Hi from Staten Island

[Scraper84]

I’m new to Traeger, not so new ( at 84 not so new to anything!)to grilling/smoking. Pretty much the backyard, weekend variety. I reworked my Weber kettle. On sale years ago for 40$! Mounted a PitMaster 110 and Weber Igrill probes. Worked pretty well, though again on an occasional basis. Then got away from it altogether for the last few years…running back and forth between SI and Mass. With age comes a yearning. For simplicity, I think. Felt like grilling/smoking again. But not the old way. Scoped out Traeger pellet feeding approach. Seems like good idea, but very pricey. Discovered the Ranger. And bought one. The adventure begins.

 

[GrillMeister]

Welcome!

 

[JPSBBQ]

Ditto

 

[Slimpicker]

 

[primeone]

Welcome to the forum @Scraper84 - Let us know how your first smoke comes out!

 

[Scraper84]

Welcome to the forum @Scraper84 - Let us know how your first smoke comes out!

Actually did 3 after the seasoning burn. A chicken thigh, a pork chop, and a lamb shoulder chop. The Ranger temp control worked fine and they all were smoky delicious, That said there’s a learning curve back story.

First, I read, here, about Ranger meat probe issues. Couldn’t get mine to work either. Anyway, my IGrill2 is more useful. It can follow up to four probes (for me two is plenty) and most important, it graphs each probe temp as a function of time on my IPAD. Fired at 250 and spent a few hours just following the displayed set temp and the air temp in the grill.

LIke my pitmaster110, the Ranger set temp cycles up and down around the set temp, usually+/- a few degrees. The surprise was the grill temp cycled over a much bigger spread,~50-100)( but still averaged only 10-20 higher than the set temp. Thinking the big spread was related to the frequent, large exhaust smoke volume going thru the vents above the grease bucket, I plugged the vents with tin foil. Lo and behold, the grill temp cycled at +/- 10. Big improvement!