What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Traegers, Green Mountain, Smokin Tex and all other Pellet and Wood Chip Smokers

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What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Grimsawyer » Thu Aug 26, 2010 2:12 am

So I have and love my Traegar but it is FAR from perfect. It's as close to set and forget I can get without getting an industrial smoker you see in restaurants. 1st, the smoke stack out the side seems to only be there for show. The lid dosn't even come close to making a seal when I close it so I loose more smoke out from under the lid than up the stack. This seems like extremely poor workmanship to me(especially for 600 frackin bux)! 2nd. The darn thing goes out on smoke. heck, in the winter it'll go out when set to 180*F. Is there a way to improve airflow in the firebox to get around this? Another snafu in the design of my beloved heap. I broke down last summer and tossed out my 3 position switch for a $110 dollar knob that does smoke, 180, 225, etc... and It's made a huge difference to everything I make. (of course, it diddn't fit so I had to cut the hole out bigger with my dremmelle... LOL!) What I'm trying to ask is if there are fixes to the obvious problems to this smoker and what above and beyond would you do to it if you had one(lets pretend you wanted one, LOL, I've seen the photos of some of the pits here.... *DROOL*). I'm not afraid to cut into it, punch holes, etc... I just don't have a welder. Someday, just not today. :D
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby n2dabluebbq » Thu Aug 26, 2010 8:46 pm

have you done anything with the gasket? i hear tale that the gasket wears/ fails. i am not a pellethead by any means. but it is something that i think seems to come up a lot. also heard that the ones made outside of the u.s. are not as good as the ones that were made here.
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Stewdog » Thu Aug 26, 2010 9:28 pm

The Lil Tex is a good grill just not a good smoker. You could get a digital thermostat and put a second rack in for efficiency.
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Papa Tom » Thu Aug 26, 2010 9:35 pm

Don't worry too much about the ill fitting door right now. Go get a welders blanket to toss over the thing to help insulate it, this is especially good in cold or windy weather. Learn your pit's characteristics, first go get a tube of biscuits and place them around the grate in a nice pattern and cook away leaving them for a good half hour or more depending on temp setting. The browning will display where the hot spots/cold spots are. As for the flame outs these are almost surely a result of pellet supply problems and not air flow. There is a switch on the controller called the"P"switch that controls the minimum pellet feed interval 0 thru 9, this is most evident on the "Smoke" setting where the switch has sole control of the interval.
Here's the scoop:

Switch# T-off T-on
0 45 15
1 55 15
2 65 15
3 75 15
4 85 15
5 95 15
6 105 15
7 115 15
8 125 15
9 135 15

All T (times) are in seconds. From this, you can say each click makes it stay off 10 more seconds than the previous number. It always runs the auger for 15 seconds every xx (T-off + T-on) seconds, no matter what.

The above is running in the background sort of independent of the temperature control and startup control. I believe the main intent is to keep a few pellets trickling into the firebox to prevent flameouts. If you use too big a number, your fire may go out, and once that happens, you will make a big pile of unburned pellets go where you don't want them.

Startup control is simply "RUN the Auger and Heater for 4 minutes" every the switch is moved from OFF to any active position. After 4 minutes it goes into temperature control mode (unless you're on Smoke setting). In the smoke setting, it just uses the numbers based on the switch # setting.

Flameouts can also be caused by pellets that are too long thus not feeding as much wood to the fire in a single auger cycle. There is also a governor rod in the auger assembly that can safely be removed since you have the digital controller.


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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Grimsawyer » Fri Aug 27, 2010 2:42 am

This governor rod. Is it the rod down the middle of the auger? Does it just simply slide out or does it need some extra love to get it out(hacksaw/dremmelle)? Flameouts suck. Have to take out what you are smoking, remove the rack, drip pan, heat diverter then scoop out a TON of pellets... never fun, LOL!!! So how do you tweak the smoke setting? Do you have to take out the digital controller to get to the T setting switch? I wanna play with this now, hehe >=). The biscuit thing is a good idea. I'll goof with that soon. I've noticed that the very front and back of the rack where the drip pan ends hot air blasts up and cooks much hotter than anywhere else. Still not enough to grill up a proper steak though. =( (almost perfect for sausage though, LOL!!!) Thank you for the tips btw, always appreciated!
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Stewdog » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:27 am

