Trexx
New member
I am a new poster here so a bit of background.
Purchased a new Traeger 20 Tailgater at Costco last fall.
I am using Traeger pellets.
Fired up the grill and tried to cook pork side ribs as outlined in Meatheads cookbook.
The temp gauge on the front of the grill showed fairly wide temp swings as the firepot cycled on and off.
I was using the 185, 225 and 250F settings on the control box.
The ribs got cooked a little quicker than I expected but they were a bit dried out and over done.
Read a bunch of posts on this forum.
Vacuumed out every spec of ash after the smoke.
Wiped down and cleaned the Traeger temperature thermocouple.
Cleaned it up in general.
Went out and purchased more pellets and a Thermoworks Smoke temperature probe with dual probes.
Fire up the grill with large boneless beef ribs, hooked up the Thermoworks Probes. Loaded up with the new pellets.
Tried to follow Meatheads advice on time/temp cooking.
The Thermoworks temp probe has a little clip that suspends the probe just above the grill grate.
First off the Thermoworks probe inside the Traegar reads 50 Deg higher than the Tragaer internal thermocouple.
And watching the Thermoworks Smoke readins shows wild temp swings inside my little Tailgater.
Once a gain my beef ribs cooked a little quick, turned out with great bark and fairly tender but still a bit dried out.
I think the swings were a bit much for the beef as when the Traegar was set at 225F my Thermoworks indicated internal temp was shooting up as high as 375F.
Then the Traegar shut down completely and I had to do a clean out and restart.
Got it going again and it took off on me up to 425F or so.
Shut it down ,cleaned it out restarted and finished the slightly overdone ribs.
Right now I am on try number three and I am logging temp swings while cooking two pork butts.
Traegar set at 225F on the dial.
Thermoworks shows that the Traegar drops to around 219F and then kicks in the firepot, temp then rapidly climbs to 365F and cycles off.
And it repeats over and over.
Seems a bit too hot for a slow cook so I set the Traegar temp dial to 185F which is its lowest setting except for Smoke.
AT 185F the firepot cycles on at 181F and rapidly climbs to 315 to 320F and cycles off.
Rinse and repeat.
So I have constant temp swings of between 140 F and 133 F while slow smoking.
Plus I cannot trust the thing by itself or overnight because it could take off or shut down.
The temp swing seems a bit much to me.
No wonder stuff cooks faster than I expected.
So what to do.
The Tailgater is small with not much mass to store heat.
It is also pretty leaky wind wise.
Do I just give up onth little thing, recognize that it just isnt really built for the job and get rid of it.
And then spend a whole bunch more cash on a better bigger unit?
Thanks for any help or input.
Sorry about the length.
Thanks
Trexx
Purchased a new Traeger 20 Tailgater at Costco last fall.
I am using Traeger pellets.
Fired up the grill and tried to cook pork side ribs as outlined in Meatheads cookbook.
The temp gauge on the front of the grill showed fairly wide temp swings as the firepot cycled on and off.
I was using the 185, 225 and 250F settings on the control box.
The ribs got cooked a little quicker than I expected but they were a bit dried out and over done.
Read a bunch of posts on this forum.
Vacuumed out every spec of ash after the smoke.
Wiped down and cleaned the Traeger temperature thermocouple.
Cleaned it up in general.
Went out and purchased more pellets and a Thermoworks Smoke temperature probe with dual probes.
Fire up the grill with large boneless beef ribs, hooked up the Thermoworks Probes. Loaded up with the new pellets.
Tried to follow Meatheads advice on time/temp cooking.
The Thermoworks temp probe has a little clip that suspends the probe just above the grill grate.
First off the Thermoworks probe inside the Traegar reads 50 Deg higher than the Tragaer internal thermocouple.
And watching the Thermoworks Smoke readins shows wild temp swings inside my little Tailgater.
Once a gain my beef ribs cooked a little quick, turned out with great bark and fairly tender but still a bit dried out.
I think the swings were a bit much for the beef as when the Traegar was set at 225F my Thermoworks indicated internal temp was shooting up as high as 375F.
Then the Traegar shut down completely and I had to do a clean out and restart.
Got it going again and it took off on me up to 425F or so.
Shut it down ,cleaned it out restarted and finished the slightly overdone ribs.
Right now I am on try number three and I am logging temp swings while cooking two pork butts.
Traegar set at 225F on the dial.
Thermoworks shows that the Traegar drops to around 219F and then kicks in the firepot, temp then rapidly climbs to 365F and cycles off.
And it repeats over and over.
Seems a bit too hot for a slow cook so I set the Traegar temp dial to 185F which is its lowest setting except for Smoke.
AT 185F the firepot cycles on at 181F and rapidly climbs to 315 to 320F and cycles off.
Rinse and repeat.
So I have constant temp swings of between 140 F and 133 F while slow smoking.
Plus I cannot trust the thing by itself or overnight because it could take off or shut down.
The temp swing seems a bit much to me.
No wonder stuff cooks faster than I expected.
So what to do.
The Tailgater is small with not much mass to store heat.
It is also pretty leaky wind wise.
Do I just give up onth little thing, recognize that it just isnt really built for the job and get rid of it.
And then spend a whole bunch more cash on a better bigger unit?
Thanks for any help or input.
Sorry about the length.
Thanks
Trexx
