It took about 1 hour to assemble. It is very well built. Much sturdier than my old treger. Ran the update using my wife's Samsung 10s, it would not work on my 5s. I set the temp for 600 and started the unit. It said it was 70 degrees outside temp was 60 with a slight breeze. It started smoking went to 75 and then just sat there. So I did a shut down which takes 15 min. Restarted the unit and it started climbing and went to 540 quickly then slowed way down, went to 570 and staid for about 10 minutes then jumped to 600 and saido it reached its temp. I was using treger hickory pellets. The ex6 gets very hot on the front.
Received my ex6 today
- Thread starter MikeM
- Start date
Congrats! What do you have in mind for you first cook?
I'm going to do some baby backs today
Brian Vallotton
Active member
Let us see some pics please!
Started great but. I started at 200 for about 3 hours the were up to 160 so I decided to raise temp to 215. I opened the lid to spritz with apple juice. Temp dropped to 175 then kept heading down tried raising the temp to 225 just to see if that would kick start it. No go did a shut down and restarted it 15 long minutes later. No go so I removed the grill and ceneter bar and the flame diverted there were a few pellets in the pot but also some klinkers and the feeder was moving very slowly. Pushed the klinkers through the slots and still not feeding very much. So I turned off the power and checked the pellet bin plenty of pellets but I reached in toward the auger and a hole had for med the pellets had bridged. Using trager hickory at the moment that's what I had. Turned the switch on it yelled at me and said I didn't shut it down properly it started it's own 15min shut down. So after it was through I restarted setting to 225 it's now restarred and working fine it stopped at 190 for a long time but it's now at 225 and the ribs are back to 163 and climbing. I think they still have a few bugs.
Brian Vallotton
Active member
I have heard a good handful of people talk about feeding issues... throw something flat that has a little weight on top of the pellets? Like a big paperweight? Just thinking out loud...
FredSC
Active member
Got my EX6 yesterday. 1st cook grill steaks and seared great at 500 degrees. No issues. On clean up this morning so some flaking on the heat distributor over the fire pot of some type of smoking.
Today doing baby backs
2nd cook smoking baby ribs had cavity formed twice over the auger and pellets stop flowing into the pot. The second time I noticed the temperature dropping and went and checked the hopper and found the cavity and stirred the pellets, however the glow plug did not fire to reignite the fire as the pellets starting falling back into the pot. I'm using weber pellets I order when I order my grill. Both times I had to pull the ribs off clean out the fire pot and restart the grill. Pulled the ribs off and put in the oven to continue the cook while I got the grill going again.
Update, just found another cavity in the pellet hopper over auger, saved fire this time by stirring pellets and kept cook going. I would recommend checking pellet hopper ever 30 minutes and stir pellets over auger so pellets fall into auger. This makes the third time in this low and slow cook for baby backs.
Continually stir your pellets to make sure a cavity doesn't form. I have written to Weber on both issues.
As a engineer who has programmed control systems for the past 30 years I noticed the following.
Issues:
1) No alarm when over app or on controller when on Smoke Fire when temperature dropped below set point. this should occur at 25 degrees below minimum, this would give the user and chance to react and save the cook from having to shutdown.
2) No alarm to let you know pellets are not following up the auger
3) The glow plug doesn't try to restart the fire when the temperature drop below 50 degrees of set point. This unit holds the set point so tight when it's working, I see no reason why this is not setup to do this. You could fire the glow plug for a period of time trying to restart the fire pot, if the temperature doesn't start to rise then go into shutdown mode. There is no reason that this system should not do this.
4) No audible alarm when the timer is up over the app. No alarm when the temperature falls below the set point by 25 degrees.
Also I still would like to know if the flaking on the heat distributor over the fire pot is suppose to be flaking the coating off as shown in the Photo in my original report. Also attached is a photo of the flakes in the bottom of the grill.
FSC
Today doing baby backs
2nd cook smoking baby ribs had cavity formed twice over the auger and pellets stop flowing into the pot. The second time I noticed the temperature dropping and went and checked the hopper and found the cavity and stirred the pellets, however the glow plug did not fire to reignite the fire as the pellets starting falling back into the pot. I'm using weber pellets I order when I order my grill. Both times I had to pull the ribs off clean out the fire pot and restart the grill. Pulled the ribs off and put in the oven to continue the cook while I got the grill going again.
Update, just found another cavity in the pellet hopper over auger, saved fire this time by stirring pellets and kept cook going. I would recommend checking pellet hopper ever 30 minutes and stir pellets over auger so pellets fall into auger. This makes the third time in this low and slow cook for baby backs.
Continually stir your pellets to make sure a cavity doesn't form. I have written to Weber on both issues.
As a engineer who has programmed control systems for the past 30 years I noticed the following.
Issues:
1) No alarm when over app or on controller when on Smoke Fire when temperature dropped below set point. this should occur at 25 degrees below minimum, this would give the user and chance to react and save the cook from having to shutdown.
2) No alarm to let you know pellets are not following up the auger
3) The glow plug doesn't try to restart the fire when the temperature drop below 50 degrees of set point. This unit holds the set point so tight when it's working, I see no reason why this is not setup to do this. You could fire the glow plug for a period of time trying to restart the fire pot, if the temperature doesn't start to rise then go into shutdown mode. There is no reason that this system should not do this.
4) No audible alarm when the timer is up over the app. No alarm when the temperature falls below the set point by 25 degrees.
Also I still would like to know if the flaking on the heat distributor over the fire pot is suppose to be flaking the coating off as shown in the Photo in my original report. Also attached is a photo of the flakes in the bottom of the grill.
FSC
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Brian Vallotton
Active member
Weber should pay you for helping them to come to conclusions that many of their experts apparently did NOT! Sometimes I think I should just refuse the shipment from these guys when mine comes this week.
FredSC
Active member
I don't know that I would do that, they will get these bugs worked out. Also there maybe a safety reason they do not restart the glow plug when the temperature falls, but I don't know why off the top of my head. You do need to keep an eye on the hopper pellets to make sure a cavity doesn't form. Since I had burned maybe 30% of the full level, maybe there wasn't enough weight to have the pellets fall into the auger, but that is just speculation on my part. I think you will like it. When you first power it up, down load and update the program on the EX* before setting a temperature and running up temps, cause you have to power off and then back on . Any time you turn off do it through the menu on the control panel because there is a sequence the system goes through to safely shut down. Takes about 15 minutes.
Having to stir the pellets is a non starter. If I wanted to hang around it all day I would use charcoal and lumps of wood. The not restarting is also a problem. It appears everything does not fall through the grate and this forms a non combustible insulator around the ignitor. No restate as soon a's you clean this away it restarts. I was using Treager pellets I see your having the same bridging problems with webers pellets. I'm tryin again today I've fired it up to 350 and going to let it run for a while. We're going to try and cook a meat loaf today. Also looking at the manual my controller does not have the same choices.
DanaM
Member
DanaM
Member
Also, per suggestion from another Smokefire owner member here, consider taking the wire grid that covers the auger port. I’m not sure why it’s there other than maybe a safety thing. I’ve never seen something like that on competitors pellet grills.
Actually theit showing up on treaters so it's probably a finger safety thing. I have been running for 3 hours at 350 this morning. So far so good I put the probe on the upper rack and it's been close to 400 but it been running steady . Unit says 350.
Brian Vallotton
Active member
Appreciate the encouragement! Yes it will be worth the trouble.
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SmokeFire Photos
