Summer Kitchen is now Open

[Smokin Don]

Jun 08 2013

I rolled up the second tarp, so my winter kitchen is now my summer kitchen. It was a nice day today and I spent a good part of the day cleaning my Traeger. It is now three years old and still looks pretty good. It was not that dirty and just did a quick scrape down of the inside and vacuumed. I had never cleaned the chimney so I removed it and scraped it out. It had close to a half inch of crud; a half round file worked well as a scraper.

I cleaned the outside with some Citrus cleaner and gave it a coat of mineral oil. It is now good for another year. The few mods I have done are 3 fire bricks around the fire pot, ¼ inch steel plate added to the heat deflector to correct warp and it acts as a heat collector, and I added a second shelf.

After I had it all cleaned up I fired it up and did the first half of tomorrow's supper, beef rouladen.

Our son was working his second job so the daughter in law and grandson came down for supper. My wife cooked; she called all our orders in to Sandman's carry out and picked it up. She is a great cook!



Smokin Don

[CDN Smoker]

Holly cow that glair off the glass almost blinded me

[Pam Gould]

Don..looks pretty..wonder why a glass shelf on the bottom tho. Cute puppy too.  Pam ; *))

[Keymaster]

Nice and shiny again What's that old wood barrel with the green belly bands?

[Smokin Don]

The shelf is plexiglass, it was all I could find locally that was easy to cut. What looks like a barrel is an old wooden wagon wheel hub, my old neighbor gave it to me. I used to have a bird bath on it, didn't put it out this year. Don

[drholly]

Nice lookin' kitchen. I like the dog too!

[muebe]

Well that Traeger looks a month old now! Very impressive considering the volume of cooking you do Don

[smokeasaurus]

That Traeger looks like Don just brought it home. This Traeger is going to last a long,long time with the proper care it is getting.

[smokeasaurus]

Don, is your Traeger made here or overseas?  I only ask this because there is so much Traeger bashing elsewhere about the poor quality since they went to China.

[hikerman]

Don the word that comes to mind is .......Spiffy!      Great job. You are officially ready for anything!
Gene

[Sam3]

Looks good Don!

[DK117]

Don, is your Traeger made here or overseas?  I only ask this because there is so much Traeger bashing elsewhere about the poor quality since they went to China.

Pretty sure Don's is China made, as is mine.  We've had ours close to the same amount of time.  He keeps his much prettier than mine.   My grill lid is a little bit warped, my heat shield is very warped.  My smoke stack cap has lost it's powder coating on the under side.  I cannot see that any of these issues have impacted my smoking. 

Big question in my mind, I have ... well haven't we all ... significantly expanded my hobby and gadgets for smoking in the time (three plus years)  I've owned my pellet grill.  So part of me wants to go big with a Memphis or Fast Eddy.  But if my trusty Traeger keeps going, the real question is why?  Traeger bashing is overplayed in my opinion.  Despite the fact that my 40 or so month old Traeger is showing wear.  I anticipate her going for another 40 months.  And if you look at Craigslist, there's still quite a bit of demand for old Traegers.  OK, random tangent.  My friend just bought a Louisiana Smoker for $375 with 50 lbs of pellets, I think it was a 420, but looked to be in really good shape.  My point, a 6 year old Traeger Texas can still command $400 easy on Craigslist.

DK117

[Smokin Don]

Smoke, I am not sure where mine was made, it was out of the box assembled and used about 3 months by the dealer, my butcher. I was his first sale. The ser. # starts with a G. My lid fits perfect with a gap at top and bottom the thickness of the end cap lip that it fits over, I have never added a gasket. My heat shield warped pretty early on and I did a mod that fixed it and is still good.
DK link is here with photos. http://pelletsmokercooking.blogspot.com/search/label/Mods
Like DK said I think Traeger bashing is over done. A lot of it by members of other forums that didn't even own one. I had a heat rod go out after 2 1/2 years and Traeger sent a new one at no cost. I love it and would not think of upgrading. I know my pit pretty well, for temps below 250 deg. I use smoke setting and P #'s and can hold temps most of the time +- 7deg. 300 and above it holds good. Since I got my Maverick ET732 I know my grill level temps run 25 deg. hotter than the RTD does. Most of my cooking I do at 350 and below and it is a pellet miser. I put the food in, I set back with a beer and let the Traeger do the cooking!  Smokin Don

[smokeasaurus]

Thanks Don and DK. Yeah, it does seem fashionable to bash Traeger these days, they deserve all the credit in the world for starting the pellet grill revolution.......and I betcha they are still #1 in sales..........

[muebe]

I started pellet grilling with a Traeger Junior. It was a good little pellet grill. It gave me no troubles although I only owned it for a year. It was Chinese made and inexpensive.

I also have a Traeger PTG. Chinese made and no problems so far although I am running a custom PID with it instead of the stock controller.

I now own a Memphis. It is a well American made pellet grill that is all stainless, efficient on pellets, and goes from 180F to 600F without a problem. It did however cost much more than a Traeger.

But here is the thing. Memphis would have never got my business in the first place if it was not for Traeger. My experience with that little cooker sold me on pellet grilling. Before I could not imagine spending that much on a MAK or Memphis but after using a pellet grill for a year and wanting to "step up" it all made sense.

Pellet grills no matter where they are made as long as they are functional will all get you to the same destination.... Great tasting food!