:
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Design wise, I don't see much difference other than a Rev F auger motor. The original was a Rev D. The chute looks identical and I'm not going to mess with it at this point.

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All back together, let's fire it up! Come on EX6, I want to love you. To Infinity and Beyond!

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It hit 600 in under 30 minutes. Check out that right flame. I really don't like that about this pit and it must have something to do with the convection airflow. I may have to do this again with out the flame tamers and see what occurs.

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That's where those pesky grease fires would come from. I did seem to notice less ash from this burn than I usually do which was good. I also noticed that the instructions called for me installing some kind of plate to the auger assembly, but that plate wasn't included. I take it that Weber preinstalled it and the instructions were to retrofit that plate at some point.
 
A LITTLE MODDING AND A LITTLE COOKING...

I think we almost forgot that the Smokefire is for cooking. With my front shelf project on hold because I didn't use my tape measure properly, I decided to dip into the recently arrived box of goodies. What I found was some stainless #100 mesh. I cut two pieces and clipped them to the main heat deflector/tent/house/triangle/roof/hood/discronificator. I wanted to see if ash would be reduced, especially during cook around 275-300 degrees. Now here's the deal, I'm hungry. I just got back from the butcher shop again. The dudes are starting to think that maybe I want to work there. I told them this is too close by for comfort. So it was $50ish last night and another $70ish tonight, but they had those bacon wrapped fillets again from an earlier cook. I bought four of them, more sausages and a rack of baby backs.

So first, let's look at this stainless mesh I bought:

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Is it going to work? Who knows. I do know that after running it for a while, I hardly saw any ash on the grates and it was minimal on the outside of the unit. I didn't do anything special with this stuff. I didn't try to cut it to conform to the chamber or anything. I just draped it down in there and hit the go button. I used some stainless bag clips I had laying around. I really want less ash during longer cooks. If I'm running hot and short duration, I don't care so much about it.

I noticed that the flame exiting the right side has much less to do with temperature and more to do with over-fueling. This is because I vacuumed it out and it had a hard time starting up. I forgot to drop some pellets in the fire pot, but it did start up OK. It just didn't start up well, and as a result it started feeding in fuel when it wasn't quite ready for it. That caused a lot of side exiting flame when the EX6 was sub-200 degrees. The mesh didn't seem fazed by this at all.

Now, let's get to the food:

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I'm going to run the EX6 at 275 degrees until the internal is at 105 and then I'm going to bump it up to 375-400 to finish to 133ish. Then rest for 10 minutes before eating. I added some fresh ground kosher salt and pepper to both sides, along with a little avocado oil drizzle.
 

 

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