Brand new Pro 34 with problems.

[Lie2me]

I've had this grill just a couple of weeks after having to replace my trusty old Pit Boss that finally bit the dust. Unfortunately this new grill has been nothing but problems, from the first day. These issues range from extremely unstable and inaccurate thermostat performance to last night's disaster. I had been smoking burnt ends when I noticed the meat was cooking a bit too quickly, so I dropped the temp 25 degrees. BIG MISTAKE! The element went out, and the firebox filled with unburned pellets. This disaster was a repeat of an incident that happened about a week ago. So I guess I can raise the temperature but cannot lower it?

 

[Manannan]

Personally with a brand new unit just out of the box I would take it back to the dealer and make it their problem either by way of a swap for correctly functioning unit or a refund!

The customer shouldn't have to muck about with Traeger customer support in such instances by way of changing parts etc.

 

[RayClem]

Decreasing the temperature setpoint should not have caused a flameout.

Your experience with the thermocouple that provides feedback to the controller is not unusual. Even if you return your current grill and get another one, it is likely to have a similar temperature calibration issue. Get a good 3rd party thermometer to check the temperature of the cooking chamber. This can be an old fashion analog thermometer like the ones used on gas grills, or one of the newer digital units. Set the controller setpoint to give you the desired cook temperature on the 3rd party thermometer.

For example, if I want to smoke at 225F, I set the controller to 235F (a 10 degree difference). To cook at 400F as needed for pizza, I have to set the controller at 450F (a 50 degree difference). While no two grills are identical in this aspect, most of them show some sort of issue. Traeger refuses to acknowledge the inaccuracy of their controller thermocouples.