Calibrating the internal temp sensor.

[AvonSmoke]

I am very tired of brown fan blades......

Just checked the brisket temp closer to the top surface of the slap. It was still under 150 degrees after over 7.5 hours supposedly at 225 degrees inside the grill. Time in the recipe was 5 to 6 hours. My Thermoworks Signals has shown very low temperatures all day. I just ordered a Fireeboard 2 Drive so I can three different temperature measuring devices The two that agree are probably correct. Just like the US Navy had three navigation clocks to confirm accuracy.

At this point the brisket is getting cremated on the left side near the chimney and still way under cooked on the right. I wonder where the engineers were? The fire pot is in the middle. Hot air rises but then there is a fan pressurizing the oven space that forces all air to exit the left. There is not much chance the air wants to go to the right.

I have a very strong inkling the CostCo Century 885 may be history at my place by next week.

I to have the Costco Century 885 and have the same issues. I even built a baffle to cover the left side. I got the idea from others on this site. Didn't solve it completely, but helped to even the temp between left and right side. Another issue is when I set the wirefire to 500 degrees, the internal temp measured by my Inkbird never gets above 425. It will be 1 year in June since I bought the grill, can I still return to Costco?

 

[Gary]

I haven't heard so much whinging since the kids were 3. It's a BBQ. For goodness sakes get an MK4 instant read thermometer.
Always cook to internal temperature and use a great probe. Ever bought an expensive car and it doesn't do everything perfectly Ever time!!!

 

[esmith]

I haven't heard so much whinging since the kids were 3. It's a BBQ. For goodness sakes get an MK4 instant read thermometer.
Always cook to internal temperature and use a great probe. Ever bought an expensive car and it doesn't do everything perfectly Ever time!!!

The problem is paying premium prices and getting equipment not up to the task.

Traeger grills aren't exactly dollar store items. Most people when they pay a premium for a product, expect the product to at least function as designed.

If I bought a car and the speedo was regularly 20mph off and I started to get speeding tickets, I'd be asking how to calibrate that since it's kind of a KEY FEATURE OF THE PRODUCT.

Literally all this thing is supposed to do is cook meat. How do you do a good job cooking meat if you have no idea what the temp is?!?

 

[Svan41]

I use the Meater cooking thermometer. Can’t count on the Treager probes (any of them) being accurate. The Meater system has never let me down.

 

[Switz]

My frustration with my Century 885 ended about two hours ago when CostCo refunded my full purchase price plus sales tax. Chronic causes for retuuns are temperature probes and temperature management.

 

[David Anderson]

At a minimum I would get a Thermapen MK4. They are pricey but are pretty much the gold standard in temperature measurement for cooking, brewing, etc. (pretty much any time you need fast, accurate measurements). They are having a closeout sale on one model now.

Thermapen® ONE

Specializing in cool, unique and professional temperature tools. Super-Fast thermocouples, thermistors, infrared thermometers, data logging and more.

www.thermoworks.com

Beyond that I'd look at something like a FireBoard 2 or similar. Fireboard is very popular here but there are many options from Thermoworks (makers of the MK4), Weber, Inkbird, to name a few. These are great because it adds bluetooth and/or WiFi monitoring along with multiple probes so you can monitor both pit temp and multiple meats. Some have very good apps to record graphs, notes, etc. for each cook if you geek over that type of stuff.

The way I look at it, and this is a bad analogy but I'm going to use it anyway, is its like floor mats. I bought a $60K truck with shitty floor mats and the first thing I did even before I got home was order WeatherTech front and back because I wanted something that actually worked. Traeger probes are crappy carpet floor mats and the other tools available from 3rd party vendors are significant upgrades that are industry standard and accepted as "just the way it is".

What ever you do...from one Colorado griller to another...good luck!

Yeah but floor mats aren’t referenced by the engine or GPS to ensure that you get to the right place at the right time. The probe is a critical part of how a Traeger works. If I have to open the lid to check the temperature, it defeats part of the purpose. This is especially so for custom cook cycles when change the settings of the grill based on the temp readings via the probe.

 

[Murphy's Law]

Yeah but floor mats aren’t referenced by the engine or GPS to ensure that you get to the right place at the right time. The probe is a critical part of how a Traeger works. If I have to open the lid to check the temperature, it defeats part of the purpose. This is especially so for custom cook cycles when change the settings of the grill based on the temp readings via the probe.

It’s a simple accessory on the grill. No more no less. Upgrade to a tool for the job.

I put it in the accessories category because I’d put little weight on this as I evaluate my grill purchase. If I’m looking at two grills and deciding which to buy and I like grill 1 over grill 2, but grill 1 is known to have an inferior probe which would I buy?

