I think Weber messed up with the Smokefire


 
Dustin Dorsey said:
think a charcoal griller would look more at a gravity feed.
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I did. And I just love the monster gravity fed smoker I built (and have yet to paint, but that's another story.) Once I figured out how the design works (yes, you do REQUIRE a fully sealed charcoal column,) that pretty much set me on the road to build one. On the market, what I've built is several times the price of a Smokefire EX6 (edit: mixed models.....) Personally, I don't see that a gravity fed is more difficult to run than a pellet grill, but then again, I built my own, and I am very familiar with every corner, nook & crevice. Mine will run 12+ hours unattended, with complete remote control and alerts

In a couple of weeks, I'm also going to have a big charcoal grill in the back yard, replacing a 10+ year old charcoal grill that's really rusted out. Yes, I'm all in on the charcoal bandwagon.

Weber has to go with the money. I'm not surprised in the least that they built a line of pellet grills. I still think the Weber product is superior to Traeger, but I'm seeing less floor space for Smokefires than Traeger products. That's not a good sign.
 
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TimA said:
I’m the opposite. I think Weber HAD to do a pellet. Pellet is still bigger than gravity and that’s not likely to change any time soon. It would also be poaching sales off kettles for Weber, and frankly I would hate to see them limiting features and cool colors and such for the kettles because their new gravity feed kills.

Pellets are cleaner, more consistent, and along with the controller are right in between charcoal and gas; close to gas convenience with closer to charcoal flavor. It’s a no brainer that Weber absolutely had to jump into the pellet game.

I also think Smokefire is a solid unit. Many of the complaints are blown out of proportion; the “grease fires” most said they had were nothing more than standard flare ups that every gas or charcoal or pellet grill has, and the hopper issue is overblown...really it’s not hard to go move them. It’s pure laziness. I’ll be picking up a Smokefire EX6 this summer, it’s $200 off and they’ve finally reached a point where with software it should be pretty trouble free.
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Have you cooked on a gravity feed ?
 
I wrote this on another thread last month.
I have a list of things that Weber should be doing to innovate.

Bring out a good quality gravity feed charcoal grill / smoker.
If they want to innovate the gas grill, do an automatic thermostat not a stupid remote thermometer
Go back to using tube frames or something better than sheet metal
Go back to durawood bottom shelves on open card grills
Offer a dam rotisserie burner on the N/S grills + add a little more height to the sides to fit larger diameter cooks.
Offer a IR side burner like Napoleon and others
 
TimA said:
No not yet. I’ll be adding the EX6, then probably a stick burner of some sort to the collection, then maybe a gravity feed later at some point. I don’t know anyone that has one
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I've not cooked on a pellet smoker. So I try to stay away from comparing one to the other.

But just visiting barbecue forums across the internet, its extremely common to hear pellet smoker owners complain about the lack of smoke flavor on their meats. Its a common theme, that the more the person paid for the pellet smoker, the better the smoke flavor it put on their meats.

Its safe to say that its a bonafide issue with pellets.

Now whether pellets produce smoke flavor or not, I'll let others duke that out. There's a lot of subjectivity and other factors involved. But that entire discussion is what drives the gravity feed demand. Getting charcoal/chunk flavor combined with automatic temp control was a game changer. Weber never saw that.

And the smoke I got from my MB560 totally surprised me. I expected a lot of white billowy smoke from smoldering chunks, but I get smoke closer to what my stick burner produces. And unlike a WSM, where the first part of the cook there's white billowy smoke, I get clean smoke from start to finish.

A contestant on BBQ Pitmasters, Stump ( and I don't know his real whole name ) , builds smokers and he was the first to build a gravity feed. I heard him on the show say " the superheated air cleans the smoke " . I thought , yeah right. But after cooking with a GF, I believe there's a whole lot to that.
 
Well now that I won't be much of a participant in the forum anymore due to the level two fire restrictions here for the 4th year in a row which now includes pellet grills or anything that produces ash. Although I'm down to one charcoal grill, our performer that I used for the last time last night for Barbs birthday dinner.
I think a lot of what Weber and others are doing isn't geared for folks like members of our forum, it's designed for the masses that want ease of cooking outside and don't really care or have any desire to learn about smoke profiles or what temp a rib eye should be cooked too.
I'd bet that the vast majority of backyard grillers don't even have an instant read thermometer.
They want set and forget smart devices that they can use their phone to run it. Yeah I get it, I like the set and forget Camp Chef I have and I'm sure a nice GF charcoal grill would be cool to have.
We have smart phones and smart TV's, smart cars, smart thermostats and many more and now smart grills it's what the world wants now so the manufactures are going to make what the market demands.
I don't think it's about the quality of cooking but the quantity of sales they are concerned about.
Hope you all have a great and safe summer.
 
