New Weber Smokefire wood pellet grills

[pkitch]

These look pretty interesting, and based on personal experience with their gas grills should be a pretty solid product with excellent customer service.
I for one am interested to see this perform. Although I wouldn't see these as much if any upgrade to the Traeger line.

If I was buying again with the same knowledge I had at that point, I would be very strongly leaning in this direction...

Buying again today, I am pretty sure I would likely 'upgrade' to a Yoder which although I have not studied, have not see a bad word about or possibly Rec Tec but due all the problems with Wifire and questionable design, sadly I would not buy Traeger again (Ironwood 650).

 

[jp9724]

These look pretty interesting, and based on personal experience with their gas grills should be a pretty solid product with excellent customer service.
I for one am interested to see this perform. Although I wouldn't see these as much if any upgrade to the Traeger line.

If I was buying again with the same knowledge I had at that point, I would be very strongly leaning in this direction...

Buying again today, I am pretty sure I would likely 'upgrade' to a Yoder which although I have not studied, have not see a bad word about or possibly Rec Tec but due all the problems with Wifire and questionable design, sadly I would not buy Traeger again (Ironwood 650).

I wanted a Rectec but being north of the USA boarder makes it quite a bit more money to get myself one, so it would be been comparable to buying a Yoder locally or driving across the boarder to pick up a Rectec. I didnt wannt spend either amounts of money. I love my Ironwood 885, haven't had an issue yet with it including the software the knocked everyone else's out... mine seems to be one of the lucky few that made it out alive. If I had the choice, I would have went GMG(cost savings of $800) if this didnt workout or wait it out and get the new Smokefire, it looks badass with lots of different engineered aspects.

 

[RemE]

The Weber design looks pretty good, they have a beautiful "animated transparent 3d line drawing" video showing the action of the system, angled auger that pulls pellets from the rear hopper, uphill, where they drop thru a chute into the center of the firepot. The grease funnels to a pan in the center pull-out drawer, and the ashes drop into the rear of the same drawer! Looks very efficient and it goes up to 600F as well.

They have the classic "Flavorizer" bars like their old gas grills and ceramic coated steel construction. Their controller has a nice graphic display and WiFi/App monitoring and control.

All-in-all decent looking pellet grill for around $1k It's not built like a tank so I don't know how it would age, but a nice start from a big name.

 

[Blip]

Don't even think about this grill. I purchased one back in February and it was nothing but trouble. In theory it sounds great, especially for grilling at high heat. 3 times Weber sent parts to deal with issues. I will say their customer service was very good, as opposed to what I read about Traeger. The grill reached 600 one time for 10 minutes, never to return in another cook. The uphill augur design is poor, resulting in many backups, which are a pain to resolve. Grease doesn't flow easily to the drip pan so it's necessary to clean after every cook. The Traeger wifi is much more versatile, allowing you to change the temperature from a phone, which isn't included with the Weber. I had 4 successful cooks in 2 months and finally returned it to Ace Harware. They told me other buyers were also having problems. I love Weber but they need to seriously redesign this grill. I purchased my Traeger a couple weeks ago and absolutely love it. I've had 5 cooks and it has performed exactly as expected, including a nice seared steak using GrillGrates.

 

[Ek575]

I was torn between this and the Traeger Pro, I went for the Traeger as there were so many reports of issues with the augur on the Weber. If you leave it for a long cook the pellets seem to have issues feeding in. The shipped a fix but doesn't seem to have resolved the issue for a lot of folks

 

[primeone]

I was planning on buying one of these when they first came out, but then I held off due to the amount of problems reported with the first batch. It seems like most of the issues have been sorted out now.

Weber quality control

I have had no issues with the new firmware software updates. I have been grilling and smoking with no problems whatsoever. I will say this the unit has to be cleaned out about every third smoke. I use a shop vac and it takes less than 5 minutes. I also use Water pans on top of the flavorizing...

www.weberpelletgrills.com

 

[RemE]

This is what is great about forums, strait talk. Its logical that Weber would have snags in a new line of grills. It's how these companies handle problems that makes or breaks them.

