Question: For those who have the Weber and have used it how does it rate scale of 1 to 10?

[Brian Vallotton]

With all the myriad issues that seem to be popping up I am having serious second thoughts about buying this grill as a "beta" buyer. The real question is how do you folks that have one feel about your purchase?

 

[Movingtarget08]

I'm absolutely loving mine. I even got to be the guy standing in the snow on my driveway with a beer and a huge grin watching people drive by, staring at me like a loony. it's basically everything I was hoping for. More flavor than gas, easier to manage than charcoal.

Mind you, I do seem to be lucky *knock on wood* when buying almost anything. I mean. I own a VW without a check engine light on. HAHAHA.

I think we're gonna have a lot of "forum proportions" meaning, you hear more about the bad than the good on the internet.

I'm more interested in Weber's responses to the issues. Seems like they've been great about the ones we've seen so far. Haven't seen anything from smokemeister in a while though. hmmm.

 

[Movingtarget08]

Anyway. I'm gonna give it an 8. I'd love to maintain 450 with the lid open but it doesn't seem possible in 15° weather, at least

 

[Brian Vallotton]

Anyway. I'm gonna give it an 8. I'd love to maintain 450 with the lid open but it doesn't seem possible in 15° weather, at least

Thanks for sharing my grill brother! I am so happy you are enjoying it. Life is work. As they say, Any old dead fish can float downstream, it takes a LIVE one to swim upstream!

 

[FredSC]

Having not used another type of pellet grill, I don't have any basis on how the competitors auger feeds work compared to smoke fire. Having said that the grill provides a great smokey flavor and seared the steaks great! Ribs I cooked today turned out well.
Whenever you buy the early models, you can expect improvement to be found and make. the points I pointed out in my early posts can be fixed with software modes for the most part. Also if these things are something you need to check on every so often, hopefully Weber will post procedure updates.
So far I'm happy with it and I'm not sorry I brought it. I would give it a 7 or 8 at this time.
I have a Weber smokey mountain that I have used for years, and I'm constantly having to adjust the vents to maintain the desired temperature, having this controller is great. If it can get to a point where you don't have to worry about the pellets forming a cavity over the auger. It will be great. It could that issue is because the hopper was 30 to 50% empty, but that's just a guess. Other than that it works great!
I have heard on the competitor pellet grills you have to worry about a fire going back up the auger channel into the hopper, so this one of the things I liked about the Weber design.
I can think of ways they can improve on the issues I saw during today's cook, and I"m sure they will.
I will post on what I hear back from Weber.

 

[Brian Vallotton]

Having not used another type of pellet grill, I don't have any basis on how the competitors auger feeds work compared to smoke fire. Having said that the grill provides a great smokey flavor and seared the steaks great! Ribs I cooked today turned out well.
Whenever you buy the early models, you can expect improvement to be found and make. the points I pointed out in my early posts can be fixed with software modes for the most part. Also if these things are something you need to check on every so often, hopefully Weber will post procedure updates.
So far I'm happy with it and I'm not sorry I brought it. I would give it a 7 or 8 at this time.
I have a Weber smokey mountain that I have used for years, and I'm constantly having to adjust the vents to maintain the desired temperature, having this controller is great. If it can get to a point where you don't have to worry about the pellets forming a cavity over the auger. It will be great. It could that issue is because the hopper was 30 to 50% empty, but that's just a guess. Other than that it works great!
I have heard on the competitor pellet grills you have to worry about a fire going back up the auger channel into the hopper, so this one of the things I liked about the Weber design.
I can think of ways they can improve on the issues I saw during today's cook, and I"m sure they will.
I will post on what I hear back from Weber.

Good word! We do not live in a perfect world and unrealistic expectations lead to disappointment! I do hope that many of the "fixes" can be done through the software. That would be the best scenario. The good news is that Weber does have a reputation for listening to their customers. This will mean that they are going to make things very challenging for the other grills out there!

 

[SmokeMeister]

I'm absolutely loving mine. I even got to be the guy standing in the snow on my driveway with a beer and a huge grin watching people drive by, staring at me like a loony. it's basically everything I was hoping for. More flavor than gas, easier to manage than charcoal.

Mind you, I do seem to be lucky *knock on wood* when buying almost anything. I mean. I own a VW without a check engine light on. HAHAHA.

I think we're gonna have a lot of "forum proportions" meaning, you hear more about the bad than the good on the internet.

I'm more interested in Weber's responses to the issues. Seems like they've been great about the ones we've seen so far. Haven't seen anything from smokemeister in a while though. hmmm.

I'm going to wait before giving a rating. They sent me a complete auger assembly and the tech will be here on Tuesday to install that. Here's hoping that is the issue or it can be diagnosed further by the tech.

 

[Movingtarget08]

I'm going to wait before giving a rating. They sent me a complete auger assembly and the tech will be here on Tuesday to install that. Here's hoping that is the issue or it can be diagnosed further by the tech.

I'm glad they're going the distance for you, it seems. Gives me confidence. I just hope all these issues can be fixed on the main unit rather than winding up being stuck with a new model.

 

[ozzy]

SmokeMeister I am sure weber will resolve your issue or they will give you a new smoker or refund.. Keep us posted.

