Gift from an online friend

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qapla

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We were talking about cooking outdoors and I mentioned I was looking at some pellet smokers. He said he had one I could have - he didn't like his.

The said he had a "Traeger" that "didn't work all that well - even though it was "fairly new" He sent me these pictures
traeger 1.jpg

traeger 2.jpg

Had to drive to Tampa to pick it up - but we had some other business in that area so it was not problem.

When I got it home and really looked at it, I'm not sure if he used it more than once or twice - it was that clean and didn't look "seasoned" at all. He told me that it "lost too much heat every time you opened it" :shocked: Not sure why he was opening a smoker all that much - although I do think he replaced it with a gas grill.

I have used it several times since and the results have been OK with us. I am still getting used to it and how often I need to check the hopper - but I have not had any problem with it holding heat ... but then, I don't keep opening it.

Here is my last cook:

20200801_115040.jpg
20200801_115819.jpg
20200801_191644.jpg
20200801_191714.jpg
20200801_191855.jpg
 
In the hands of someone that knows how to use it, it is an awesome tool. Congrats on the new acquisition.
 
as they've said for years, "if you're lookin', you ain't cookin'!"

nice pick up, and you can't beat that price.

redc1c4,
n00b here, but not to 'Que!
 
Nice grab! If you’re friend ever wants to get rid of another cooker Ill gladly take it off their hands :-D
 
Sometimes the cooker just needs the loving attention that experience brings, and from those cooks I would say the experience shows!!

FloBoy can Cook!!
 
You saved it from a sad life of neglect.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
I'm still getting used to it - but so far I find it fairly easy to use

It has a small hopper so I do have to watch the pellet level on longer cooks

I have a TermoWorks Signal with the BT/WiFi and that helps quite a bit with keeping a check on the cook without having to lift the lid.

He found the two probes he had for the Traeger and sent them to me - one look at them and you know they have never been used
 
Wow what a cool friend. Looks like you owe him some of your fine bbq off of that thing. Then he will want it back :p
 
An Update:

I have now used the Traeger for several cooks including chicken breasts, hamburgers, pork chops and a few more pork roasts

All have come out great (sorry for not having pics of all the cooks). I have chatted with my friend on Zoom several times since picking up the smoker. He is glad I am getting so much use from it.

I will have to say, since the hopper is the size it is (rather on the small side) I do have to keep a closer eye on things than I thought because the pellets will create a "well" as the hopper gets a little lower and the temp will drop because it is not feeding pellets.

I also got a ThermoWorks Signals for my cooks (got it when it went on sale)
Signals thermo.JPG
I like the way it works.

Makes it easy to keep up with the temp of the smoker as well as the food. The fact that I can monitor it on my PC and the alarms I get on my phone makes the purchase well worth the cost.
 
I thought about the small hopper before. One reason I got the rec tec holds 40lbs. Could you hang a 5 gallon bucket above it with a hold cut in the bottom to act as a hopper extension? You could really get fancy and rig up a slide to cut off bucket flow
 
Very nice and looks like you're having some great cooks!

You might want to search online for things people have done to improve the pellet feeding situation. There are likely some mods you can try that will help with the longer cooks.

On your friend, I think that the way pellet grills are marketed is part of the problem. Yes, you can cook anything on them. No, they aren't going to run like a gas grill if most of your cooks are dogs and hamburgers. Can you make it work, yes. Is it going to be more work without any real benefit -- also, yes.
 
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