 

[Keeperovdeflame]

Like most backyard chefs, I have a number of weber kettles and gassers in my history. Currently I have a Summit and could not be happier with it's performance and durability.
So having a history with Weber, I seriously looked at one of these and really took the time to read the independent performance reviews. Of Course all of Weber's reviews are glowingly positive, however many of the independent owner reviews describe issues with grease fires due to the fact the flavor bars shield the burners but do not completely cover them.

 

[RemE]

I saw one the other day at my local ACE hardware. It looks nice but in actually touching it, the construction is much lighter than my Traeger. The pellet door etc. Is flimsy feeling thin gage metal. Overall I came away not very impressed.

 

[Olds442]

I saw one the other day at my local ACE hardware. It looks nice but in actually touching it, the construction is much lighter than my Traeger. The pellet door etc. Is flimsy feeling thin gage metal. Overall I came away not very impressed.

that was exactly my impression as well when i first touched one.

i had the exact opposite impression when i examined my first traeger at HD.

sorry if old thread bumps are frowned upon.

 

[traeger860]

I love my Weber propane grill and almost ordered of these instead of the Ironwood. After seeing all of the "My Weber Smokefire actually got on fire" videos on YouTube, I decided to stick with the Traeger. Although I'm sure my Traeger would also catch on fire if it got to 600 degrees.

 

[Deleted]

I love my 575 as well, think build quality good. You should see all the problems they are having with the SF; many have returned them and gone elsewhere. I considered Recteq (formerly RecTec) but they were out of my $$ range. If I want to bbq, thats what I have my Performer kettle for.

 

[DJDDay]

Another thread resurrection, but necessary for those considering the Weber SmokeFire EX4 or EX6. I helped a buddy put together his EX4 (Gen 2, which largely addresses most of the issues they had at launch) over the summer. I thought I wanted one, but when I went to purchase it later last year, the price went up from $800 to $1000 overnight sometime around October 2021. That irritated me, so I held off. Wife ended up buying me a Traeger Pro 780 for Christmas last month, and this is my takeaway: 1. The Weber feels downright cheap in construction by comparison to the Traeger 780. The Weber steel was super thin and flimsy - the Traeger is built like a tank by comparison. Every Weber kettle I've had, has always rusted out pretty fast - paint flaking first. So knowing that, and then feeling the SmokeFire construction in my hands, definitely makes me feel the Traeger was the better choice.

That said, we pay for the thicker steel and higher quality build (IMHO) with the Traeger, as the SmokeFire has many features that one should expect when dropping the kind of money we do on a similar product: 3 meat probes versus Traeger's meager 1 probe, stainless steel grates (which usually last far longer than ceramic coated cast iron in my experience), a side table, pellet level sensor, and the fact that it can easily reach 600F and do so rather quick.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. Maybe if I'd gotten the SmokeFire, I'd be quick to point out the Traeger's missing features, but when it comes to build quality, the Traeger absolutely stomps the Weber. No question.

 

[RustyJake]

Thanks for your observations and sharing your opinion.

 

[miguelb]

Another thread resurrection, but necessary for those considering the Weber SmokeFire EX4 or EX6. I helped a buddy put together his EX4 (Gen 2, which largely addresses most of the issues they had at launch) over the summer. I thought I wanted one, but when I went to purchase it later last year, the price went up from $800 to $1000 overnight sometime around October 2021. That irritated me, so I held off. Wife ended up buying me a Traeger Pro 780 for Christmas last month, and this is my takeaway: 1. The Weber feels downright cheap in construction by comparison to the Traeger 780. The Weber steel was super thin and flimsy - the Traeger is built like a tank by comparison. Every Weber kettle I've had, has always rusted out pretty fast - paint flaking first. So knowing that, and then feeling the SmokeFire construction in my hands, definitely makes me feel the Traeger was the better choice.

That said, we pay for the thicker steel and higher quality build (IMHO) with the Traeger, as the SmokeFire has many features that one should expect when dropping the kind of money we do on a similar product: 3 meat probes versus Traeger's meager 1 probe, stainless steel grates (which usually last far longer than ceramic coated cast iron in my experience), a side table, pellet level sensor, and the fact that it can easily reach 600F and do so rather quick.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. Maybe if I'd gotten the SmokeFire, I'd be quick to point out the Traeger's missing features, but when it comes to build quality, the Traeger absolutely stomps the Weber. No question.

Had your friend had any issues? What's his experience after owning it?