There is a small hole on the front of your controller. Using a small object press to change cycle times.
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby BluDawg » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:34 am

How to improve a pellet pooper: Sell it to some non suspecting rookie and go build a UDS. truly the set and forget BBQ Machine!!
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Papa Tom » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:27 pm

Some of the controllers have a hole to set the P switch others have to be removed to do it. Yes the governor is the rod down the middle of the auger and it needs to be surgically removed if so desired. Most of my flameouts can be traced to not keeping the fire pot clean or long pellets the P switch can be tweaked to help but maintenance is necessary as well. No harm in tweaking the "P" you can always set it back. A remedy for long pellets is to run over the bag a few times with the car.
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Grimsawyer » Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:52 am

Hey BluDawg, what is a UDS? (I like building things... need welder though. :( ) Can't wait to run over some pellets with my car and surgically remove that rod. No painkillers for this prociedure. I want it to hurt, feel my pain. >=)
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby HarvestMoon » Sat Aug 28, 2010 3:38 am

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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Grimsawyer » Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:13 pm

Man, do I have ideas on how to improve it already...LOL... sometime I'll goof with it.
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Grimsawyer » Mon Aug 30, 2010 6:24 pm

Ok, to do list to get more out of my pit.
1. Get a welders blanket
2. Run over pellets with car(this part kinda sounds like fun, LOL. Hopefully the bag won't break)
3. remove governor rod in auger
4. Play with T switch setting in smoke mode.
5. To know pit's chararacteristics better cook some biscuits in a tube for 30 min.

Thanks this far on all the advise. Always appreciated. That's what I can do right now. Alright, about that I'll fitting door. :angryfire: Anyone have any suggestions? I went to a wood stove store awhile back and got some high heat adheasive and some rope gasket. Diddn't stick on, need to grind down to metal to get it to really stick. Still diddn't seal when I got it on so I just tossed that idea out the window but keeping it in the back of my mind just in case for later. The metal seems really thin on a traeger so the weight alone on the lid is really unimpressive, maybe some kind of latch such as a freezer latch of some sort or something to get a tighter fit so that rope gasket could do its job? Any ideas would be appreciated. I do like my Traeger, just hate certain things about it and I'm not afraid to cut into it, grind on it, punch holes in it to get it to work better. :D
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby texana » Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:38 pm

I have the Texas and BBQ Junior and they both work great.

Are they perfect ... no. Heck look what they cost. Your never going to make drink champagne on a beer budget and thats ok if you like beer ....

BBQ is no different. Take each pit, smoker, grill etc for what it is .... learn how to use it and you can turn out some good food.

I have cooked on Klose's, Gators, Backwoods, Traegers, Langs, UDS, etc .... and the bottom line is you can compete on any of them and do very well once you learn to cook .... it all comes back to learning how to cook ....

And I will tell anyone ... your never, ever going to learn to cook on a set it and forget it type of cooker .... But hey thats my opinion .....
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Papa Tom » Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:54 pm

I disagree I believe you can learn to cook on any cooker but you must have the wisdom to know the results are up to you and the desire to learn. It is easy but foolhardy to believe that a fancy cooker will do it for you. I like you learned to cook on things far more difficult to cook on but have been using a Traeger (et al) for more than 10 years.
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Re: What would you do to your Traeger to make it work better?

Postby Grimsawyer » Wed Sep 01, 2010 7:15 am

LOL!! I know a fancy cooker won't do it for ya... the first few times I used my Traeger... well... yeah... Wasn't so good. Had to figure out what I was doing. I make a mean rack of ribs. Pulled pork is awesome on it. The Prime Rib and the Briskit I've done on it is really good. Just trying to "tune up" my hardware. If I never took out the governor rod or ran over the pellets with my car my ribs would still be to die for. Just want to fix what the factory should have done in the first place. Goof with the settings on the smoke and tweak a little here and there I might not have to build/buy something else to do that job... Dang it, I want to make bacon and jerky!!!! LOL!!!

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