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9 replies

First few cooks, some observations and a lot of questions

FM Former Member
Got my FE Friday, seasoned it and anxiously awaited Sat morning to begin my first cook. Did a modified version of Dr. Chicken's ham, couple racks of spares and a smoked cabbage.

Spent a lot of time watching some probe therms I had monitoring pit temps. On my FE, there didn't seem to be much difference betweent the 275 and 240 settings. When set at 275, 275 seemed to be an upper limit, it cycled between 220 and 275. At 240 it cycled between 215 and 260. When set at 180 it cycled between 160 and 230.

Do this info sound like normal op? (I know the cycling is, but do the upper and lower limits sound like what it should be doing?)

Will changing pellets (was using the provided traeger hickory and some traeger cherry) change the operating ranges?

Made the best spares I ever cooked and the ham was awesome.

Sunday's cook was 2 packers, 2 rolls of Jimmy Dean for breakfast and later 2 more racks of spares.
I warmed up the cooker and tossed in the sausage and packers, switched to smoke and let it go for 2 hours. Switched to 240, added the spares when the briskets got to 160. Everything was ready for dinner @ 7p.
Visually I was a bit disappointed with the lack of smokering, however the flavor, and moisture content of the brisket was excellent. Didn't wrap the briskets or have time to cooler them before company arrived but I can't wait to cook on this thing more, it rocks!!

Anything I can do to improve the smokering?

One last note-The folks at Cookshack are just as helpful and professional as I read here. Great product, great people. What a pleasure to do business with.
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R ribdogMember
First of all, I use the pellets from Fast Eddy and do not have that amount of range in cycling. while I have never used the Traeger pellets myself, I don't believe I have ever read or heard any good comments about them. The pellets that seem to get the best recommendations are Eddy's and Candy Sue's.

Second, I run my briskets, as I do with my butts, on smoke for two hours, 180 for two hours, and then 240 for the remainder. No problems with smoke ring on mine.

If you are using cherry as your smoking wood, be careful as it does tend to darken the meats more than say hickory.

Also, I don't know what temp you cooked the chicken at but I do mine now at 375 and it comes out fantastic and quick.

Welcome to the family.

John
FM Former Member
I also had a bit of trouble with the lighting sequence. I could smell the ignitor getting hot, but there didn't seem to be enough pellets in the pot to get going. I tried the method in the manual and the one posted here in the forum and neither worked. I cleaned out the pellets that were in the pot, added 1/2cup to the pot (as per the manual lighing instructions) and turned the unit on, and it lit right up.
Here in the midwest we can have high humididty so I decided to clear the hopper and auger to prevent any potential "pellet-crete" problems. The second and third times I fired up, I just waited to hear pellets coming down the chute, added the 1/2c to the pot, cycled the FE off and back on and it fired up quite reliably.

Any reason I shouldn't be lighing like this?
R ribdogMember
Well, you can't much higher humidity than down here in Florida. I have my FEC on the screened in porch and I do not clean out the pellet hopper after each cook. Maybe I am tempting fate but it has worked so far for me for six months now. I will keep a close eye on it though.

I think you will find that you will an awful lot of smoker when you are firing you smoker in this manner. If so, just give it time to clear out that initial load of smoke before loading any meats in.

John
FM Former Member
Although I don't judge a good brisket by it's smoke ring, I know of two things that could help you achieve a better smoke ring. One, put the meat in the cooker straight from the refrigerator. Second, buy a box of Tender Quick.

Sounds like you're having great results with a brand new cooker. I wouldn't sweat the smoke ring thing.

John - When I cook my chicken at that high of a temp, I get the bone marrow leaking out of the ends of the bones. It looks really bad. I can't imagine what a judge would think. Does that happen to you?

Rod

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