Weber Smoke Fire

[Xring01]

You guys have read my posts, about pellet pooppers in the past.

The only reason I have this, is because it popped up on Craigslist, I got a smoking deal on it.

I have used several other brands of pellet smokers and didnt like them for many reasons. First and foremost, they sucked at grilling temperature.

The first generation of the Weber Smoke fire, solved many problems of pellet poopers, but did have a few problems.
Well this is the second generation, and we are about to see if it can convert me...

Literally just fired it up for the first time.

Starting the day with some St Loius ribs, then some sausages for lunch, then some beans, wrapping it up with a reverse sear tri tips.
I will be putting video out on my thoughts.

Is it easier to use?
How well does it hold temps.
How long can it go before you add fuel?
Clean up? More or less than the summit?
Most importantly which food tastes better?
Time will tell.

 

[Xring01]

Sausages and Hot dogs are good. There is a smoke flavor, not as much as I think I get with the Summit, but its still pretty tasty lunch.. Scarfed those down pretty quick.

Planning my next couple of hours... Thinking a cigar is in my fututre, while tending to the bbq ribs... Should I have Ashton? Rocky Patel Decade, or the Monte Cristo? Hummm gotta think on this one abit, and bourbon or wine with it?.. Decisions decision?..

I need more days like this... stressing over ribs or tri tip, hot dog or jalepeno cheddar sausage, which cigar, and what to drink with it,,, and whats better, pellet or charcoal...

Its a good day for sure.. No matter what, I will go to bed with a full belly, and have some fun today.

 

[Xring01]

Ribs have been on for two hours now... The temperature of the smoker reads and the grate temperature is off by about 15 -20 degrees. Smoker says 240, and the grate thermocouple thats connected to the Igrill says 220 ish... thats no an issue to me, as long as I know where to set the controller.

Ribs have some color, but alot lighter than I get with charcoal in the summit. I am not complaining just outlining the differences so far.. time will tell..

No for the hardest decision of the day, which stogie?....

I went with the Monte Cristo

 

[Racey]

I have a charcoal PK and a pellet pooper, they are definitely two totally different animals.

Pellets have a much milder amount of smoke than what you can get throwing a couple hunks of hardwood on some coals. There are sometimes you don't want to over smoke and the pellet grill is great for this. I like having both.

 

[Xring01]

Ribs,
well they turned out pretty good, but for some strange reason, they cooked alot faster than they should have. I use the 3,2,1 method on spare ribs, these fell apart at the end of 2 portion.. in that regard, there where a bit over cooked,.. flavor, I can admit they tasted damn good. Smoke flavor was different, but I would cook ribs on the smoke fire again..

Tri Tip...
I put them on at 225, for a half hour ish, cranked the temp to 450 degrees, and it popped up to 450 pretty quick. I noticed the temperature where 50 degrees difference from the left side to the right...?... gotta figure that out.

Flavor. Overall they turned out pretty good, but charcoal summit does a better job on tritips. or I need to figure out operate the smokefire better...

overall, Its good smoker, and as grill, I need more time with it... maybe some burgers or steaks are required for further testin.

 

[Racey]

Ribs,
well they turned out pretty good, but for some strange reason, they cooked alot faster than they should have. I use the 3,2,1 method on spare ribs, these fell apart at the end of 2 portion.. in that regard, there where a bit over cooked,.. flavor, I can admit they tasted damn good. Smoke flavor was different, but I would cook ribs on the smoke fire again..

Tri Tip...
I put them on at 225, for a half hour ish, cranked the temp to 450 degrees, and it popped up to 450 pretty quick. I noticed the temperature where 50 degrees difference from the left side to the right...?... gotta figure that out.

