Same ole Smokefire

[Goneincognito]

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This thing suckz!!

Terrible. I wouldn't even feed that to my dog.

 

[JpsBBQ]

 

[JpsBBQ]

 

[JpsBBQ]

 

[AHoneyman]

Wow. Nuff said.

 

[Davemanman]

Some people don’t really want help.
Why not take it back? I know they were giving people their money back.

sounds like the software has never been updated either.

Anyone who has a big grease fire is negligent. Animal fat combusts at 375. You simply cannot render boatloads of fat on a low and slow and then crank the thing up to 500-600 degrees. That goes for any cooker.

I agree with this to a point, the terrible design of the grease run off gets clogged and does not function correctly. The angle does not allow much of the grease to run off. It mixes with pellet dust and is not a grease bomb waiting to ignite.

 

[Goneincognito]

I agree with this to a point, the terrible design of the grease run off gets clogged and does not function correctly. The angle does not allow much of the grease to run off. It mixes with pellet dust and is not a grease bomb waiting to ignite.

It's pretty simple really..
Just clean it after each cook (takes 2min) or use trays to catch the grease.
Don't go cooking a hot and fast steak after having it loaded with pork butts and there will be no issue.

 

[JpsBBQ]

I agree with this to a point, the terrible design of the grease run off gets clogged and does not function correctly. The angle does not allow much of the grease to run off. It mixes with pellet dust and is not a grease bomb waiting to ignite.

I’ll bite. All the other or at least the vast majority of them have a virtually flat surface (slight pitch) sitting above the heat source that is covered with grease. The Weber allows the grease to fall below the heat source and works at least as good as most other pellet cookers. I will also add that I try to catch the drippings on my Weber and my others to make cleanup easier and less frequent. Just something you learn through practice. If you render a bunch of fat on any cooker and get the heat level above the combustion temperature you will have a grease fire. That goes for gas, charcoal, or pellet cookers. Don’t believe me, just go out and buy you some pounds of bacon and cook it at 250-300 degrees on just about any cooker in and indirect fashion (cover the grid). Once you have cooked a couple pounds or so, then without cleaning or removing the indirect setup, crank up the heat to 600. Call me clairvoyant, but I see a grease in your future. I’ll bet on it.

 

[Craig Lares]

Guys I’m new to here, but I’m definitely not new to Weber. I purchased this particular Smokefire back in the summer. I became so fed up with the problems that I sold it to a buddy for 500 bucks. Went out and bought the Weber summit charcoal with a little help from Weber. If you’re having problems with the smoke fire just go by the summit charcoal and your problems will go away. My buddy hated the Smokefire so bad I felt terrible and ended up giving him his money back and took my POS again. Since I took it back I’ve done two cooks. One was a Thanksgiving turkey that couldn’t have went more perfect until the last 5 to 7° when everything broke loose and we ended up going from 300° to almost 500°. The nice Weber App was telling me temperature alert, temperature alert, no shit. It completely charred the bird. I salvaged what I could. The temperature on the cooker was still set at 300, what the heck? Anyways we got some bad weather and I thought I’ll try to throw some ribs on there. I’m getting ready to send you a few pictures of the three racks of ribs that I cooked. Two are unedible.

Weber has tried to be good and they’ve sent various parts which I’ve installed. If I said I had 10 cooks on this smoke fire I can’t tell you that three turned out OK. Seriously. It’s assembled correctly, Jim and I went through that. It’s got the latest software. And mine like a lot of guys grills has a little bit of a hotter spot to the right. I put two of the racks once wrapped to the left and one to the farthest right point you could get it. What the three pictures represent are the two on the left are completely chard, burnt. The first two hours we were set at 245°. These were then wrapped for one hour at 275°. This is what I pulled out to try and do the final based and finish the cook. I’m completely embarrassed because I know I’m a damn good cooker. Are people having similar issues? I keep mine away from the house enough that when it does catch fire it’s not close enough to catch the house. It is right beside my swimming pool though because if all else fails I could push it in. Anybody have these frustrations and come up with some sort of a fix?View attachment 3245

The Smokefire has definitely required a high level of commitment! I've had lots of issues along the way (since I bought 2 EX6 last summer) but I'm happy to report that they are working ok now and I'm getting consistent cooks. I did have a nasty grease fire once with some wild ducks when I tried to cook real hot. If you go hot (450 degrees plus) for fatty meats you better be paying attention! Just put glow plug #3 in one of my units- they seem to eat glow plugs pretty fast, but they are cheap and pretty easy to replace. Now trying to figure out how to get the "replace glow plug soon" error message to go away after replacing it.

 

[bbqking]

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This thing suckz!!