Rich Dahl said:
Well now that I won't be much of a participant in the forum anymore due to the level two fire restrictions here for the 4th year in a row which now includes pellet grills or anything that produces ash. Although I'm down to one charcoal grill, our performer that I used for the last time last night for Barbs birthday dinner.
I think a lot of what Weber and others are doing isn't geared for folks like members of our forum, it's designed for the masses that want ease of cooking outside and don't really care or have any desire to learn about smoke profiles or what temp a rib eye should be cooked too.
I'd bet that the vast majority of backyard grillers don't even have an instant read thermometer.
They want set and forget smart devices that they can use their phone to run it. Yeah I get it, I like the set and forget Camp Chef I have and I'm sure a nice GF charcoal grill would be cool to have.
We have smart phones and smart TV's, smart cars, smart thermostats and many more and now smart grills it's what the world wants now so the manufactures are going to make what the market demands.
I don't think it's about the quality of cooking but the quantity of sales they are concerned about.
Hope you all have a great and safe summer.
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Rich, good analysis. The restrictions there really suck. Maybe you need a once in a hundred years flood.
 
Rich Dahl said:
I think a lot of what Weber and others are doing isn't geared for folks like members of our forum, it's designed for the masses that want ease of cooking outside and don't really care or have any desire to learn about smoke profiles or what temp a rib eye should be cooked too
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But if they do any research at all, the smoke flavor issue is going to pop up.

And this forum and forum's like this one, are minute compared to what's on social media. Barbecue is huge on YouTube. Anyone considering a purchase, can search for that smoker/grill on YT and find multiple reviews. Social media has become such a huge marketing tool, that " influencers " are given grills/smokers.

Maybe it does not reach the guy making the impulse buy of a Pit Boss at Walmart, but is that the guy Weber really wants to target with a grill like SmokeFire ?

When Weber had their SmokeFire launch party, they invited social media influencers to Chicago.
 
LMichaels said:
Sadly this is not really true any more. They are now a "marketing firm" more than anything else with much of their line being made in China. And if not the entire thing certainly most of the components and those simply "packaged" here so they can say "assembled in USA" and get away with it. But the company is not the one George Stephens started by a long stretch. Still some decent product(s).
And for the life of me I still don't understand how a gravity feed works. :unsure: A pellet grill is truly simple to me. Hell I recall my grandfather having something similar to feed coal into his boiler back in the 50's. His house had a room that was a mountain of coal and an auger in the floor to feed the fire on demand. I still don't understand what keeps a GF type from simply going all up in smoke
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This right here is where it went wrong for me. I sold my traeger anticipating buying a smoke fire after our move. When I found out it was made mostly overseas I went with a smokin brothers.
But I am very happy to see the kinks have been mostly worked out for the people that have them.

Now I'm getting all jacked up about a gravity feed again. I'm bummed at the poor reviews I'm seeing on the old county. I had high hopes.
 
ChrisV said:
This is just my opinion so feel free to agree or disagree but I think Weber really messed up with their Smokefire pellet grill line.

I get the pellet grills are the "it" thing in grilling and BBQ'ing these days and Trager has been making a killing with them. I know some people prefer "pellet" cookers but here's the thing... Weber is known, first and foremost as a charcoal grill company and I for one still feel that charcoal is superior to pellet grills if for no other reason then the flexibility they allow for with the different types of fuel you can use (briquettes, lump or just about any natural hardwood you have available).

IMO, the advantage that pellet grills have isn't the pellets themselves, its the way those designs utilize the pellets to make temp control easier, especially for low and slow cooks. That's great and all but the same thing can be accomplished with a charcoal fired unit.

I believe electronically controlled gravity feed charcoal grill/smokers is where it's at. These designs have been around for a while in the high end professional and competition level market but Masterbuilt and now Char-Griller have proven you can make an affordable and effective consumer level version.

Just my disappointed $.02
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My perspective as a convert from charcoal to pellets. As I approach 80 and my body is wearing out I need something that is easier on me physically. My family has some BBQ snobs and they like the smoother smoke flavor the Smokefire imparts to the meat. Maybe I was just lousy with charcoal but that's their opinion. Weber released a product that wasn't ready for prime time. Influencers fired it up and Weber hadn't prepared them for the weaknesses in the design. Owner induced fires and negative reviews flooded the internet. Then, to round out the perfect storm, Covid 19 hit and it instantly became a political football. Americans were bombarded with bad news and everyone was stressed. Weber had to change it's customer service organization so people could work at home while hiring new people and not training them completely before they were confronted by a barrage of complaints from Smokefire owners.

I'm one of many people who accepts the Smokefire inconsistencies because mine just keeps producing good tasting food. It has a PID controller and some are put off by the temp display not agreeing with their ambient probe. My Rec Tec did the same thing but it doesn't stop the cook.