Flavor. Overall they turned out pretty good, but charcoal summit does a better job on tritips. or I need to figure out operate the smokefire better...

overall, Its good smoker, and as grill, I need more time with it... maybe some burgers or steaks are required for further testin. View attachment 957736 View attachment 957737 View attachment 957738

My pellet grill definitely has a big temp difference from one side to the other, chimney side is way hotter than the other side, i think it's just a design limitation when you have forced air from the fan constantly blowing through the grill, pushing all the heat out the chimney. You could probably mod the thing and choke the main chimney down and put a second one on the other side to kinda direct heat out both ends.

 

[Xring01]

Swing Trading
Just got into RKT for a swing trade...
I think it has a 5% upside, with very low downside risk...
So for me, this is a 1/5 trade, risking 1% for 5% gain....

It may intra day stop me out, but it hasnt been moving much... lately.

Entered into KMX today... again not huge upside, not huge downside... Playing the politics and current economics... Think this industry could do well in the next 3-6 Months, I like the up trending chart... its a pretty safe bet.

I have very little of my DKNG Swing trade left. Its a has potential to go up or down at this level... if you have it, take majority off the table and let the rest run, with a tight stop...

PTON... uggg... I saw it, was waiting for a good entry, and watched it run with out me... story of my life.

Day Trading... got my ass handed to me by IPOE... So I was red... I revenge traded it and doubled my red on it... could nt leave it alone and tried one more time... Yep... 3 trades... all red, and I am looking like a dumb ass today on it, because I didnt follow my rules on max loss, or revenge trading or anything else... Yep screwed that one up BIG TIME. "Choke Yourself Pyle - Not with your hand, my Hand"....

Lost a bit on Mara today..
SNDL working out great.
SUPN working out great.

 

[HitIt]

they cooked alot faster than they should have.

Think of it as a convection oven with some smoke. Convection ovens cook faster than conventional, too.

maybe some burgers or steaks are required for further testin.

Yore thinking of it wrong. The smoker oven is for no-brainer pulled pork and brisket. Not burgers and steaks. You can of course cook that stuff on the pellet deal but it is like hammering a screw with a crescent wrench.

 

[Xring01]

Think of it as a convection oven with some smoke. Convection ovens cook faster than conventional, too.



Yore thinking of it wrong. The smoker oven is for no-brainer pulled pork and brisket. Not burgers and steaks. You can of course cook that stuff on the pellet deal but it is like hammering a screw with a crescent wrench.

The key reason why I bought the "Smoke Fire", is because thats was it was designed to do...
Designed to be a Smoker, and to be a Grill..

Dont get me wrong... this bitch heats up fast, really fast.... It gets to 600 degree in a hurry... That I like, and its a reason that I thought I would like it...

Pros of the Smoke Fire - (Remember I am new to it, these may change in the future as I use it more).
Pretty good smoker - smoke flavor exceeded my expectations. far better than the gmg's and traegers I have used in the past.
Pretty good grill- gets up to temps and has pretty good wood flavor to the tri tip I cooked. Not so much wood flavor on the burgers though.
Simple to operate... Fill it up with pellets, set the temp, watch everything on the App on my Iphone... adjust things from my phone. thats pretty cool.

Cons
Cost of Pellets is more expensive than Charcoal that I use in my Summit... Summit a bag of charcoal can last me a month or more. One bag of Pellets lastest me 1 Rib Cook, and 1 Tri Tip Cook, and a couple of quick burgers... 20lbs was gone... Summit would cook 5x that amount on 1 20lb bag of Charcoal.
My biggest complaint... clean up... No real way to effectively use a drip pan... it gets messy.
Ash... ash everywhere at the bottom of the grill...
I spent 3x more effort cleaning the smoke fire than the summitt... But the Summit takes longer to get set up and started due to charcoal... hummm


Again, initial thoughts.. I am fortunate enough to have both.
Summit--- is a breeze to clean up, because you can easily set up a drip pan. there fore no mess. But dealing with Charcoal, get it started ignited can be a bit messy... But the question is.. What is better... the upfront work on the Summitt or the clean up work on the Smoke Fire...

I have nt figured that out yet...

