Trials of the Traeger
Posted: Mon May 25, 2020 8:04 pm
All right. I picked up a Traeger Pro 575 the other day. First crack at a pellet grill/smoker for me.
1. This thing is an amazing learning experience. Like cast iron it actually has a "seasoning" process that you need to do before cooking on it. The seasoning takes about an hour once the smoker heats up. Since it is WIFI controlled I set the temperature to 350 with an alert to let me know once it heated and then went to work on ebay. Once it hit temp I set the time for 20 minutes to start the burn in. After the initial 20 you raise it to 450 for another 30 minutes, then its ready to go.
2. With pellets being approx $20 a bag I wasn't too keen on running it for an hour with no food on it, though to my surprise it didnt use but just a few pellets to get to temp and do the burn in. The hopper was still pretty full once complete.
Day 2
After some practice with the "startup" process I prepped the grill to do a whole chicken at 350 for about an hour. Having a wifi internal thermometer and grill temp I was able to monitor the cooking process from my phone. When the chicken came out it was one of the juiciest I think I have ever cooked and it was EASY. With Traeger providing some throw away drip pans cleanup was also a breeze. After cooking, I again checked the hopper and it had used less than half of the initial fill up after running another full hour.
Initial thoughts on this thing are that its freaking GREAT so far. Traeger has really made this thing well, from the auger that drives pellets into the cook box, to the grease drain, to the WIFI system.
More to come as I work with this thing.
1. This thing is an amazing learning experience. Like cast iron it actually has a "seasoning" process that you need to do before cooking on it. The seasoning takes about an hour once the smoker heats up. Since it is WIFI controlled I set the temperature to 350 with an alert to let me know once it heated and then went to work on ebay. Once it hit temp I set the time for 20 minutes to start the burn in. After the initial 20 you raise it to 450 for another 30 minutes, then its ready to go.
2. With pellets being approx $20 a bag I wasn't too keen on running it for an hour with no food on it, though to my surprise it didnt use but just a few pellets to get to temp and do the burn in. The hopper was still pretty full once complete.
Day 2
After some practice with the "startup" process I prepped the grill to do a whole chicken at 350 for about an hour. Having a wifi internal thermometer and grill temp I was able to monitor the cooking process from my phone. When the chicken came out it was one of the juiciest I think I have ever cooked and it was EASY. With Traeger providing some throw away drip pans cleanup was also a breeze. After cooking, I again checked the hopper and it had used less than half of the initial fill up after running another full hour.
Initial thoughts on this thing are that its freaking GREAT so far. Traeger has really made this thing well, from the auger that drives pellets into the cook box, to the grease drain, to the WIFI system.
More to come as I work with this thing.