As you may have noticed, I am not an early adopter of SmokeFire. My plan was to purchase an EX6 through my brother's Ace Hardware store.
He got in four EX4s yesterday. The EX6s were coming in later this week. I told him they were getting bad publicity on social media. He took one home and cooked with it. He saw many of the same flaws that people are reporting, minus the controller freezing and a grease fire. He's a long-time Traeger user, is on his second Traeger, and thought that SmokeFire would replace his Traeger.
Let's just say the EX4 will be heading back to the shop and the Traeger is safe for now.
His first comment was on assembly. It took him 45 minutes to put together SmokeFire, as compared to the Traeger where he says you screw on four legs and you're pretty much done. He was shocked that the glow plug was not already installed. He said the way the Flavorizer bar supports snap into the front and back of the grill is really stupid.
He said fit and finish and heft is not the same as his Traeger. He thinks the slope of the pellet hopper is problematic. He has experienced pellet bridging in his Traeger, so he's sympathetic to that problem in the SmokeFire.
He didn't fully read the instructions and skipped the 600*F burn-in. Bad dog. First cook, he ran it at 350*F and cooked burgers. No problems. Next day, he was surprised at the amount of ash covering the grill inside and out. Lots of ash coating the unused upper grate. Ash on the control panel and work surface. Ash on the lid. I can only assume this is due to the fan?
Tonight, we connected over Facetime and he ran the grill up to 600*F. I could see for myself the blowtorch of flames coming out of the right side of the fire pot and about half as much flame out of the left side. It was dark outside and I could see the burning embers flying out from around the grease/ash drawer. Not good!
I asked him to pull out the grates and Flavorizer bars and look at the bottom of the grill, to see how grease is routed away. He thought the bottom surface looked awfully flat and that if your grill was not on a level surface, grease might even run toward one of the corners. For a company that knows how to route grease down and out of a gas grill, you'd think they'd be able to engineer a foolproof method for a pellet grill.
My brother will play with the EX4 a bit more before taking it back to the store, but out of good conscience he won't be selling any to customers for the time being. He is going to have a conversation about his experience with the Weber rep.
And I told him I would pass on the EX6 for now, while we wait and see how things play out.
My Questions
He got in four EX4s yesterday. The EX6s were coming in later this week. I told him they were getting bad publicity on social media. He took one home and cooked with it. He saw many of the same flaws that people are reporting, minus the controller freezing and a grease fire. He's a long-time Traeger user, is on his second Traeger, and thought that SmokeFire would replace his Traeger.
Let's just say the EX4 will be heading back to the shop and the Traeger is safe for now.
His first comment was on assembly. It took him 45 minutes to put together SmokeFire, as compared to the Traeger where he says you screw on four legs and you're pretty much done. He was shocked that the glow plug was not already installed. He said the way the Flavorizer bar supports snap into the front and back of the grill is really stupid.
He said fit and finish and heft is not the same as his Traeger. He thinks the slope of the pellet hopper is problematic. He has experienced pellet bridging in his Traeger, so he's sympathetic to that problem in the SmokeFire.
He didn't fully read the instructions and skipped the 600*F burn-in. Bad dog. First cook, he ran it at 350*F and cooked burgers. No problems. Next day, he was surprised at the amount of ash covering the grill inside and out. Lots of ash coating the unused upper grate. Ash on the control panel and work surface. Ash on the lid. I can only assume this is due to the fan?
Tonight, we connected over Facetime and he ran the grill up to 600*F. I could see for myself the blowtorch of flames coming out of the right side of the fire pot and about half as much flame out of the left side. It was dark outside and I could see the burning embers flying out from around the grease/ash drawer. Not good!
I asked him to pull out the grates and Flavorizer bars and look at the bottom of the grill, to see how grease is routed away. He thought the bottom surface looked awfully flat and that if your grill was not on a level surface, grease might even run toward one of the corners. For a company that knows how to route grease down and out of a gas grill, you'd think they'd be able to engineer a foolproof method for a pellet grill.
My brother will play with the EX4 a bit more before taking it back to the store, but out of good conscience he won't be selling any to customers for the time being. He is going to have a conversation about his experience with the Weber rep.
And I told him I would pass on the EX6 for now, while we wait and see how things play out.
My Questions
- How could anyone at Weber see the amount of ash and embers flying out of this cooker and think that it was not a problem? Was this not a problem with pre-production units?
- Pellets have to be "helped" down the bin toward the auger intake. Did anyone see this as a problem, or was this a design trade-off in order to achieve the long narrow bin hidden behind the unit?
- Did Weber load these grills to the max with untrimmed pork butts to see how they handled grease during low & slow cooking? I would assume they did, but...
- Were actual customers involved in usability testing of these grills early in the design process? You can't bring people in after the design is complete and hope to solve any significant problems that are found.
Last edited: