UPDATE (REPLACEMENT SMOKEFIRE CONTROLLER FROZE): Total Melt Down Of Weber SmokeFire EX6 Bottom Tray! Watch the Video!!!

[abmet]

Hope this one is all good! Let us on on the auger and if they send you an F if yours is D. I asked them and they had me send a picture of the gasket and said mine would not need replacement but if they send you one I’ll reach back out. Sounds like now they are telling people that some of the temp issues are firmware related to be resolved soon. Though I’ve not had any issues with temps.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

I left work a little early today to put the replacement SmokeFire together and test it.

Since I had already put my last one together it only took me about 45 minutes to assemble and that's with a little bit of a part issue... I had an issue with the side handle mounting. It was a little warped or welded crooked but we got it straightened out enough to get it installed.

Most importantly though.......IT HAS A REV. F Auger assembly!!! It did NOT come with the hopper upgrade already though.



I uninstalled my Weber Connect App from my Android Samsung and reinstalled it. The pairing and updating went just fine on the grill and took about 20 to 25 minutes.

Initial Burn in went very well. The grill started at 85 degrees and took about 9 minutes to start moving the temperature above 100.

Time to 500 degrees was 14.5 minutes
Time to 550 was 16.45 minutes
Time to 600 was exactly 19 minutes.

It has currently remained stable at 600 for 30 minutes. I am going to run it at 600 for 1 hour total and shut it down and clean/inspect.

One issue I DO have with this grill is the top grate. It will almost slide off on its own on the right side as you pull it out. There seems to be some extra play on the double wall metal on that side. It is enough there is no way it would hold a couple steaks before it slipped off and fell. To be fair, I did NOT install the grate in my old grill until after burn in and few cooks so I will test this and report back after the burn in since the grill may "tighten up some" after the first cook?

 

[Blues1]

Good news!

 

[RSchiers]

Good news!

Awesome news. Let us know when you do your first cook.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

Started up the replacement tonight for some more testing and to cook some chicken breasts.
Startup worked perfectly and was really fast. Went for 375 degrees to do some left to right temps across the grill in 4 places. I let the grill and the probes get to temp and go for 30 minutes after that before really looking at temps. I am posting the temps from the weber app. I will use one of my controllers later and post some time line shots but since I already calibrated all 4 of these probes on my last smokefire and did a quick check of the calibration I can confirm that the temp probes were all within 1 degree of each other and a within 1 degree of a traceable thermometer. Actually 3 of the 4 were the exact same temp as the traceable thermometer.

At 375 degrees across the exact middle of the grates from left to right evenly distributing 4 probes on the 36" EX6 with the far left and far right probes being placed 3 inches from the edge and the other two probes evenly distributed between the outer probes my Left to Right spread was terrible.


That is a 100+ degree difference from Left to Right. Probe 1 is far left. Probe 2 is mid left near of center and so forth........ At 375 the temperature swing is unacceptable for baking or any type of unattended grilling at this temperature . I also must point out that the ambient temperature probe was +/- 7 to 107 degrees from the calibrated grate temperatures from left to right.

I then turned the grill down to a "low and slow" temp of 225 degrees and let the grill settle down naturally to 225 degrees on the grill ambient temp.
I left all probes in the same spot and then waited 30 minutes AFTER the grill had settled to 225 degrees.


As you can see the temperature swing was very good except for the hotspot the the right of center. I will correct this with an extra flavorizer bar and post my findings. I have done this before on other Weber Gassers and I know it will work.

 

[Sudz]

Started up the replacement tonight for some more testing and to cook some chicken breasts.
Startup worked perfectly and was really fast. Went for 375 degrees to do some left to right temps across the grill in 4 places. I let the grill and the probes get to temp and go for 30 minutes after that before really looking at temps. I am posting the temps from the weber app. I will use one of my controllers later and post some time line shots but since I already calibrated all 4 of these probes on my last smokefire and did a quick check of the calibration I can confirm that the temp probes were all within 1 degree of each other and a within 1 degree of a traceable thermometer. Actually 3 of the 4 were the exact same temp as the traceable thermometer.

At 375 degrees across the exact middle of the grates from left to right evenly distributing 4 probes on the 36" EX6 with the far left and far right probes being placed 3 inches from the edge and the other two probes evenly distributed between the outer probes my Left to Right spread was terrible.
View attachment 500

That is a 100+ degree difference from Left to Right. Probe 1 is far left. Probe 2 is mid left near of center and so forth........ At 375 the temperature swing is unacceptable for baking or any type of unattended grilling at this temperature . I also must point out that the ambient temperature probe was +/- 7 to 107 degrees from the calibrated grate temperatures from left to right.

I then turned the grill down to a "low and slow" temp of 225 degrees and let the grill settle down naturally to 225 degrees on the grill ambient temp.
I left all probes in the same spot and then waited 30 minutes AFTER the grill had settled to 225 degrees.

View attachment 501
As you can see the temperature swing was very good except for the hotspot the the right of center. I will correct this with an extra flavorizer bar and post my findings. I have done this before on other Weber Gassers and I know it will work.