RIght now... I am leaning more towards the summit, because its extremely versatile, less expensive to operate, nothing can really break on it, easy to clean up. Cooks as a grill, as a smoker, and as a pizza oven...

Now that I write all this out, I am really starting to see the Pro/Cons of both... I may be selling the Smoke Fire... naw... I need to test it more... How does it do on brisket, steaks, chicken etc... See just how much I like it, before I make up my mind.

Yep... Need to run a brisket on it, followed up with some Chicken... that will test it... 10 hour Brisket Run... yep... gotta happen soon.

 

[boat527]

The key reason why I bought the "Smoke Fire", is because thats was it was designed to do...
Designed to be a Smoker, and to be a Grill..

Dont get me wrong... this bitch heats up fast, really fast.... It gets to 600 degree in a hurry... That I like, and its a reason that I thought I would like it...

Pros of the Smoke Fire - (Remember I am new to it, these may change in the future as I use it more).
Pretty good smoker - smoke flavor exceeded my expectations. far better than the gmg's and traegers I have used in the past.
Pretty good grill- gets up to temps and has pretty good wood flavor to the tri tip I cooked. Not so much wood flavor on the burgers though.
Simple to operate... Fill it up with pellets, set the temp, watch everything on the App on my Iphone... adjust things from my phone. thats pretty cool.

Cons
Cost of Pellets is more expensive than Charcoal that I use in my Summit... Summit a bag of charcoal can last me a month or more. One bag of Pellets lastest me 1 Rib Cook, and 1 Tri Tip Cook, and a couple of quick burgers... 20lbs was gone... Summit would cook 5x that amount on 1 20lb bag of Charcoal.
My biggest complaint... clean up... No real way to effectively use a drip pan... it gets messy.
Ash... ash everywhere at the bottom of the grill...
I spent 3x more effort cleaning the smoke fire than the summitt... But the Summit takes longer to get set up and started due to charcoal... hummm


Again, initial thoughts.. I am fortunate enough to have both.
Summit--- is a breeze to clean up, because you can easily set up a drip pan. there fore no mess. But dealing with Charcoal, get it started ignited can be a bit messy... But the question is.. What is better... the upfront work on the Summitt or the clean up work on the Smoke Fire...

I have nt figured that out yet...

RIght now... I am leaning more towards the summit, because its extremely versatile, less expensive to operate, nothing can really break on it, easy to clean up. Cooks as a grill, as a smoker, and as a pizza oven...

Now that I write all this out, I am really starting to see the Pro/Cons of both... I may be selling the Smoke Fire... naw... I need to test it more... How does it do on brisket, steaks, chicken etc... See just how much I like it, before I make up my mind.

Yep... Need to run a brisket on it, followed up with some Chicken... that will test it... 10 hour Brisket Run... yep... gotta happen soon.

Weber tried but got this one wrong... Pellet grills are basically smokers .. not designed to get "searing hot" like a gas or charcoal unit AND the industry should leave it at
that. Keep the Smoke fire CLEAN or it will start on fire. The Weber "flavorizor bar" design didnt carry over to their pellet grill. All the drippings go STRAIGHT down by the burn pot and pool.. POOF!

We had 12 at my store.. I have fixed all but 1,,, other than the 6 they had us send BACK to the factory.. True story.. I cook on a Memphis.. They can catch fire too if they get too hot.

 

[Xring01]

Weber tried but got this one wrong... Pellet grills are basically smokers .. not designed to get "searing hot" like a gas or charcoal unit AND the industry should leave it at
that. Keep the Smoke fire CLEAN or it will start on fire. The Weber "flavorizor bar" design didnt carry over to their pellet grill. All the drippings go STRAIGHT down by the burn pot and pool.. POOF!

We had 12 at my store.. I have fixed all but 1,,, other than the 6 they had us send BACK to the factory.. True story.. I cook on a Memphis.. They can catch fire too if they get too hot.

