Simon.W

2 minutes ago, James17 said:

I asked and got nowhere. But when I said it wouldn’t get up to full temp they shipped it straight out. One of the first replacement ones to go out. 
 

not easy to fit (over sized screws) so I gave them my feedback. 

I've not had any issues getting to full temp, although having said that, I can't recall the last time I cranked it all the way up.  Even grilling the steaks the other day was only done at 260 ish.  I did notice that when I was pre-heating to 110 for my brisket smoke the other day, that it sat at 75 for 5 mins, then went down to 70 and sat there for a few minutes before climbing to 110 pretty quickly.  Based on what I've seen of the pellets in my smokefire, I definitely thinking there is a crushing issue going on...

13 hours ago, James17 said:

Used mine in heavy rain and it stays plugged in all the time. No issues. 
 

I use it a few times a week as still try to use the others in my collection. 
 

I got the new welded auger and it’s been a dream since then. No issues at all. But when I replaced it the old one did Have a lot of sawdust in it. The new update limits the reverse of the auger at the end of a cook so this should be far less of an issue going forward. 
 

the best thing is the wife now uses it every week to do a roast chicken because it’s so easy. I have done a Christmas turkey on the WSM for the last few years but I might use the EX6 this year. 

I think I'm just being a wuss about the whole rain thing then  

I'm quite tempted to push support for the new auger, I've noticed a lot of sawdust in mine when I emptied it out last night.  I'll test the new pellets like they've suggested and go from there.

I'd be really keen to see people's christmas turkey results on the smokefire!

1 hour ago, sotv said:

Yeah I am finding it works well for those quick less than an hour cooks as well, wings, pizza, seafood, steaks and cast iron cooked one pot meals or slightly longer upright Mexican/Greek kebab style dishes and startup and shutdown and the now stable temps with a good range of temps makes it so easy

I enjoy the slabs of meat done lo&slo but just experimenting with something different for tea most days is just as much fun and satisfying.

I have an outside electrical point, so find short showers it is fine, with no cover needed, more persistent rain is ok as well with the large patio parasol over it. Some of these tropical thunderstorms this past week I don't want to risk 😀

Can't convince my wife to risk the family Xmas turkey dinner on it yet, though this year.😞

Yeah I've found the same thing, although I purchased it for the slow smoking, it makes the standard BBQ items a complete breeze as well.  I'm planning on doing a Shepards pie on it over the weekend, hopefully it will turn out good!

The Florida-like weather is not something I would want to risk either.

I usually buy a rolled half turkey crown for xmas which I then brine for a day before cooking, I'm thinking of buying two slightly smaller ones this year and cooking them similtaneously in the oven like normal and on the smokefire to compare the results.  If the smokefire comes out on top, I'll retire the oven for the next year!

Just now, sotv said:

Looks good, using mine 4 or 5 times a week at the moment and not just for the usual lo&slo meats and feeling confident enough to use it in most weather conditions this summer so far, except those tropical type downpours, hope it works well in cold temps over the winter as well.

I've not used mine as much as that, but it definitely good to hear that it can stand up to that kind of frequency of cooks. I'm investing in a heavyduty pop-up gazebo so I can use it in the rain a little more without concern.

3 minutes ago, sotv said:

Had this happen once to me, in my own mind I felt the Augur had got too jammed up with dust and broken pellets over time and decided to dump them in the firepot in one go I could see the temp dropping 5-10F every 30 seconds during the cook so could see something was up, before the smoke started billowing out. I shutdown once the message came up from your photo and could see the fire pot full of pellets once it had shutdown. 

I restarted it, but what I did was leave the middle grill and flavouriser bar out , to allow me access to the augur on startup and a lot of crushed pellets  started coming out and then a larger quantity of good pellets. So what I did was dropped a few good pellets into the firepot by hand to let it catch and put a cup under the pellets coming out to catch them till proper whole ones started coming out normally and let it carry on doing its thing after that. As I felt at the time a blockage in the Augur may have cleared itself, or a lot of dust from all the pellet bags put in the hopper over time?

Just my experience, but it hasn't happened again and I would imagine that dust or compressed pellets must just jam up the augur on very odd occasions overtime, will keep an eye on it, but has been all good since that one instance .

Another thing I prefer in my routine now is to start the temp at 200F and let it reach that, before putting Smokeboost on, it drops pretty quickly to around Smokeboost temp after that. Then after finishing with the Smokeboost increase it manually to the cooking temp I want.

Very interesting.  it sounds to me like it's the same issue.

I'm going to inspect the grill a bit further later on to see what the pellets looks like, I'll be dropping them out and cleaning everything ready for the new bag of pellets.  I'll keep an eye on the amount of crushed up pellets to see what happens.

I know that Weber seem to be sending out single piece welded pellet chute/auger to combat the crushing of pellets from what I have gathered.  I'll keep things updated

I'm still very happy with the smokefire overall, especially since the firmware updates and the app updates, it all feels a lot more "finished" than it did before.

I've made some of the best steak and pulled pork I've ever made on it also

My Smokefire EX6 has been working great, right up until I tried using smokeboost the other day and I kept getting huge temperature drops and flame out errors.

Latest firmware and app, with weber pellets.

Even freshly cleaned out, it would seem to dump a load of pellets in and suffocate the fire.  Then when shutdown activated for safety, the amount of smoke would be incredible as it would try and clear the firebox that was practically full - it didn't go down well with the neighbours.

Weber are sending me a free bag of pellets to test out, I can't imagine it's going to make any difference though.  

Can't fault the customer service as they are also throwing in a weber bible for my touble, which is a rather nice gesture.  The grill works absolutely fine under normal operation, so I'm not overly annoyed by this. Yet!