I’d buy the grill I wanted and upgrade my temperature management. Now if alll things are equal- grill, price point, emotional buy-in, etc, then that could be a deciding factor I suppose.

There’s a reason the market is there for expensive thermometers like the MK4, Fireboard, etc...because people want accurate tools and for better or worse you aren’t going to get that on the Traeger.

Man insomnia is a bitch! I should be sleeping instead of this crap!

 

[Switz]

Perhaps if the Traeger road show at CostCo representative had stated that the known issue of temperature management was not going to be fixed, I would have passed on this purchase decision. However, that was not the case, So I Iearned here what the actual fire drill is supposed to be. One can buy a "grill" for under $100 and it will cook the meat. For the $1,100 price there is a level of expectation that this would be a great product with no issues.

Experience is a great teacher. Over the years, I have paid lots of dollars remediating a bad choice in a purchase. Fortunately, CostCo took the grill back for a full refund so I was just out of pocket for my time. I have gotten the family interested in the occasional smoked meal so have proceeded with the purchase of a grill where the thermodynamic engineering reflects the reality of how air flows and transfers heat. This is not rocket science 101.

I have really appreciated reading the information on this forum provided by the many contributors that explained this process of cooking.

 

[esmith]

It’s a simple accessory on the grill. No more no less. Upgrade to a tool for the job.

I put it in the accessories category because I’d put little weight on this as I evaluate my grill purchase. If I’m looking at two grills and deciding which to buy and I like grill 1 over grill 2, but grill 1 is known to have an inferior probe which would I buy?

I’d buy the grill I wanted and upgrade my temperature management. Now if alll things are equal- grill, price point, emotional buy-in, etc, then that could be a deciding factor I suppose.

There’s a reason the market is there for expensive thermometers like the MK4, Fireboard, etc...because people want accurate tools and for better or worse you aren’t going to get that on the Traeger.

Man insomnia is a bitch! I should be sleeping instead of this crap!

I'd even be happy if Traeger would allow you to replace the poor quality components with high quality after market parts, but I don't think they will. If someone has done this though, I'd love to know how you went about it. I'm not afraid of a soldering iron where needed to fix something.

 

[RemE]

I'd even be happy if Traeger would allow you to replace the poor quality components with high quality after market parts, but I don't think they will. If someone has done this though, I'd love to know how you went about it. I'm not afraid of a soldering iron where needed to fix something.

Agreed, if Fireboard made a swap out controller for Traeger D2 units, they would sell a ton of them!

 

[RustyJake]

Agreed, if Fireboard made a swap out controller for Traeger D2 units, they would sell a ton of them!

I am guessing Yoder's controller isn't designed the same as the D2. They use a FireBoard controller.
They sold upgrade kits for their older models so they could be retrofit with the FB controllers. If it was just that simple....your Traeger would be on your FireBoard app then

 

[Timmy]

Agreed, if Fireboard made a swap out controller for Traeger D2 units, they would sell a ton of them!

Deja vu.

 

[Switz]

At least one new controller for each grill made in the recent past....

 

[Twist]

As I mentioned in my last posts in this thread, my Traeger Silverton 810 was running actually 30+ degrees cooler than the temp on the front panel. Traeger sent me a replacement probe which I installed this afternoon. Before I get in to the replacement task, I can report that my grill is now showing within 1 degree of the digital temperature probe I have been using for years. I set the grill on 225 and it's showing between 225 - 230 while my separate digital probe is showing 225 - 228. This comparison is with my probe in the middle of the lower grill. I would expect some variations throughout the cook camber and I'll test for those later.

Given that the faulty probe replacement solved the problem I was having I'm going to rock on with a small full packer brisket tomorrow and see how it turns out.

Now, for those of you that have the same model, replacing the probe is not a 5 minute job. You have to remove the hopper from the body of the grill (6 bolts on the inside) and slide it away from the body. Then run a fish wire through when removing the old probe to be able to draw the new probe back through the small openings. It took some finagling but got it through and all bolted back up. The whole job is about 30 minutes if you have the right tools and are handy with them. When plugging in the new probe to the control panel. note that there's a + pole on the connector and align the probe connector to match up with it. It'll go on either way so pay attention when you plug it up.

EDIT: There are no instructions that come with the replacement probe and none of the online videos or instructions are complete in knowing how to do this job. I got on the phone with Traeger support who found the instructions for doing this but they would not send them to me saying that the information is proprietary. OK, then how are we going to do this? He said he'd stay on the phone and talk me through it. Uh, no. Just tell me if the hopper box needs to come off and if I take it off I can route the new probe wire. Yes and yes.

 

[esmith]

thanks, that's super useful to know, and gives me hope it's a fixable hardware issue then!