Treager troubles

[starrider]

Does anyone else have trouble maintaining temps on their Treager? My Lil Tex creeps up on me. Yes, I keep the fire pot clean and ashes vacuumed. When I smoked my bacon last weekend, I kept the controller set to "smoke" which is supposed to maintain at 160 degrees. It did that for the first hour, then began a slow climb to 190 by the end of the second hour, bringing my bacon to an internal temp of 150 a full hour quicker than I planned. I started my smoke in the evening when it was in the low 70s so weather wouldn't be a factor. Any ideas?

 

[iebbqman]

the smoker setting on the Treagar is too high for cold smoking.  Depending on where you exactly live you would need to either buy a cold smoker attachment that treagar sells (large area but not overly impressed by it).  Or you can find cold smoker grates that you put your pellets in and light them.  

I personally have a cold smoker tray I place on the left side of my grill and it is filled with wood pellets.  I light one end and it slowly burns until it is all burned out.  If it is warm in your area, I recommend getting a disposable bread pan and filling it with ice.  This will help keep the temperature down enough to ensure that your are not cooking your smoked meat or cheeses.  Cold smoking is ideally done under 100 degrees.  

Do a yahoo/Google search on cold smoking equipment on a pellet grill.  I have not used a smoke daddy, but I have used A-maze-N cold smoker.  

 

[mleffler1787]

I spent an hour on the phone with treager & was told that on the "smoke" setting the temp can be anywhere from 160 to 200!!!!!

It's pretty frustrating!

 

[iebbqman]

Recommend you either upgrade to the digital temp control which is very nice. Or better yet go with a savannah stoker, The savannah will give you the ability to control your temp in single digit increments. It is plug and play and I am gonna be replacing all my controllers to them.

 

[swalker]

I spent an hour on the phone with treager & was told that on the "smoke" setting the temp can be anywhere from 160 to 200!!!!!

It's pretty frustrating!

I bought the Ortech controller for my Lil Tex. I love it... It has a knob you turn for setting the P settings. Once I learned the higher the P setting the lower the temperature ( In Smoke Mode) I was happy with this controller. I was use to lighting the treager then setting it on 250 degrees or so for ribs, etc. It was cooking them too fast and not producing much smoke... Now leaving it on the smoke setting and setting the P setting one 1 or 2 is working like it should...Temps will range from 165 to 180 degrees or so and this allows slow smoking, like I want... I understand on the Treager digital controller, you have to push a button inside a hole with a paper clip or something. The factory setting I believe is P2. Try an Ortech controller, you will once again love your Treager... It is by far the best smoker I have ever had...

 

[talan64]

You can adjust the P setting on most Treager controllers (find instruction on the internet), but from the factory it is set to optimize temp @ 225.

This time of year, my Treager set on "smoke" will hold somewhere in the 170 - 180 range. During summer, if I leave it in the direct sun, smoke gets me 190 - 200.  But pretty much any time of the year when I set to 225, is will hold 225 - 235, but averaging in the high 220's.

I bought an A-Maze-N saw dust tray to cold smoke, and/or just add extra smoke to my Treager.  I've used it for cheese with excellent results, and this weekend will be using it to cold smoke some bacon (will post results later).