It's home! The new Traeger Ironwood L

[primeone]

I'm excited to say that the new Traeger Ironwood L is finally at home! After a 45-minute drive to the Ace Hardware store, I was able to pick it up. Although I was hoping to assemble it myself, they only had one left in stock, which was already built. It turns out that it was the only Ace Hardware store in my area that had it available. I had my previous Ironwood Grill for a good 3 years, and it delivered some amazing meals. Can't wait to start smoking on this new one!

I was able to snag a great deal using this tip: https://www.traegerforum.com/threads/capital-one-shopping-21-rebate-at-ace-hardware.4310/

 

[Murphy's Law]

Looking forward to your thoughts.

 

[Russells]

Very nice! Can’t wait to hear about it.

 

[RustyJake]

They are definitely nice looking grills. Look forward to seeing more of this one in action

 

[JPSBBQ]

I’m in the minority that really prefers the smaller timberline and ironwoods to the XL versions. They just cook better imo. Of course if you need the real-estate or only have one cooking device, you might want to upsize. Enjoy the unit!

 

[primeone]

Well, so far it's hasn't worked out so well. The first time trying to do the burn in procedure, the grill kept displaying the message "Ignitor Error Detected"

For some reason, I had the hardest time trying to connect to the internet. Once I finally connected, there was an update the grill downloaded and rebooted. After the update, the grill fired up and proceeded to do the initial burn in. It seemed to take a long time to get up to temperature, but I didn't think much of it at the time.


Last night I decided to test it to see how fast it could get to 350 degrees. It took right at 20 minutes.

 

[primeone]

Another minor issue that doesn't make much sense is the top rack and bottom rack have different spacing. The Traeger wooden grill scraper works on the top rack, but not the bottom. Not a big deal, but figured I'd mention it.

Top Rack:

Bottom Rack:

 

[Russells]

That’s not too good. I would have expected better but I guess they are minor issues. I hope it gets better.

 

[O C]

I regret selling my PRO575, so now I'm considering this new Ironwood L myself. Looking forward to some real world reports. I'm particularly interested in how well the new ash/grease cleaning features work. The dismantling of the 575 to clean it was one of my major annoyances.

 

[RayClem]

With my IW 885, I normally try to do as much cooking as possible on the top rack. I rarely use the bottom rack for cooking. I place a baking pan covered with aluminum foil on the bottom rack to catch drippings from the cooks on the top rack. I almost never have to clean grease out of the grease chute and bucket. When the baking pan is dirty, I just discard the foil and start over.

I do have to clean ash out of the burn pot and cook chamber, but without grease, the cleanup is easy.

With my practice, the different grate spacing between top and bottom grates would not be an issue.

 

[primeone]

I regret selling my PRO575, so now I'm considering this new Ironwood L myself. Looking forward to some real world reports. I'm particularly interested in how well the new ash/grease cleaning features work. The dismantling of the 575 to clean it was one of my major annoyances.

The new ash/grease system is actually pretty cool. I cooked a batch of chicken legs last night that probably took about 30-35 minutes. I wasn't really paying attention and ended up overcooking them.

I'm not sure you'll need to vacuum it out, but a quick wipe down will definitely be needed. Here's what the burn pot looked like after the cook yesterday:

And a few videos:

 

[primeone]

The new pellet dump works great! I'm glad I held off on purchasing the Traeger pellet containers, because a 5 gallon bucket works just fine.

A close look at the new Traegerwood Ironwood L auger:

 

[RustyJake]

The new pellet dump works great! I'm glad I held off on purchasing the Traeger pellet containers, because a 5 gallon bucket works just fine.


View attachment 20617

A close look at the new Traegerwood Ironwood L auger:
View attachment 20618

I am liking some of their improved features. Interested to see you impressions of the new drip system and the dust bucket. It looks like it should make the grill easier to use between major cleans, but does it work well?

 

[primeone]

I am liking some of their improved features. Interested to see you impressions of the new drip system and the dust bucket. It looks like it should make the grill easier to use between major cleans, but does it work well?

So far I like the new improved design! I posted a couple of photos and videos here: https://www.traegerforum.com/threads/its-home-the-new-traeger-ironwood-l.4330/post-42763

On a positive note, I've noticed that the new lid is significantly more durable than the old one. The overall quality feels much higher, and the gasket seal works perfectly. I'm happy to report that I haven't seen any smoke leaking out of the side corners like I did with the old lid

 

[JPSBBQ]

The cool thing is you don’t really have to do much if any vacuuming. Just get a couple putty knives and a cheap paint brush. The putty knives can be steel or plastic of various widths and flexibility based on your individual needs. Everything can be scraped into the keg and what you can’t scrape out simply use the paint brush to guide the fine dust to the hole. I hate vacuuming things out and this design should dramatically reduce that.