Louisiana Grills series 7 pellet smoker - Anybody own one ?

[02ebz06]

I'm thinking of buying one, and was wondering if those that have one could answer a couple of questions.

1) After owning for a while what are your impression, good or bad ?

2) How do you clean the ash out of the burn pot ? Is there a mechanism to open the bottom and ash drops in a cup, or do you vacuum it out?

3) Do you know how accessible the igniter rod is for replacement? Igniter rods do and will fail at some point .

TIA

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

I'm thinking of buying one, and was wondering if those that have one could answer a couple of questions.

1) After owning for a while what are your impression, good or bad ?

2) How do you clean the ash out of the burn pot ? Is there a mechanism to open the bottom and ash drops in a cup, or do you vacuum it out?

3) Do you know how accessible the igniter rod is for replacement? Igniter rods do and will fail at some point .

TIA

I have owned one since they first came out. I replaced it over an electric smoker that had died.
Overall I am very happy with it. It has a large hopper that holds a huge amount of pellets and I can run it all night without failing on me.

There is not very much ash produced but I get a shop vac and clean it out about every three or four cooks. It's easy to do.

Everything you would need to replace is on the bottom and only needs a Phillips screwdriver to remove. I had to replace the controller after the screen went out and replaced it with a PID controller. It was not very hard to do.

I have also had to clean out the auger a couple times since I leave pellets in the hopper and moisture has had them freeze in place. It took a while the first time but now it only takes about 5 minutes since I know how to do it.

I have had it for about 5 years now and have smoked more things on it than I can count. Would I buy it again? Definitely.

 

[02ebz06]

Thank you so much for the detailed information Chris.
I was curious about ash build up in the burn pot. I guess you just vacuum it out.

Recently on my CampChef vertical smoker an issue where it never got up to set temp.
Turned out to be ash accumulation in the burn pot.
It has a cleanout where you pull a rod, and the ash dumps down into a cup.
Which I do after every cook.
The last time however, a lot if apparently did not drop into the cup and caused the problem.

P.S. The cooks look great.

That after market controller you added, was that your post I saw about that where you put the Smoke Daddy controller in the hopper?
Pretty ingenious!

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

OK here is the ugly after two smokes or around 15 hours of smoking. Most of the ash ends up out of the cup and sits at the bottom of the smoker. I guess it's lucky I have not cleaned it out yet. I need more glass cleaner before I do a clean out. This is with the damper removed which stops the ash from going everywhere. I just took these pictures.

If you do purchase this smoker the first thing I would do it toss the water tray it comes with and use two large aluminum trays like in the photo in the post above. I usually put in a gallon of water and it stabilizes the temperature in the smoker way better than the one it comes with.

EDIT: Yes I was the one that installed the Smoke Daddy PID controller.

 

[02ebz06]

Thanks for tip on the water tray.
The biggest obstacle will be convincing SWMBO to let me buy one.
Especially since I already have an Lone Star Grillz 20x42 pellet grill on order.

 

[02ebz06]

I have a Savannah Stoker PID in my CampChef now.
Not sure it it would work in the LG if I had to (or wanted to) replace the controller.

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

I have a Savannah Stoker PID in my CampChef now.
Not sure it it would work in the LG if I had (or wanted) to replace the controller.

I looked up a couple pictures of that controller and it looks like the wiring and electric clips are the same as the Smoke Daddy. Here is a link to the PID install on my site.

 

[02ebz06]

Nice job documenting the retrofit.