50 minutes ago, sotv said:

I have ordered from Gridironmeat a few times and been very pleased with their products, I signed up to Tom Hixson newsletter last week and got a 15% off introductory offer as heard good reports about them and will probably make an order up next week. There is a running thread here of other recommendations.

If you like to see your meat and have a Morrisons near you, they have legs of British lamb at £7 a kg this week and I think that what Sunday dinner will be off the Smokefire this week as I want to see if I can adapt this recipe to it. I also picked a whole Gressingham Duck for £6 to cook on it tomorrow.

Thanks for this, I'll certainly take a look and post any results that I have.

11 hours ago, sotv said:

It's easy to forget, some people are busier than ever at the moment and don't have the time some have us have been afforded due to Covid-19.

Meat is available from the normal sources, High Street Butchers and Supermarkets, I have found. But their are some good online butchers, if time is of premium or looking for specialist cuts also

Yeah it's definitely been hectic.  Are there any online butchers that you would recommend?  I've been tempted to order online, but I usually like to see the piece of meat before buying.

@sotv Yeah it has been used far less than I intended.  This covid thing has simultaneously made my work schedule extremely busy and removed all my motivation to do anything outside of said work.  I also felt rather self conscious asking for large cuts of meat in the midst of people panic-buying toilet roll. Hopefully I can start to get the use out of it that I intended over the coming months. 

I've barely used the smokefire since I purchased it, I went from 4003 to 4025 yesterday and I definitely noticed a difference in the way the thing behaves.  Everything seemed a lot more responsive and it got to temp much faster and held steady,

Assembled and initial burn in going well.  Had a minor pain with the WiFi connection but that was more to do with my home network than the smokefire so all good.

It always sucks to have issues, but I'm pleased things are sorted for you and it's always good to hear of great customer support and service.  

Mine still isn't built yet, hopefully will get the opportunity to do so tomorrow.

1 hour ago, James17 said:

You must either work for auto finesse, love their stuff or a pro car detailer 

Aha I'm just a hobbyist detailer really and having spent a bit of time around the AF products, I just really like them.  I figured that buying the 5l containers works out a lot better than repeat trips to get the smaller bottles.

Cars are very much my other interest when I'm not cooking 👍

Mines in the garage, so hopefully get it all set up over the weekend.  Having a bit of difficulty getting the cuts of meat that I want though

Delivery on Friday for me.  Could have been tomorrow but I'm one of the few remaining people in the country out on a business trip 😂

My latest update from WOWBBQ is they are going to call me next Thurday (19th) with an update.

From what I was told by the chaps who I met from Weber, the delay is for two main reasons:

1.  To retro fit the the hoper insert.

2.  To coincide with a new release of the firmware for the controller.  

Weber have delayed shipment to distributers by a few weeks.  The original plan was 2nd March for shipments so we are looking like at least another week or so before the distributers get them.

From what I gathered from the event on friday, they have delayed the release from Monday to mid March.  So the shipments will arrive at the retailers at that time.  

@James17 Hi James, so you were at wowbbq as well on Friday? It was a very good afternoon and it sounds like we both got the same information and results from it. I too have placed another order! 

Ok so the long story short is that I ended up cancelling my order for the EX6.  Waking up each morning to all the negative buzz had really taken the shine off the purchase and it wasn't doing anything to improve my mood.  I ended up being invited to a weber-held event at wowbbq yesterday (cue a 6 hour return journey) to see this bit if kit in action and i'll add some bullet points bellow of the key important info:

- UK/EU launch has been delayed by a few weeks, mainly so we will have access to a newer version of the firmware straight away.  Stockists should see them by 3rd week of March.

- UK/UE models will come shipped with an insert for the hopper which increases the steepness.  The units at the event did not have this, but no pellet issues were observed during the event and they Weber guys had only noticed the issue with non-webber pellets.  The weber pellets at the event had an incredibly smooth exterier finish.

- They absolutely recommend that you use drip pans on top of the flavouriser bars when cooking fatty cuts of meat for an extended period.  As per the manual.

- Most other issues encountered are due to firmware which is currently being worked on.  They had a pre-prducution EX6 on the the very latest software version and an american spec pre-prducution EX4 running a slightly older version - the EX6 performed flawlessly after it was updated and the EX4 could only reach about 525 degrees, but still smashed out some of the best steaks that i've ever eaten.  

I spent about 5 hours there yesterday, speaking with all the guys from Weber and inspecting every inch of the grills.  I personally felt confident in re-placing an order by the end of the night.

Yeah we are all going to be experts on this grill before it arrives! 

@sotv  that bloke has a new video also.

EDIT:  I've just noticed when watching it that he didn't realise that the shutdown process retracts the pellets back towards the hopper.  I knew that and I don't even have it yet 😅

Yikes, just watched the babyback video.  I think I'm going to give it a couple of weeks and see what weber have to say on the matter before I make a decision either way.  As you say, if a slight delay is introduced before they ship, i'd be fine with that too.  Infact, I'd probably be a little happier if they did delay at this point.  Time will tell I guess.

Yeah it's quite difficult to determine exactly what is accurate and what isn't at this point.  I agree that Babyback seems to be a good source of reliable info on this subject.

I don't even own the grill yet and I've probably read more documentation than some of the YouTubers who've got them.  It's quite easy to get caught up in the wave of negativity, even when you're usual instincts tell you to ignore it.  As I said, I'm definitely persevering with it as I trust Weber to do the right thing.   

From what I've gathered, the UK pre-order stock won't be arriving at distributers until mid/late march so there is a solid month for certain things to be ironed out before we get our hands on them.

I have to say that after seeing the reviews online and in the smokefire reddit, I'm starting to regret my pre-order a little bit.  I'm going to perservere with it, but I hope that my purchase doesn't turn into a pain as I could do without it.