I'm anxiious to see if you can equalize the temp delts's across the grates. I'm very eager to get one of these but this one issue has me holding off. The other issues I can deal with but this appears inherent in this beast. Doesn't appear to be a simple solution and this much difference is simply not acceptable for me personally. Really hope something surfaces which permits some degree of correction for this issue.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

I'm anxiious to see if you can equalize the temp delts's across the grates. I'm very eager to get one of these but this one issue has me holding off. The other issues I can deal with but this appears inherent in this beast. Doesn't appear to be a simple solution and this much difference is simply not acceptable for me personally. Really hope something surfaces which permits some degree of correction for this issue.

I feel really bad that I posted all of that and still have not had the time to do anymore testing. I am an "essential worker" so my last few weeks have been absolutely bat shi....take mushrooms crazy.
I will tell you this though. I KNOW I can equal out that temp. I did it with a $1 steel pan on clearance from Walmart with my last Smoke Fire temporarily. I know I can come up with a very easy solution with a flavorizer bar or two in the right spots or a small metal plate to the right of the firepot housing. I would not let the left to right temp scare me from purchasing. Weber will probably work this out some too but even there 2k+ gassers have some left to right differences that us users mitigate through various measures.

 

[Sudz]

I feel really bad that I posted all of that and still have not had the time to do anymore testing. I am an "essential worker" so my last few weeks have been absolutely bat shi....take mushrooms crazy.
I will tell you this though. I KNOW I can equal out that temp. I did it with a $1 steel pan on clearance from Walmart with my last Smoke Fire temporarily. I know I can come up with a very easy solution with a flavorizer bar or two in the right spots or a small metal plate to the right of the firepot housing. I would not let the left to right temp scare me from purchasing. Weber will probably work this out some too but even there 2k+ gassers have some left to right differences that us users mitigate through various measures.

Thanks for the feedback. I too believe there is probably some method of taming this offset in temp. Anxious to see what you may delevelop when things become a bit more normal. Keep your head down dude and staay safe...

 

[abmet]

I’m sure it can be adjusted too. I forgot to put back one of the flavorizer bars after cleaning and had a hot spot where I had some chicken wings crisp up much faster than the other side. I always trie to center the fire pot heat shield as best as possible when I put it back but don’t know how much difference that makes.

 

[GriLLMaRksRseXy]

I marinated some skirt steak and fired up the EX6 to 600 today. I reached 600 in less than 20 minutes. I decided to burn through the remainder of one of my bags of Weber pellets since I have been able to reach 600 4 times I wanted to see if it would A: Maintain the 600 for a longer period of time. B: I want to try different pellets at this point.

Grill ran for about 1 hour at 600 before I put the skirt steak on. My APP quit working about 45 minutes after reaching 600 degrees. I attempted to set a timer from the controller right before I put the steak on. The controller was frozen up but the grill was still cooking at my 600 temp I wanted.

I grilled some perfect skirt steak and then attempted to use the controller again to shut it down. I had to fiddle with the controller for about 15 minutes to luckily get to the the shut down mode and get the controller to accept my command from the control wheel.

I am not sure if it was the prolonged heat or some buggy software that caused this. I will say that I had a VERY similar issue with my first EX6 on initial burn in that I recorded and documented in my original thread that required me to just kill the power on the grill. I guess time will tell and we will see how it goes!

 

[Captainmike]

I’m sure it can be adjusted too. I forgot to put back one of the flavorizer bars after cleaning and had a hot spot where I had some chicken wings crisp up much faster than the other side. I always trie to center the fire pot heat shield as best as possible when I put it back but don’t know how much difference that makes.

Recently I was watching how the fire from the firebox spreads to the right, and seems like there is some kind of draft or vortex effect from the fan moving air through the structure that might be causing this, I don’t know call me crazy. I have been experimenting with the firepot shield/cover placement. I have found that placing it furthest left (right side legs/feet tight agains firebox) that it has really helped equalize the heat in my past two cooks. I’m generally getting 10 degree difference left to right of center now (EX6) and the flame a lot more equalized when I open the lid. Maybe give it a try and see what happens.

 

[bbq4ever]

Maybe a stupid remark, but the GBS grate (Eurpean SmokeFires) is just right of the firebox. Is this not an intended feature?

Just a thought but you can call me (Crazy)

 

[Uncadenny]

Today I have had a total heartbreak and almost entirely total melt down of my Weber EX6. I had no food cooking. I had no grease from previous cooks. The bottom of my cooker totally caught on fire and paint melted off the the front drip tray. I have MANY videos of this but it takes awhile to download the vids and compress them enough to post on the forum. I will include one video for now.

The back story of this is that last night we had two "E6" failures of ignition in a row. Both times there was a hopper full of pellets and not a single one of them was burned. I cleaned out the pellets and tried again each time. Today I tried again and it almost melted my grill to pieces. I will post more videos and pics later as I get them uploaded/downloaded but this one shows what happened.... And for the records, I will show other videos that clearly show there was not any grease in the drip tray to start this fire too.
View attachment 322

I was having trouble last night with mine getting above 215 degrees, I tried again today and it showed 95 degrees and then my whole grill was smoking like hell like it had a grease fire and showing 95 degrees, but I hadn't been able to do enough cooking for that to be an issue.

 

[Emayo]

Maybe a stupid remark, but the GBS grate (Eurpean SmokeFires) is just right of the firebox. Is this not an intended feature?

Just a thought but you can call me (Crazy)

I agree. I have the GBS series for my EX6.

 

[Emayo]

I agree. I have the GBS series for my EX6.