Pellet grills have been around a long time and Weber decided to play in that arena. They already had round gas grills, flavorizer bars, and cooking grates that fit the Smokefire design. If they get into the gravity fed arena will they go cabinet smokers like Stump and Assassin or will they continue their barrel orientation? Stump and Assassin are made in the USA. I don't agree that they made a mistake. I think they made a choice that some folks just don't agree with.
 
GaryP said:
This right here is where it went wrong for me. I sold my traeger anticipating buying a smoke fire after our move. When I found out it was made mostly overseas I went with a smokin brothers.
But I am very happy to see the kinks have been mostly worked out for the people that have them.

Now I'm getting all jacked up about a gravity feed again. I'm bummed at the poor reviews I'm seeing on the old county. I had high hopes.
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I came very close to pulling the trigger on a Smokin Brothers 30". I like their pellet hopper design. Is it as nice as I think it is?
 
I've pretty much settled on that fact that once I'm retired and in my "final" home in FL, I'll be going with GF charcoal. I'll sell the WSM's, kettles and gas grills prior to my move. My neighbor has the Char-Griller 980 and loves it...I've cooked on it a couple of times and like the ease of use. I'm counting on the fact I'll have a nice small yard in FL without room for 4 or 5 different cookers so the GF makes sense I think. Meh, who knows...hopefully I make it another 4 years!
 
BHasselback said:
My neighbor has the Char-Griller 980 and loves it...I've cooked on it a couple of times and like the ease of use
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CharGriller is a new addition this year, I expect to see more new players. CharGriller fixed some things I don't like about my MB560. Every new entry into the market is gonna make refinements.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
I've not cooked on a pellet smoker. So I try to stay away from comparing one to the other.

But just visiting barbecue forums across the internet, its extremely common to hear pellet smoker owners complain about the lack of smoke flavor on their meats. Its a common theme, that the more the person paid for the pellet smoker, the better the smoke flavor it put on their meats.
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Yes. With the caveat being Smokefire. It’s almost universal that guys (and gals) that use almost nothing but pellets, or that’s their go-to like charcoal and a kettle would be to us, they all say that Smokefire produces noticeably more smoke flavor and better food overall. Even while complaint about anything else on it, they say it produces the best end product.

I dunno, seems like enough to get me to try it. Especially with the current $200 off
 
Lew Newby said:
I came very close to pulling the trigger on a Smokin Brothers 30". I like their pellet hopper design. Is it as nice as I think it is?
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It's been an awesome unit. Well made and a pretty heavy unit. I bought the 30" premier plus. The stainless shelf/hopper lid in front is a fantastic feature. Three piece grates make it easy to clean. Fire box is nicely insulated although not much of an issue here in south Texas. As you know, they aren't exactly a budget, but then again neither is the Weber.

Knowing what I know now I would still pick the smokin bros. But if i was back in the same situation now and seeing that the issues are mostly solved, I'd probably give it a much closer look. Hopefully that makes sense.

I'd like to get my hands on the new pellet grill coming out from lone star. Looks really nice.
 
TimA said:
Yes. With the caveat being Smokefire
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MAK owners say their pellet grills produce the best smoke flavor. Those guys are a cult over at The BBQ Brethren.

And then there's Cookshack.

There's a direct correlation between smoke flavor produced and cost of pellet smoke.
 
GaryP said:
It's been an awesome unit. Well made and a pretty heavy unit. I bought the 30" premier plus. The stainless shelf/hopper lid in front is a fantastic feature. Three piece grates make it easy to clean. Fire box is nicely insulated although not much of an issue here in south Texas. As you know, they aren't exactly a budget, but then again neither is the Weber.

Knowing what I know now I would still pick the smokin bros. But if i was back in the same situation now and seeing that the issues are mostly solved, I'd probably give it a much closer look. Hopefully that makes sense.

I'd like to get my hands on the new pellet grill coming out from lone star. Looks really nice.
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Thanks Gary. Yours is the one I had my eye on. I thought it was an excellent choice for a "made in the USA" pellet grill. If I were still physically comfortable dealing with my Performer the Premier Plus 30 and it would make a great team.
 
TimA said:
Yes. With the caveat being Smokefire. It’s almost universal that guys (and gals) that use almost nothing but pellets, or that’s their go-to like charcoal and a kettle would be to us, they all say that Smokefire produces noticeably more smoke flavor and better food overall. Even while complaint about anything else on it, they say it produces the best end product.

I dunno, seems like enough to get me to try it. Especially with the current $200 off
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You're where I was last year. I won't get rid of my Smokefire but be prepared for some immature software is you get one. If you accept that you may have to deal with problems then go for it. I belong to a friendly Facebook Group, the Weber Smokefire Woodfired Pellet Grill: Owners Group, and we have an excellent FAQ with a ton of info about the Smokefire. It's worth a look if you're interested.
 
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