Weber smokefire (pellet grill)

[Simon.W]

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!

Edited August 18, 2020 by Simon.W

[sotv]

3 hours ago, Simon.W said:

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!

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 along with the firepit cover , 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 at the normal rate and let it carry on doing its thing after that. As I felt at the time a blockage in the Augur needed to clear itself, or all the 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.

Edited August 18, 2020 by sotv

[Simon.W]

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

 

[sotv]

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.

[Simon.W]

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.

 

[sotv]

1 minute ago, Simon.W said:

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.

 

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.😞

[Simon.W]

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!

[James17]

2 hours ago, Simon.W said:

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!

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. 

[Simon.W]

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!

[James17]

1 hour ago, Simon.W said:

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!

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. 

[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...

[sotv]

I am reluctant to fix something that isn't broken in my case at the moment. But if going forward I experience more regular problems with the Augur, will look into doing something about it.

[Lleyton Mac's Backyard BBQ]

i started getting issues with pellet dust build up and e3 errors and was taking 30+ minutes to get to 600f i contacted weber they said the welded chute will fix it which i replaced now i get upto 600f in 13-15 minutes

[Simon.W]

On 8/19/2020 at 12:16 PM, Lleyton Mac's Backyard BBQ said:

i started getting issues with pellet dust build up and e3 errors and was taking 30+ minutes to get to 600f i contacted weber they said the welded chute will fix it which i replaced now i get upto 600f in 13-15 minutes

I must admit, mine is kicking up a lot of dust as well.  It took 9 minutes to get to 120oc earlier.  Have you seen a drop in the amount of dust since fitting your new auger? 

The new bag of pellets hasn't done anything for the smokeboost issues.  Not that I was expecting it to.

It just smothers the fire.  Interestingly I didn't get errors this time around, I just got a complete flame out and the auger continued to fill the firebox with pellets until it overflowed.  

I guess we'll see what Weber say about it tomorrow.   

[Lleyton Mac's Backyard BBQ]

Still about the same to be honest i was getting flame outs the only way i could stop it before the new chute was to hoover out all the pellet dust from the auger every 2 cooks otherwise i would get a flame out its the sawdust at the back of the spiral feeder clogging it up and making it turn slower i think

[Jay123]

I've been having a few problems where I have not been been getting any notifications about low pellets. No error codes or a big deal as I regularly check. I only contacted to see if I could troubleshoot it somehow.... I'm having a new motherboard shipped, apparently its easier to fix than replacing the sensor! 

[James17]

1 hour ago, Lleyton Mac's Backyard BBQ said:

Still about the same to be honest i was getting flame outs the only way i could stop it before the new chute was to hoover out all the pellet dust from the auger every 2 cooks otherwise i would get a flame out its the sawdust at the back of the spiral feeder clogging it up and making it turn slower i think

New auger for a month now I think. Runs perfect, no issues with smoke boost. 
 

on another note I pulled the trigger on a Kamado Joe 3 as sold my kettle and need charcoal in my life.... aside from my WSM lol 

[Simon.W]

On 8/20/2020 at 10:38 PM, James17 said:

New auger for a month now I think. Runs perfect, no issues with smoke boost. 
 

on another note I pulled the trigger on a Kamado Joe 3 as sold my kettle and need charcoal in my life.... aside from my WSM lol 

I've got a new glow plug coming which I've been asked to test.  Personally though I don't think it's going to fix anything as the glow plug has no issues firing under normal cooking modes. By the time this Weber support person has finished, I'll have an entirely new BBQ made out replacement parts 😅.

I must admit, since getting the smokefire, my interest in berbecue and smoking has dramatically increased, I think it's the convenience of it all and that I can monitor what's going on whilst I'm working that has made the difference.

Let me know how you get on with the KJ, I've got my eye on one as well! 

 

[sotv]

11 hours ago, Simon.W said:

I've got a new glow plug coming which I've been asked to test.  Personally though I don't think it's going to fix anything as the glow plug has no issues firing under normal cooking modes. By the time this Weber support person has finished, I'll have an entirely new BBQ made out replacement parts 😅.

I must admit, since getting the smokefire, my interest in berbecue and smoking has dramatically increased, I think it's the convenience of it all and that I can monitor what's going on whilst I'm working that has made the difference.

Let me know how you get on with the KJ, I've got my eye on one as well! 

 

Do you use a mixture of branded pellets or mainly one specific type, as seen reports the Smokefire although meant to be compatible with all pellets, doesn't work so well with some other brands.

I have only ever used Weber and The Alfresco Chef brands and touchwood they both seem to feed well with mine. Although there is a bit more ash overall produced by the Alfresco Chef brand, but they do Cherry, which I can't get with the Weber brand yet.

[Simon.W]

1 hour ago, sotv said:

Do you use a mixture of branded pellets or mainly one specific type, as seen reports the Smokefire although meant to be compatible with all pellets, doesn't work so well with some other brands.

