Traeger Timberline Problems, updates and fixes

[unixadm]

Decided to cook a Meatloaf today using Alton Brown's recipe. I saw another thread on here which I'm going to reply to next which gave me the idea. I followed the OP's recommendation and added some Rotel tomatoes to it as well. Cooking at 275 degrees in the 1300.

I'm also testing out my cheapie $28 Inkbird dual probe bluetooth thermometer.

 

[unixadm]

Things were going great and then my temp alarm went off. Waited to see if it would recover for a bit, no dice. So it's like 108 here today and I had to glove up, remove my meatloaf and find out what the hell was going on.

A freakin flameout. Are you kidding me?!? I had to clear out the pellets, use some gel fire starter and my torch to get a fire going again. I then cycled the unit to restart the cooking cycle. It's slowly climbing back to the set point of 280 degrees.

I had no opened the lid or anything.

I wonder what pictures Traeger will want this time?!?

The crappy part is, the meatloaf was at 145 degrees when it happened. I'd guess within 30 minutes of being done.

 

[rwalters]

^^^^ I would be sooooooo frustrated having to deal with the issues your guys are... [emoji37]

Personally, I'd cut my losses and move on... I just can't stand when things don't work as they should. When you shell out that kind of $$, you should be able to flip a switch 99.9% of the time and experience highly predictable behavior. Just my 2 cents

 

[tom b]

mine has been behaving, even ran super smoke for a while the other day at 220 and bumped it up to 325 to finish and it climbed to temp :-D

 

[unixadm]

At least the meatloaf I cooked tasted good. But yes, I am frustrated.

 

[unixadm]

Spoke with a supervisor at Traeger this morning. It was an enlightening conversation and I felt a bit better after venting. They are going to escalate my problem up the chain. They can't offer me a refund and I have no idea what the outcome will be.

She also mentioned that the .04 update had went out yesterday, but I was not able to confirm. They seemed unaware it was coming out.

 

[Wtcinwy]

version 01.01.04

Spoke with a supervisor at Traeger this morning. It was an enlightening conversation and I felt a bit better after venting. They are going to escalate my problem up the chain. They can't offer me a refund and I have no idea what the outcome will be.

She also mentioned that the .04 update had went out yesterday, but I was not able to confirm. They seemed unaware it was coming out.

alright, i just picked some fresh herbs off my top rack/herb garden.. It seems that update 04 downloaded.. so does anyone know what is entailed with this new version?

 

[unixadm]

They are still shutting the damn fan off briefly in super smoke, so the soot continues.

 

[AutoPaint]

I didn't know it had updated until this morning. I came home last night to the wife finishing up steaks on 300 and remember thinking it's dead on 300. She smoked the steaks on 165 prior and she seems to think it held 165 but she isn't sure.

We're having steaks again tonight so I'll do it and report back.

 

[AutoPaint]

I'm 20 minutes into super smoking at 165 and its holding 190 when it's 75, cloudy and 50% or less humidity. So .04 on a 850 didn't help any on the lower temp side of things for me.

On edit, it really likes 192-193.

 

[AutoPaint]

Fwiw Once it got up to 300, it initally ran as high as 312 but then it settled down to 297-300 for the rest of the cook.

If anything, this reflash made the low temp side of things worse by 5-10 degrees.

 

[unixadm]

I ran the smoker today on normal mode for a while. I did clean the heat diffuser prior to starting up the smoker to see how much soot will accumulate. You can see, a lot has by my comical attempt to get Traeger's attention in my second pic. It took a long time to get to 225 degrees, even though it was over 80 degrees ambient. I then ran it on Super Smoke @ 225 degrees for over an hour, and here are the results:

Super Soot mode continues with version .04. I've sent Traeger more pictures, since I know they love those. Next time, I may include a selfie too. Oh and if you happened to notice some loose pellets in the bottom of the cooking chamber, those were not from today. That was the result of the flame out I had last week when cooking a meatloaf. I had to clean out the fire pot as best I could and restart the unit to finish the cook.

 

[KevinJ]

Damn :shock:

 

[rwalters]

CRAZY!!!! [emoji37]

 

[unixadm]

Yeah, it is crazy. I think I may have found another flaw with the Timberline. The "finger/hand guard" installed in the pellet hopper can prevent pellets from dropping below the grid. I've noticed this a few times and that may have contributed to my flameout the other day. I have removed the guard installed inside of the hopper, but YMMV. It's installed with four Phillips head screws and removed easily. That will prevent pellets from getting jammed up above the guard.

Also, my unit will run 400 degrees, so I know the fan is good. It's just their logic of depowering the fan in Super Smoke mode, and allowing it to spin down nearly 100% before spinning back up. As it approaches the set point, the fan goes HIGH(2-4s)/OFF(1-2s)/HIGH(2-4s)/OFF(1-2s) in a cyclic manner. When it goes to OFF mode, the soot comes out of the fire pot.

 

[AutoPaint]

I removed my hopper guard earlier this week. Legal had them put one in with removable screws for a reason. If it eats my finger, I promise I won't sue.

 

[AutoPaint]

I'm bouncing between 149 and 212 when set on 165 and super smoke.

.04 is a disaster!

 

[Sodaking27]

Having serious thoughts about selling my Timberline 850. I know I'll be taking a loss, but what good is it to me just setting in the garage. I've used it no more than 4 times since I purchased it. My old 070 with a Smoke Daddy PID works like a champ. No soot and temperature +\- 3 degrees.

 

[rwalters]

Having serious thoughts about selling my Timberline 850. I know I'll be taking a loss, but what good is it to me just setting in the garage. I've used it no more than 4 times since I purchased it. My old 070 with a Smoke Daddy PID works like a champ. No soot and temperature +\- 3 degrees.

What would you replace it with...curious.

 

[Sodaking27]

What would you replace it with...curious.

Not quite sure at this point.