Have you seen one in person?
Because the dripping DO NOT go into the burn pot... I can take pics to show you

But the drain for the drippings is on two sides under the burn pot.., not in it...
so if.... if... the drains get clogged, then you have a potential for fat to accumulate, and then a potential fire.

Check a youtube video by Harry Soo, who cooked 55-60 lbs of fat meat all at one on a smoke fire, and no fire... 2 prime briskets, 2 pork butts, and 2 racks of beef ribs... the grease catcher actually overflowed, its pretty big, and still no fire..

I am not worried about a fire, that can happen on anything with fat next to flames...

Again, I am not here to saw its flawless, or flawed.. I am just sharing my thoughts on it... and can it live up to the name...



Smoke Fire..

For now, I prefer my Weber Summit, but I still plan to run thru several more cooks, before I can give it an honest review, opinion.

 

[boat527]

Because the dripping DO NOT go into the burn pot... I can take pics to show you

????

I am a Weber Alliance dealer.. of course I've " seen one"

Never said " in the pot"


By the pot, either side.. Yes, they work but are poorly designed...

I don't appreciate a manufacturer selling me a product that is supposed to be the latest and greatest, and I get pissed off customers over it.

That's all..

Best of luck to you
Boat527

 

[Racey]

Yep, i have had mine catch on fire once, you are correct some of the drippings make it down into the bottom of the basin once they get hot enough to smoke, poof.

I'm pretty incessant about cleaning my pellet grill after every 3 or 4 cooks now, it takes about 60 seconds with my little hand held shop vac, pull the grill grate, fire box damper, and vacuum out the entire basin, and the fire box. Done.

The first time it caught fire it cooked all the paint off the inside and half the outside of the thing, smoked out the entire neighborhood ruthless style.

After that i kept up on cleaning it.

 

[Xring01]

Yep, i have had mine catch on fire once, you are correct some of the drippings make it down into the bottom of the basin once they get hot enough to smoke, poof.

I'm pretty incessant about cleaning my pellet grill after every 3 or 4 cooks now, it takes about 60 seconds with my little hand held shop vac, pull the grill grate, fire box damper, and vacuum out the entire basin, and the fire box. Done.

The first time it caught fire it cooked all the paint off the inside and half the outside of the thing, smoked out the entire neighborhood ruthless style.

After that i kept up on cleaning it.

Thats something that Weber does right... no paint, Porcelain coated,,, I had a Weber Ranch Kettle,that I bought 10 years ago, but it was 30 plus rears old, when I bought it. Made in 1967... the porcelain was still holding up great...

If my memory is correct.. I bought it used on Craigslist for $250, used the shit out of it for many years, sold it for $600, when I bought the Weber Summit...

Obviously, I like Weber products. I cooked some steaks, and burgers on the smoke fire this pm.. I will post some pics..

In addition I made a griddle.... that I used for the Steaks, trying to get a perfect sear...but I cooked breakfast first...
Love that griddle pan, I made it to fit pretty much all my bbqs..., that griddle pan is amazing, home made 3/16 thick, 16”x24”, truly surprised me with cooking the egg scramble, then the tortillas.. its as good as the cast iron griddles I have, it may be better than cast iron.. yep thats a bold statement... might walk that one back.. I did say may be better.

Ran the Smoke fire to 600 degrees with the new griddle, before putting the steaks on.. The goal was to see if I can cooked steaks better this way and get a smoke flavor. It took about 25 minutes to hit that temp...
Appearance of the steaks, wow... but there was no wood flavor at all.. Summit/charcoal is a better at steaks... that debate is over.
over...

 

[Xring01]

Just put a meatloaf on it...
Curious to see how it compares to the ones I cook on the charcoal summit.

One thing I have figured out. If you run it at grilling temperature, say 300 and above, you really dont get a smoke flavor...

So today, I put the meatloaf on, set it to smoke boost for 40 minutes, then cranked up the temp to 350.

