Weber smokefire shipped

DUBBAGA said:
... and then Weber will go out of business just like Kenny Rogers Roasters
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Come with me to Manila and we'll eat some Kenny Rogers. Delicious!

In the end, the system is going through the growing pains of use cases. There are bad...well mostly bad, and I think there are still some good. What I think Weber didn't consider is what would happen when it got into the wild. Crazy to say.

Write any software or design any system, and for sure the users will add variables or behaviors you didn't expect. You solve them, and the thing works from then on. That's the part I keep thinking of, which is how could they beta test this thing without turning it into a public meltdown. I would think it would have been better to NDA about 1000 people and let them surface these problems and keep it out of the public eye.
 
The folks having problems are always more vocal than the folks that are happy, so I'd be curious to see if the issues we've seen are enough to warrant a response from Weber. Could be that a lot of us expected this to be the holy grail of pellet grills and anything less than that was going to be a failure.

I'm thankful for all the people who were early adopters to see the grill in action. I'm not in the market until the end of the year, and I'll still have the SmokeFire on my list of considerations, if only because I believe in Weber. They've earned the benefit of the doubt from me.

I think a wider real-world test group would have been a good idea, and I guess I just assumed they would have done something like that. Granted, I have no idea how grill manufacturers operate.
 
Same issues as most. Mine is scheduled to be picked up by Weber next Thursday. Unfortunately they gave me quite the runaround all this week and I'm a little bent about it.

I bet version 2.0 will be solid though. Maybe I'll give it a year or two and see how it shapes up.
 
Weber posted a video today on YouTube and they now suggest a drip pan while smoking. They set a drip pan on the flavorizer bars in this video. https://youtu.be/2Lxkhz_UZiU

The manual posted online is sill the Jan 14, 2020 version that says nothing about a Drip pan set on the flavorizer bars but I expect it to be updated soon.

I guess this is their fix.
 
At least Weber is out there TRYING to advertise a work around. It's 100% obvious that their "grease system" isn't as effective as they thought it would be, and it's time for them to just add a drip plate like every other pellet grill (at least all the ones I know of). It seems like during high heat there aren't as many problems, so maybe just remove the drip plate for grilling, and put it in while doing low and slow smoking.

I don't know why I can't pull myself away from this thread...it's like the dumpster fire is still exciting even though I've been watching it burn for a week now. haha
 
SmoothBoarBBQ said:
At least Weber is out there TRYING to advertise a work around. It's 100% obvious that their "grease system" isn't as effective as they thought it would be, and it's time for them to just add a drip plate like every other pellet grill (at least all the ones I know of). It seems like during high heat there aren't as many problems, so maybe just remove the drip plate for grilling, and put it in while doing low and slow smoking.

I don't know why I can't pull myself away from this thread...it's like the dumpster fire is still exciting even though I've been watching it burn for a week now. haha
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You're just hoping the dumpster fire gets hit by a train.:mrgreen:
 
SmoothBoarBBQ said:
At least Weber is out there TRYING to advertise a work around. It's 100% obvious that their "grease system" isn't as effective as they thought it would be, and it's time for them to just add a drip plate like every other pellet grill (at least all the ones I know of). It seems like during high heat there aren't as many problems, so maybe just remove the drip plate for grilling, and put it in while doing low and slow smoking.

I don't know why I can't pull myself away from this thread...it's like the dumpster fire is still exciting even though I've been watching it burn for a week now. haha
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At this point I am just Hanging around to see what Weber is going to do about it. Is this video Weber’s final fix or is Weber going to tweak the design. I had high hopes for this smoker because I really wanted to buy one. Now I’m glad I waited. Every grill I own is a Weber except for my pit boss that I planned to replace with this Weber. I’ll keep an eye on the forums and YouTube for a while to see what happens.

The other thing I learned during this process is that Weber is no longer a family owned business and is no longer made in the USA. Weber is now primarily owned by BDT Capital Partners which is one person (Byron Trott) who was a Goldman Sachs investment broker who owns a portfolio of companies. I’m hoping that Byron isn't the new Eddie Lampert who is another Goldman Sachs investment broker who is slowly running Sears into the ground.
 
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bald said:
Check out Kevin Kolmans latest Instagram post where he makes a thinly veiled jab at the criticism the grill has received...
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I don’t have Instagram. wonder what it says?
 
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i actually feel somewhat sorry for them .... but not as sorry/bad as I feel for those who are experiencing problems.
 
Shadowdog500 said:
Belittling the influencers that they “USED” to help launch their product will go a long way to make sales for the competition. I think the train just hit the dumpster!

I think I’ve seen enough!
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Those are great optics on his part for ignoring that he's pouring gas not water onto the fire.
 
Shadowdog500 said:
Belittling the influencers that they “USED” to help launch their product will go a long way to make sales for the competition. I think the train just hit the dumpster!

I think I’ve seen enough!
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Yikes, I've seen enough too. Glad I jumped ship now.
 
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