I think Weber messed up with the Smokefire


 
C

ChrisV

TVWBB Fan
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.

Let me start by saying I do think there are a lot of things to like about this new line. I do love the idea of a barrel type grill that can be used easily and effectively as both a smoker and a high heat grill and that it has built in electronics with probes to help control temps but I absolutely hate that they decided to make it a pellet fired grill.

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.

This IMO is what Weber's Smokefire line should have been and I hate that they let MB and C-G beat them to the punch. Mostly because this is the type of grill I really want but I don't see Weber making one anytime soon (considering the R&D time and money they must have invested in their new Pellet grill line)? Now I have to decide between buying an inferior product (compared to what I believe Weber could produce) or going without.

Yes this is me whining about Weber not making what I want to buy. Yes, there are other options and yes, I know Webers aren't perfect but I love Weber because they are a true American company doing their best to make quality products, in America and at an affordable price. Not too many companies can say that these days so I love to support them by buying their products when I can but they aren't given me that option this time. I get that they can't make everything that everybody wants but it just seems to me that a gravity feed charcoal grill/smoker would have made a lot more sense for them to make rather then the pellet version they decided to make instead.

Just my disappointed $.02
 
Hear , hear !! ........... ( standing ovation ) 👏

Charcoal/chunk coupled with automatic temp control .............. along with grilling ability, is awfully hard to beat. Gravity feed charcoal/chunk is as close to stick burner smoke flavor, as its gonna get.

My only question, why did this take so long ?

I have a Masterbuilt 560 that I only purchased because it was on sale at half price. Its far exceeded my expectations. So much so, that since I still grill on a Kettle ( both 22 and 26 ) I only use it as a smoker and I'm now looking at higher end patio gravity feeds, like the Southern Q Limo Jr

https://southernqsmokers.com/gravity-feed-smokers

I'm beginning to see why the comp guys like these gravity feeds.


 
I think you are mostly preaching to the choir. I think a gas griller is more likely to be interested in a pellet grill. I think a charcoal griller would look more at a gravity feed. The pellet grill is a huge market right now, though. I'm seeing pellets at my grocery store now, something I would have never seen just a year ago. It's gotta be booming. I don't know what kind of sales they have but the Smokefire has it's fans. They seem to have largely fixed the bugs. Some of the other big names had issues when the grills first came out.
 
ChrisV said:
but I love Weber because they are a true American company doing their best to make quality products, in America
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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
 
LMichaels said:
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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Think of a charcoal chimney with top sealed off , air tight. The coals at the bottom are burning from air flow under the chimney. The fire won't travel up the chimney, because there's no oxygen at the top. So coals drop down as they burn.

On a GF, if you opened the top of the hopper door, the fire would travel up the hopper just like a charcoal chimney.
 
I for one would love to see Weber come out with a GF cooker. Especially if they retain their high level of product quality and customer service. But maybe put a bit more into R and D before initial roll out. Would hate to see another Smokefire fiasco. But as for all outdoor cookers, gas, charcoal, or pellet what percent sold are GF? The whole concept of GF charcoal is quite simple. Maybe if Weber made one with a high end temp controller and forgo all the fluff like WiFi and Bluetooth. Just one guy hoping
 
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.
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Well that's a shame. Did not know that. I know before 2016 they were still made in the US with mostly US parts but I guess things change. Funny part (considering the main topic here) is...

the Weber SmokeFire is the only grill in the company’s lineup that’s made entirely in the US.
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Just my luck lol

I still think Weber would make a higher quality version (with better CS and long term product support) but I guess I will feel a little less bad about going with the Char-Grill version if I do.
 
I think they screwed up with the SmokeFire too, but not because it burns pellets. I think they screwed up because they still are still mediocre at best at software development and obviously didn’t do anywhere near the QA they claimed they did before release as a lot of early issues were widespread and fairly obvious. I was also very offended by their jerky responses to early issues. Having a company rep insult numerous customers having similar issues by saying your young daughters can use the grill just fine is arrogant and egotistical and ignorant of obvious shortcoming in the product or user guides if many customers are fighting the same concerns.

While I do wish they had a gravity feed automated cooker, I think there’s room for both a pellet grill and gravity feed and think if the gravity feed was first it would have faced similar issues with software and poor QA. Let’s face it, Weber QA just doesn’t seem to be what it used to be.

As far as Charcoal vs pellets that argument can be never ending. Pellets are cleaner to deal with, more consistent to work with and probably appeal to a market that would deliver higher profit margins to Weber from the more casual crowd. Even though Weber makes great charcoal cookers, I bet a far larger share of profits comes from gas grills and accessories than charcoal grills/smokers. If Weber wanted, they could have built a gravity feed over the past year versus smart gas grills. Im sure they had a record year last year like most outdoor cooking manufacturers.
 
Facebook groups .............

The largest Masterbuilt GF group has 17,500 members. Back in January, it had 10,000 members.

The largest SmokeFire group has 4,000 members. A couple of other groups have 3,000, and no way to know how much crossover between groups.

