SmokeFire First Impressions

[Troutman]

Thanks for taking the time to share your initial experiences. Like all pellet cookers I’m curious about several issues that seem to be their shortfall.

Specifically how is the smoke level? I hear nothing said in any of the initial roll out information about this cooker. Personally that’s the real holy grail and more important issue for me. I realize you probably haven’t had a chance to long smoke anything but would like your honest opinion on that.

Second is searing. Obviously they have spent a lot of time getting this right. What was your overall impression of that feature? Personally I have other cookers that do a great job of searing but for those who only have this as their sole cooker it may be very advantageous.

Finally love to hear your impressions on grease control, ease of cleaning and how well the PID controller works overall. Again we appreciate you being our first guinea pig, let us know how things develop and your future impressions. Being a big Weber fan I’m hoping to hear good things.

[fzxdoc]

Exactly the questions I had in mind: smoke level, searing capability, ease of cleaning, and how the PID controller performs. Thanks.

Kathryn

[surfdog]

Nailed it!
Same questions here.
I’ve only ever used one pellet cooker, my father’s Traeger, and to me it’s mostly, "Meh."
This is intriguing because it seems it can sear, something his "grill" simply cannot do.
But what it lacks in searing capabilities it makes up for in simplicity. Alas, the smoke profile is...eh...shall we say, light. That can be remedied by adding something like an A-Maze-N tube...but I can stick one of those into my Summit gasser just as easily. Looking forward to more info.

[glitchy]

Troutman I actually did a low and slow all day yesterday. I'll post the details here shortly. Again, not my first meat choices, but what they had at the store since I didn't have stuff thawed out. Unfortunately, I don't have a super refined palate, so I cannot tell you if it's more or less than other pellet grills. I can sense if there's smoke, a ton of smoke, too much smoke, bitter smoke, or mesquite. I would say that it's at least on par with other pellet grills. I was showing the grill off to a couple people, between than and tending the cook, I will say I was getting tired of the smoke smell and it was on my clothes, etc.

I'm very pleased so far with the searing. It obviously needs a few runs, but is very promising. For some reason, even when I had my Memphis, I still preferred steaks that weren't fully cooked on the pellet grill. Recently, I've been very happy with the pellet smoke, gas reverse sear (not as happy as 100% charcoal), so I thought I might like the SmokeFire reverse sear. They were just OK, buy like I mentioned, not my normal cut of meat either. One day I'm going to cook 3 identical steaks start to finish at the same time on pellet, gasser, summit charcoal and compare them side by side. Overall though, it sure looks like it will sear as good or better than my Memphis did and definitely on par with a lower/mid level gasser.

Cleaning, I'll have to approach when I get that far. Grease is either in the bottom of the barrel or evaporating on the flavorer bars. There is pretty much none in the drawer yet. Controller works just fine as is easy to use. Seems to hold temps pretty steady.

[surfdog]

Looking forward to the 3 steak test.

[glitchy]

Low and Slow

Yesterday, I cooked some beef short ribs and a rack of St. Loius ribs. First choice for testing would have been chuck or a butt, however I didn't have any thawed and this is what I saw right away when I was picking up those chuck eye steaks.

I put the short ribs on around 11:00 AM at 200 degrees. I also heated a ring sausage for lunch. When I pulled the sausage...a little over an hour in, I raised to 260 (it's just a weird number I picked up from a virtual friend who used that temp to get a pretty good American Royal finish on pork ribs). At 1:00 PM, I threw on ribs. Door was opened a few times during cook to show a couple visitors, tend the cook, etc. Both were done at 5:30. Both were pretty good. I'm not the biggest pork wib fan, but they were pretty good. I was busy selling other grills, so I didn't spritz like normal. The beef ribs tasted awesome, but were a crappy piece of meat. I got about 6 bites of meat from 2 bones. I obviously didn't examine close enough before buying in haste. Cook went well, no issues. I didn't have Fireboard connected to monitor swings, etc. I'll try to do that sometime soon.

As soon as I pulled food, I set to 350 and threw on biscuits to see where hot spots were on the grill. It seemed pretty even, with the right being just a few degrees cooler. I had them all flipped, but didn't see my finger was in the way or something as the pic didn't turn out.

[glitchy]

See the previous post for my perception of smoke.

[Troutman]

Wow good job on the ribs

[glitchy]

@Trotman, thanks. I really just followed someone’s competition recipe though. The girls want me to go back to the old way, I think these are great. The trick is wrapping in foil for one hour in the middle with a bead of liquid margarine, and a mixture of 2T brown sugar, 2 T honey, 1 T apple juice. There’s no sauce on these. He sauced for American Royal. It’s like a 2-1-1(to 2) at that temp.