The app, on my phone is very convenient

 

[Ballyhoo]

Everyone grill or smoker has its place, including the pellet smokers. I have tried most of them and for me, I like less frills. I have reverted back to basics with the standard 22" Weber Kettles. The most important pieces of extra equipment are a high quality instant read thermometer AND a high quality remote thermometer for larger cuts such as Brisket.

IMHO, your Weber Summit charcoal grill is solid and will handle all your needs.

 

[Xring01]

Thats a nice collection, I am jealous. Love the brownie and the yellow one.

when I sold a 1967 Weber Ranch Kettle for $600, I had many many people low ball me. I told all of them dont waste your time, either I get what I am asking, or I keep it, with a smile.

For the $$$, I dare anyone to beat the value of a basic Weber 22“ Kettle.
My Weber Summit charcoal is better than the basic 22, but I cant say its a better value.

The Smoke Fire does have some nice technology features that make things a more convenient. At this time, I cant say that it provides a better end product over the Summit.

Sneak Peak of my most likely official review...
Smoke fire does start up faster and easier than the Summit, However its alot more work to clean it up between cooks.

Summit you have to start charcoal, so your hands get charcoal dust on them, once the fire is going, set up a drip pan, put the grate on, set you vents, cook you dinner. Next day, remove the tinfoil drip pan, pour it out or throw it away...

Smoke fire, isnt really designed for a drip pan, therefore you get a mess at the bottom of the cooker, with enough of those in any cooker, can leead to a grease fire. So cleaning up that on occasion, may not be worth the effort of the quick start up and the technology.

But I am running it thru its paces, planning a superbowl brisket or,pork butt.

My mind is not made up.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Pellets are alot more expensive, 20lbs pellets last me a week, 20 lbs of charcoal last me a month..

 

[Xring01]

Big test for the smoke fire tonight..
Brisket probably will start it around midnight tonight...

Going all out on this one.
Inject it, Rub it, cook at 225 for as long as it takes mequite pelltes, I will foil it when the internal hits 165..

 

[Xring01]

Pros
The Smoke Fire does a better job of the smoke taste on food than a Traeger or a GMG etc.
However it probably goes thru 2x as many pellets also. Which makes sense... 20lbs in 12 hr cook.. WTF
The app on my phone is nice. Instantly, I know whats going on and I can make changes from my bed. Literally on the brisket cook The other night. I was turning the cooking temperature up from my bed at 3:30am with out getting up.
Its capable of wide temperature range, over 600 degrees.
Starts up very fast, and comes to temp fast.
Smoke Ring is comparable to offset and charcoal style BBQs.
Well built, sturdy, heavy, porcelain, should last a very long time. High quality.

Cons
Uses alot fuel
Grate tempertures has hotter and cooler spots all over it. Not consistent across the entire surface.
Cleanup.... Design over all, doesnt come with a drip pan, therefore it makes a mess at the bottom of the grill. I bought a pan and use it as a drip pan, solved some of those issues. Ash does get everywhere. I was really surprised at how much was on top of the foil of the wrapped brisket...
Pellets - do have a sweeter smoke tasted than charcoal/wood.
Overall goal of Smoke flavor is to mild for me. Prefer an off set smoker or my Weber Summit.


Conclusion
For a Pellet Cooker its may be one of the better ones, but it is at a high price point. It can be used as a grill. But it loves to eat pellets, that costs will add up if you cook outside as frequently as I do. Total setup coming up to temp, cooking and clean up time is more than using a Weber Summit or typical kettle. Frankly the Charcoal Summit is hard to beat, its a bit more effort to come up to temp, but clean up is a breeze, and the overall flavor of the end product is better. I have a Digi Q, that allows me to remotely control it if I need to, but I dont use it, because I can set and forget it.

If you want true BBQ flavor... I dont think pellets are the way to go.
If your looking for a quick easy to use smoker/grill. It gets the job done, but does require frequent cleaning.

I will continue to use it, until I decide to sell it, it may change my mind, but I doubt it.