That had to one of the most SmokeFire ruined, ugly, destroyed pieces of meat I’ve ever seen!! So sad that Weber put out such a piece of junk! I returning mine the first chance I get....NOT!!!!!!!

 

[bbqking]

The Smokefire has definitely required a high level of commitment! I've had lots of issues along the way (since I bought 2 EX6 last summer) but I'm happy to report that they are working ok now and I'm getting consistent cooks. I did have a nasty grease fire once with some wild ducks when I tried to cook real hot. If you go hot (450 degrees plus) for fatty meats you better be paying attention! Just put glow plug #3 in one of my units- they seem to eat glow plugs pretty fast, but they are cheap and pretty easy to replace. Now trying to figure out how to get the "replace glow plug soon" error message to go away after replacing it.

Just use something (wired rack) drip pans...it helps. I had my last brisket spring a nasty hole in one end of the foil. It turned into a horrible mess in the bottom. But I was able to let it cool down after cook, then easily clean it up.

 

[AHoneyman]

The Smokefire has definitely required a high level of commitment! I've had lots of issues along the way (since I bought 2 EX6 last summer) but I'm happy to report that they are working ok now and I'm getting consistent cooks. I did have a nasty grease fire once with some wild ducks when I tried to cook real hot. If you go hot (450 degrees plus) for fatty meats you better be paying attention! Just put glow plug #3 in one of my units- they seem to eat glow plugs pretty fast, but they are cheap and pretty easy to replace. Now trying to figure out how to get the "replace glow plug soon" error message to go away after replacing it.

There is a reset of the glow plug in the controller dialog on the SF. Are you replacing the plugs by a prompt from the controller or lack of function? If it is lack of function, have you grounded the plug firmly?

 

[laketater]

Guys I’m new to here, but I’m definitely not new to Weber. I purchased this particular Smokefire back in the summer. I became so fed up with the problems that I sold it to a buddy for 500 bucks. Went out and bought the Weber summit charcoal with a little help from Weber. If you’re having problems with the smoke fire just go by the summit charcoal and your problems will go away. My buddy hated the Smokefire so bad I felt terrible and ended up giving him his money back and took my POS again. Since I took it back I’ve done two cooks. One was a Thanksgiving turkey that couldn’t have went more perfect until the last 5 to 7° when everything broke loose and we ended up going from 300° to almost 500°. The nice Weber App was telling me temperature alert, temperature alert, no shit. It completely charred the bird. I salvaged what I could. The temperature on the cooker was still set at 300, what the heck? Anyways we got some bad weather and I thought I’ll try to throw some ribs on there. I’m getting ready to send you a few pictures of the three racks of ribs that I cooked. Two are unedible.

Weber has tried to be good and they’ve sent various parts which I’ve installed. If I said I had 10 cooks on this smoke fire I can’t tell you that three turned out OK. Seriously. It’s assembled correctly, Jim and I went through that. It’s got the latest software. And mine like a lot of guys grills has a little bit of a hotter spot to the right. I put two of the racks once wrapped to the left and one to the farthest right point you could get it. What the three pictures represent are the two on the left are completely chard, burnt. The first two hours we were set at 245°. These were then wrapped for one hour at 275°. This is what I pulled out to try and do the final based and finish the cook. I’m completely embarrassed because I know I’m a damn good cooker. Are people having similar issues? I keep mine away from the house enough that when it does catch fire it’s not close enough to catch the house. It is right beside my swimming pool though because if all else fails I could push it in. Anybody have these frustrations and come up with some sort of a fix?View attachment 3245

Hey there. You are not alone. I've had mine for a little over a year. First cook was a disaster. Weber has been good about stuff, but this last one was hard to swallow. Going from smoke boost to 325 the temp dropped, it kept adding pellets and the fan was running fast. It fired so much it looked like a cheech and chong vehicle. It then started a fire and got so hot it melted the boot on the glow plug holder. Again, they are very nice about it but for the love of peet, can you just write some damn firmware that works flawlessly??
I have had a lot of good cooking, but bad ones as well, just not as many as you. Good luck!

 

[Goneincognito]

Hey there. You are not alone. I've had mine for a little over a year. First cook was a disaster. Weber has been good about stuff, but this last one was hard to swallow. Going from smoke boost to 325 the temp dropped, it kept adding pellets and the fan was running fast. It fired so much it looked like a cheech and chong vehicle. It then started a fire and got so hot it melted the boot on the glow plug holder. Again, they are very nice about it but for the love of peet, can you just write some damn firmware that works flawlessly??
I have had a lot of good cooking, but bad ones as well, just not as many as you. Good luck!

SmokeBoost.. There's your problem.