Yes, the Masterbuild GF's are lower priced, $500 to $800. But still .............. Weber missed it.
 
Dustin Dorsey said:
The pellet grill is a huge market right now, though. I'm seeing pellets at my grocery store now, something I would have never seen just a year ago. It's gotta be booming.
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Just in the past three weeks, two people I know, who know I'm a barbecue geek, have told me they just bought a Pit Boss. Smoking meats is new to both of them.
 
ChrisV said:
Yes this is me whining about Weber not making what I want to buy. Yes, there are other options and yes, I know Webers aren't perfect but I love Weber because they are a true American company doing their best to make quality products, in America and at an affordable price. Not too many companies can say that these days so I love to support them by buying their products when I can but they aren't given me that option this time. I get that they can't make everything that everybody wants but it just seems to me that a gravity feed charcoal grill/smoker would have made a lot more sense for them to make rather then the pellet version they decided to make instead.
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Actually, grills and smokers is one of the industries that still has a lot of American competition making quality products. It’s just that affordable is subjective. A lot of them cost 2-3 times the imported stuff, but easily last 2-3 times longer. I think a lot of these companies are doing very well too as waitlists have grown to months for their products.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
Facebook groups .............

The largest Masterbuilt GF group has 17,500 members. Back in January, it had 10,000 members.

The largest SmokeFire group has 4,000 members. A couple of other groups have 3,000, and no way to know how much crossover between groups.

Yes, the Masterbuild GF's are lower priced, $500 to $800. But still .............. Weber missed it.
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That‘s very cool, but Masterbuilt was the only game in town for how long? If you counted every pellet grill group up and compared that total it would probably be more representative of potential. I think there are Traeger groups far larger than 17,000.

Edit: Just searched and in first four results, there’s one Traeger group with 159,000 another with 130,000.
 
Shane - glitchy said:
That‘s very cool, but Masterbuilt was the only game in town for how long? If you counted every pellet grill group up and compared that total it would probably be more representative of potential. I think there are Traeger groups far larger than 17,000.

Edit: Just searched and in first four results, there’s one Traeger group with 159,000 another with 130,000.
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I don't know what the size of different FB groups shows? 1 group being larger then another doesn't mean one product is better then the other or even that its more desirable or more appreciated.

I'm sure there are more/bigger Mustang Groups then there are Porsche groups but I don't think anyone is going to argue that a Mustang is a better or more desirable performance car. Mustangs are just a lot more available and affordable so there are a lot more owners of them out there.
 
Shane - glitchy said:
That‘s very cool, but Masterbuilt was the only game in town for how long? If you counted every pellet grill group up and compared that total it would probably be more representative of potential. I think there are Traeger groups far larger than 17,000.

Edit: Just searched and in first four results, there’s one Traeger group with 159,000 another with 130,000.
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But compare how long pellet grills have been around. Masterbuilt GF has done that in one year. Traeger goes back 15 to 20 years, I think.

And really, I was comparing SmokeFire to MB, because they were both released last year.
 
ChrisV said:
I don't know what the size of different FB groups shows? 1 group being larger then another doesn't mean one product is better then the other or even that is more desirable.

I
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It shows how quickly MB has grown. People wanted an affordable GF.

It also shows what Weber could've done with a GF instead of a pellet grill.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
But compare how long pellet grills have been around. Masterbuilt GF has done that in one year. Traeger goes back 15 to 20 years, I think.

And really, I was comparing SmokeFire to MB, because they were both released last year.
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But, Masterbuilt was the only game in that town. They would get a huge group following for curiosity, for all we know 90% might not even own one, they could have joined for exploratory purposes. Pellet grills aren’t new, tons of people aren’t going to join a private SmokeFire group to see how pellet grills work like they would if it were a new concept. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Weber has sold more SmokeFires than MB has sold gravity grills. I‘m also not at all saying that I have anything against the gravity charcoal grills. I think they look great and have honestly looked at them several times. I just think that pellets have a bigger potential market and would have made the same choice if I was Weber, though I’d be working on a Weber gravity grill too.
 
I am not very optimistic that Weber will ever produce a GF charcoal cooker. If they did that they might have the incentive to start making Weber briquettes again. And nobody wants that!😀
 
Shane - glitchy said:
But, Masterbuilt was the only game in that town. They would get a huge group following for curiosity, for all we know 90% might not even own one, they could have joined for exploratory purposes. Pellet grills aren’t new, tons of people aren’t going to join a private SmokeFire group to see how pellet grills work like they would if it were a new concept. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Weber has sold more SmokeFires than MB has sold gravity grills. I‘m also not at all saying that I have anything against the gravity charcoal grills. I think they look great and have honestly looked at them several times. I just think that pellets have a bigger potential market and would have made the same choice if I was Weber, though I’d be working on a Weber gravity grill too.
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Again, I was not setting up a GF vrs pellet comparison.

This was what Weber could've done. The demand for a good GF smoker was out there and its still out there and its growing.
 
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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