I have only ever used Weber and The Alfresco Chef brands and touchwood they both seem to feed well with mine. Although there is a bit more ash overall produced by the Alfresco Chef brand, but they do Cherry, which I can't get with the Weber brand yet.

 

I had read the same thing about branded pellets, so I decided to play it safe until more info was available. 

The only pellets that I've used so far are the Weber ones, mainly Hickory and Apple.  The bag that Weber support sent me was the grill academy master blend, which is the actually the first time I've used that one as it's always sold out when I go to place an order.  

[sotv]

7 minutes ago, Simon.W said:

 

I had read the same thing about branded pellets, so I decided to play it safe until more info was available. 

The only pellets that I've used so far are the Weber ones, mainly Hickory and Apple.  The bag that Weber support sent me was the grill academy master blend, which is the actually the first time I've used that one as it's always sold out when I go to place an order.  

It must be very frustrating for the people experiencing problems and certainly not cost effective for Weber sending out these replacement parts.

You would hope their R&D department is looking into what the problem is with mainly the Augur for some people and coming up with a software/hardware solution. 

Customer Service default seems to be either to send out a new augur, control unit, motherboard or glow plug and I can't imagine some of those parts are cheap. I am sure actually doing some proper research and fault finding & identifying the problem and getting a solution would be cheaper in the long run than throwing parts at it, hoping that sorts the customers problem out.

That being said they must have sold 10's of thousands of them now worldwide and as frustrating as it is if you are experiencing problems, hopefully they're in the minority rather than the majority. Speaking for myself currently using mine 4 or 5 times a week (oven indoors is pretty redundant at the moment) and for me it has been the best investment I have made in an outdoor bit of cooking equipment and I love using mine and the results whether a 15 minute pizza/burger or 14 hour lo&slo cook always surprise me how well it does it. 

[Simon.W]

27 minutes ago, sotv said:

It must be very frustrating for the people experiencing problems and certainly not cost effective for Weber sending out these replacement parts.

You would hope their R&D department is looking into what the problem is with mainly the Augur for some people and coming up with a software/hardware solution. 

Customer Service default seems to be either to send out a new augur, control unit, motherboard or glow plug and I can't imagine some of those parts are cheap. I am sure actually doing some proper research and fault finding & identifying the problem and getting a solution would be cheaper in the long run than throwing parts at it, hoping that sorts the customers problem out.

That being said they must have sold 10's of thousands of them now worldwide and as frustrating as it is if you are experiencing problems, hopefully they're in the minority rather than the majority. Speaking for myself currently using mine 4 or 5 times a week (oven indoors is pretty redundant at the moment) and for me it has been the best investment I have made in an outdoor bit of cooking equipment and I love using mine and the results whether a 15 minute pizza/burger or 14 hour lo&slo cook always surprise me how well it does it. 

Yeah, some people seem to be having it a lot worse than I do, which must being pretty infuriating.  Fortuantely, my SF behaves very well under normal operation and only seems to be falling down on the smokeboost part.  I would probably be a tad less relaxed about the whole thing if I couldn't even cook on it normally.

I think you are right, sending out all of the replacement parts much be having an impact and they really need to get to the bottom of it as they seem to be stabbing in the dark a little bit.  The support representative did they are having weekly "smokefire" meetings held between the EU and US aftersales departments and are interested in the results of the testing I am doing.  Personally, I am fine to help out and make the product better, but I can definitely see other people not being so interested in having to test a product they've spent a small fortune on. 

I absolutely love mine. The results I am getting with such a high level of convenience and control is more than making up for any of the issues that I am encountering.

[Simon.W]

Bit of a disaster with my reverse sear rib eye steaks today.  The smokefire took around 20 minutes to reach 135oc, once I had got the steaks up to the right temperature, I removed them and set the smomefire to 310oc to get a good sear.  Unfortunately, after a further 20 minutes, the smokefire was hovering around 210oc.  I turned on my oven to 260 to preheat my cast iron pan to finish the steaks.  The oven got to temp and the smokefire still had not.  Although it wasn't a bad steak, it wasn't up to standard.

Fresh pellets from weber and everything was clean and free of ash/debris as i'd cleaned it out for my smokeboost testing.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Simon.W

[Wade]

All new types of automated smoker have teething problems to begin with, however it is not something that you would normally expect from Weber. 

My Cookshack FEC-120 pellet smoker was one of the first to be converted from 115v to 220v. I had problems with it for several months before they realised they actually needed to redesign the main board. They shipped and I fitted the new board and it has been working well ever since.

Persevere - it should be worth it in the end. 

[Simon.W]

7 hours ago, Wade said:

All new types of automated smoker have teething problems to begin with, however it is not something that you would normally expect from Weber. 

My Cookshack FEC-120 pellet smoker was one of the first to be converted from 115v to 220v. I had problems with it for several months before they realised they actually needed to redesign the main board. They shipped and I fitted the new board and it has been working well ever since.

Persevere - it should be worth it in the end. 

Completely agree.  The new welded auger has been ordered so I'm going to do a full set of tests before and after to see what the difference is.  If it helps Weber improve the product in some way then it was worth the effort.