 

[Brian Vallotton]

I'm going to wait before giving a rating. They sent me a complete auger assembly and the tech will be here on Tuesday to install that. Here's hoping that is the issue or it can be diagnosed further by the tech.

I know that you have been through a lot and hope that they make this worth your time and energy SmokeMeister. In the meantime I wish you peace and the joy that comes from knowing that we have so much MORE to be thankful for.

 

[Sabercoug]

Finally assembled mine today. Powered it on, opened the Connect app and it wanted me to update, but it kept trying and cycling back so it would not work. I uninstalled, re-installed, repeat, same issue. Tried everything, powering off smoker, phone, everything and no luck. I decided to move on and do initial burin-in. Set it to 600 and everything seemed to be going ok, until it hit around 500 then stopped. It then started to drop in temp! I also noticed smoke was coming out of the pellet hopper. I initiated shutdown and removed grates, etc. There were a lot of pellets scattered around the bottom, some burnt and some burning. It seemed off. I went to FB group to see if anyone had similar issues then saw someone post about putting "firebox" in correctly. I checked and sure enough, I had installed mine backwards! The trough was dumping pellets on the edge and not straight into the pot. I removed it, turned it around and put everything back. I then turned to smoker back on for attempt #2.
This time, it was slow to gain temp and after about 15 minutes it had error regarding glow and no fire so it initiated auto-shutdown.
I took it apart again and removed pellets from firebox and then started attempt #3.
Once again, it fired up beautifully, then got to about 525 before......temp stopped climbing and then started dropping! I waited a little bit more and temp had dropped to 485, but then it went back up to 510 or so but that was as high as it got. I had enough and decided to shut it down and call Weber.
Finally got ahold of someone at Weber and we first worked on the Connect app issue. Nothing worked and after 30 minutes or so, we moved on.
She had me empty my hopper so she could have me take a pic of auger. There were still pellets in the lowest part by the auger so she had me fire up the smoker, and set to 300 to burn all remaining pellets. In 10 minutes, the temp barely hit 100! She had no solutions and said someone would contact me Monday to discuss.
My gut tells me I have a bad controller. We shall see.
Either way, I am patient and willing to let Weber resolve these issues. Overall, I like the smoker and it is well built, despite the technical issues. I figure the faulty parts can be replaced.

 

[Movingtarget08]

Finally assembled mine today. Powered it on, opened the Connect app and it wanted me to update, but it kept trying and cycling back so it would not work. I uninstalled, re-installed, repeat, same issue. Tried everything, powering off smoker, phone, everything and no luck. I decided to move on and do initial burin-in. Set it to 600 and everything seemed to be going ok, until it hit around 500 then stopped. It then started to drop in temp! I also noticed smoke was coming out of the pellet hopper. I initiated shutdown and removed grates, etc. There were a lot of pellets scattered around the bottom, some burnt and some burning. It seemed off. I went to FB group to see if anyone had similar issues then saw someone post about putting "firebox" in correctly. I checked and sure enough, I had installed mine backwards! The trough was dumping pellets on the edge and not straight into the pot. I removed it, turned it around and put everything back. I then turned to smoker back on for attempt #2.
This time, it was slow to gain temp and after about 15 minutes it had error regarding glow and no fire so it initiated auto-shutdown.
I took it apart again and removed pellets from firebox and then started attempt #3.
Once again, it fired up beautifully, then got to about 525 before......temp stopped climbing and then started dropping! I waited a little bit more and temp had dropped to 485, but then it went back up to 510 or so but that was as high as it got. I had enough and decided to shut it down and call Weber.
Finally got ahold of someone at Weber and we first worked on the Connect app issue. Nothing worked and after 30 minutes or so, we moved on.
She had me empty my hopper so she could have me take a pic of auger. There were still pellets in the lowest part by the auger so she had me fire up the smoker, and set to 300 to burn all remaining pellets. In 10 minutes, the temp barely hit 100! She had no solutions and said someone would contact me Monday to discuss.
My gut tells me I have a bad controller. We shall see.
Either way, I am patient and willing to let Weber resolve these issues. Overall, I like the smoker and it is well built, despite the technical issues. I figure the faulty parts can be replaced.

My gut reaction to your statement is that the glow plug isn't in the right spot in the fire pot. As in, under the ash grate rather than through the hole in it. I could be wrong. That's just what my gut said when I read your post. Hope its something silly and not a complete pain!

 

[Sabercoug]

My gut reaction to your statement is that the glow plug isn't in the right spot in the fire pot. As in, under the ash grate rather than through the hole in it. I could be wrong. That's just what my gut said when I read your post. Hope its something silly and not a complete pain!

Glow plug is in the right place. After what I went through, I double checked everything, then checked again.

 

[Rickyjk619]

I'm going to wait before giving a rating. They sent me a complete auger assembly and the tech will be here on Tuesday to install that. Here's hoping that is the issue or it can be diagnosed further by the tech.

I’m not impressed yet. Two smokes reached wanted temps and then stopped heating. Go this money I would expect better.

 

[Rickyjk619]

My gut reaction to your statement is that the glow plug isn't in the right spot in the fire pot. As in, under the ash grate rather than through the hole in it. I could be wrong. That's just what my gut said when I read your post. Hope its something silly and not a complete pain!

I have the same issue. Keeps dropping the temperature. We will see what kind of company Weber is. Not impressed yet. Good luck!!!