Louisiana Grill Reviews/Thoughts

[Yeti]

Hi All,

I am new to the forum, so please forgive me if this topic has already run its course. I owned a Traeger Grill, Texas BBQ, and sold it to a friend of mine because I moved. I want to either buy a new Taeger and also am looking at the Louisiana Grill CS-680.

Any recommendations on either? I want to keep the price down to $1000 or so.

Thanks for all of your replies.

Yeti

[milehigh]

There is a lot of good information at pelletheads .com
That should help you make your decision

Paul

[The drunken pig]

My opinion would be to avoid Traeger and to go with Louisiana grill or better yet Green Mountain.

I will tell you why.

Traeger has really not improved their temperature control and it pisses me off from an engineering standpoint. Really there is no excuse for their current set up, I want a smoker that is set it and forget it. The Traeger has temp swings of 75 degrees, what happens is once your set temp. is reached it goes into a timer setting and dumps pellet regardless of temp. and is set by what they call the P-time. Also the fan is not controlled at all. Something as simple as a PID controller could solve this problem in not time.

Green Mountain lock in temps. much better and they only are of by 5 degrees or so which is plenty accurate.

Another thing too is Traeger is shipping stuff in from China and using cheep metal, China can go jump and anything made there is inferior to things made in the US.

[1FUNVET]

Buy the Louisiana grill. If it says " Louisiana" it's gotta be great

[wildflower]

build a UDS for $50

[HoDeDo]

Louisiana grill is my favorite. No long auger shaft to jam up, taking hours to clear of swollen pellets... Green mountain did make sure they tried to compensate for possible burn back in that auger though, by putting a second fan in the hopper, to ensure positive airflow, to make burn back almost impossible. (big design advantage over the traeger)

I think the louisiana is put together better, and cooks hotter (~600)when you want it to... and it can also putter along at 170. I have abused several different models, and use a whole hog and tailgator currently in competition cooking.

The traeger would be last on my list. Esp. the new thinner metal chinese version.

I am testing out an Xtreme Pellet cooker, (Made in KS!) and it is a way cool design. Grill and vertical cooker in one unit. It uses the digital controller from Danson's/LG. It is worth a look also!

[SmokeNSlow]

I don't know if you made your purchase yet, but here's my two cents. I have a CS-570, and although it cooks well (from my limited time with it), my experience with their customer service has been mixed.

When I first purchased it, I thought I was having temperature issues. My hood thermometer would read 100+ degrees hotter than the grid. Their support told me there should be no temperature variations in the unit at all and so they sent me a new hood thermometer thinking that was the issue. After that didn't resolve the issue, they told me to seal the burn pot to ensure there were no gaps between it and the fan. Tried that, that didn't work. I found this site and one of the guys on here actually helped me diagnose my problem. In the end it was:
1) more ignorance on my part not realizing that the hood temp will always very between the hood and the grid
2) the placement of the hood thermometer on my unit is all the way on the left side of the unit at the hottest point, so perhaps not great engineering
3) poorly constructed burn pot

In the meantime the powder coat on the lid started to bubble up and rust. I asked Danson's to send me a new lid since I had had it for no more than a week at this point which they did, but the lid they sent had a flat spot on the right side which caused about a 1/2 in gap between the bottom right of the lid and the smoker body allowing heat to escape. In addition they sent a new and much better constructed burn pot, but the new design didn't fit my unit. When I talked with Danson's about these items they pretty much gave up and sent me back to the dealer who will hopefully be able to hand work the unit. Their response was that they were just a small fab shop and that this was now eating into their profit (like I give a sh*t, just fix it). So, three months after purchasing the unit, it now sits down at the dealer waiting for him to see if he can fix it. If he can't I'm not sure where to turn next.

A lot of guys love their Louisiana Grills on here and I hope to be one of them once I get mine back. Just be warned, their customer service is a little suspect. They'll make an effort, but once repairing their equipment starts to cost them money, they disappear. Hopefully you'll be one of the many out there that don't have any problems though.

[jgbmgb]

Check out these new grills coming out in a couple of months, talk about built like a tank!!

The new Yoder Smokers Pellet Grill!!



Two YS-480's in the foreground and a YS-640 in the background.


A close up of the YS-640.


The inside of the YS-640. He stuck with the expanded steel grates and made the lid flush with the body which I really like.


Here's the new control board.

Just FYI...Here's the final specs from the brochure for those who are interested.

Cooking surface:
480 sq. in - YS480
640 sq. in - YS640

Grill Surface Dimensions:
20 x 24 - YS480
20 x 32 - YS640

Hopper Capacity - 18lbs

Cooking Temp Range - 180 - 600

Steel Gauge:
10 on the Cooking Chamber
14 on the Hopper and Cart

Warranty:
10 years on grill body
3 years on the controller

[HoDeDo]

The Yoders look cool... wish they had set the stack at grate level on the fan side though, for some reverse flow action. Looks like a Danson's controller. I would love to check one of these out live... who is going to have one at the Royal??

[KC_Bobby]

Yeah, I would think a reverse flow would help even out the temps. My CS450 is hottest on the side away from the firepit - to help even the temps I plugged up the middle and last exhaust holes using wine bottle corks. Thus forcing more hot air back to the firepit side.

[jgbmgb]

I emailed Yoders about a second grate option and they said they would offer a slide out second grate option about 5-6 in. above the main grate for a little extra money. With that space this would really be a great cooker with plenty of space. A RF would be nice but I have never seen one on a pellet. Does anyone offer one?

[Wesman61]

I'll probably get another pellet pooper next year since I do a lot of cooks that really crowd my Traeger (Li'l Tex size). I was looking at The Louisiana grills CS680 and was surprised at the lack of headroom. The 25lb pigs I saw recently don't look like they'd fit without touching the top of the smoker. The Whole Hog is outta my budget.

[aquablue22]

I can not believe it took til the FOURTH reply..............

[T Coleman]

HI I also had a BAD experience with their warranty dept, and I haven't even bought one yet. I was looking at buying a grill from a family who bought it new but had a death in the family and never packaged or used the grill. I called the warranty dept to see what was needed in case of a warranty issue on the grill. They advised me (and not in a nice way) that I was S.O.L. (strictly out of luck) no warranty to a second owner, I asked if they did not make exceptions like in this case where the grill was still in the original packaging, and the original owner had passed away suddenly and they told me they "DID not Care why it was their policy N.F.G. (no further warranty) I think this warranty policy A sucs and B does not indicate they really want to stand behind their products, they just want to "advertise" a good sounding warranty. Any body have a comment or similar story?