[glitchy]

Baking

Needed a quick lunch, so fired up the new pit and threw on a frozen pizza. I am eating it as I type and can definitely taste smoke here. 425 for 12, set to 490 for 3 just to evap the moisture on top.

[JCGrill]

If you can taste smoke running it at 425 that's a good sign.

[glitchy]

JCGrill it was actually quite strong, more than I really wanted on a frozen pie. I was shocked.

[KarchyBBQ]

This is a really good thread. Thank you for taking the time to share your first experiences! Sounds like a promising pellet grill option for those of us considering them!

[klflowers]

I want to jump in and thank you for this excellent review too.

[glitchy]

Thanks for all the kind words everyone. I just wanted to share since I was lucky enough to find one of the very first in the wild and figured I have some decent pellet grill experience to compare it too. I think people that have never had anything but a gasser that buy a SmokeFire are going to be blown away. So far, I feel like Weber has really one-upped the mainstream pellet grill competition. You can get some equal or better pellet grills, but nothing I've seen at the $1000-1200 range like this.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

One thing I've seen a few people on various facebook posts complain about is how narrow the pellet hopper is and spilling while filling. I didn't think the hopper was all that different compared to a few other pretty good pellet grills, though I do really like the feed mechanism on that weber. Most of the complaints were paired with "just stick to brand x" (the one with bull horns ) so not sure if those complaints are a smear campaign or legit?

Keep the updates coming, I'm hoping this is a real winner. I love my MAK but it's pretty dang expensive. I'd love a quality name brand pellet grill to recommend to friends that can grill and smoke well while staying in a more reasonable price range for the average consumer.

[glitchy]

Have you seen the hopper on a Memphis? You get what you get from the engineers designing it. In my experience, square hoppers funnel more. Not sure that’s the right way to say it, but end up with hole in the middle of the hopper with pellets all around and a flame out because they quit feeding.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

That's what I was thinking, and why I didn't understand the complaints.

[JCGrill]

That funneling problem is very true with my GMG. I generally don't get flameouts, but I seem to need to refill a little early in order to avoid the alarm.

[glitchy]

Bacon and Burgers

To complete the entire first weekend of all meals on the new pit, did bacon cheeseburgers tonight. Bacon at 350 til extra crispy and burgers at 425. Turned out fabulous.

[JoeSousa]

Love seeing all the different cooks you are doing on this thing. I have never owned a pellet grill before and have nothing to really compare it to but for the price it seems like it hits all the marks.

[glitchy]

That’s exactly how I feel, so far seems best bang for the buck. MAK, Memphis, Pitts and Spits, etc. make some really sweet cookers, but this knocks the socks of anything you’ll find in a hardware, home improvement or department store. My Memphis was a beauty and a tank, but this SmokeFire seems to do anything it would do. It probably burns more pellets since it’s not fully doubled walled thick stainless steel and won’t last as long, but is also 1/3rd to 1/4 of the price.

[RonB]

Add me to the list of people offering thanks for your detailed reporting.

[pkadare]

Thanks so much for this glitchy! I'm anxiously awaiting being able to pull the trigger on mine! Just waiting for enough snow to melt so that I can open the garage doors in order to store the box until the spring.

[Old Glory]

Awesome thread thank you! Can you comment on the pellet burn rate for searing vs low and slow? I am curious how it compares to other grills and how expensive it is to run. I wouldn't use it necessarily for searing but more like an outdoor oven for chickens and roasts. Also for easy low and slow cooking. I like my steaks reverse seared on the WSCG or Sous Vide then seared over charcoal or on cast iron.

Very interested in pellet cooking just don't want to run through two bags per cook.

[glitchy]

I ran all weekend off of a little more than one bag of pellets. That was temps everywhere though and probably 12 hours of runtime. It’s going to chew some pellets at 600 for sure, especially when it’s cold and windy. I would say around 8 hours of that was 260 or below, some time at 350, 425, 525, and 600.

[glitchy]

The only single cook I’ve ever used a whole bag of pellets on is a packer in the winter. I think it’s going to be close to the semi standard of 1 lb per hour at 225 in 60-80 ambient and 1.5-2 lb per hour @350

[Donw]

Great job and information. Glad you are happy with the smoker and it is nice to hear that you are.

[au4stree]

Great thread, thanks for the write ups.