I bought a Traeger PTG last September as a presumed step-up from the Weber Jumbo Joe; it was very difficult to smoke anything in the Joe although it was fine as a grill, and a WSM couldn't be crammed in anywhere. Since we were making a permanent move to another home base we had to leave the big BGE, Weber Performer and various other cookers in storage until we could retrieve them and just go with what we could carry.
We use a grill just about every day and a smoker about once a week. I've cooked with ice on the ground, snow falling and of course rain and wind and 100F+ temperatures. The DW supervises from indoors. LOL
The PTG purports to be a one-stop small replacement for the grill and smoker. The useful cooking area is about 9x12.
I found a spot in a bay it would fit with no problem. It's a bit difficult to lift it in and out since it's about 40 pounds. Those bags of pellets take up a lot of space and weight too. Since we were backroading it from Northeast Georgia to Texas via South Louisiana we figured we weren't going to find pellets at any store we might come across so loaded up from Traeger via mailorder.
BTW, and this is IMPORTANT, the Traeger PTG sold by dealers on Amazon is NOT covered by Traeger's warranty, so buy direct from Traeger; it's the same price anyway.
The first test run showed a couple of difficulties that would need to be dealt with. The stock controller has a few settings but doesn't give a clue what the target temperature is or what the actual temperature at the grate is. I've observed the thermometer in the lid to be as much as 80F different from the grate temperature. The way this thing works is that the auger dumps pellets into the firepot and the length of time the auger runs determines how hot it is; ie, 10 seconds out of 60 gives so much heat and 15 seconds out of 60 gives more heat etc.
I rigged up my pit probe and found temperature swings of up to 150F at the low settings! Full speed got around 400F with small swings.
I learned that Traeger had recently released a digital controller so decided to give that a try. Installation was easy. The digital controller has a sensor inside the cooker and a digital readout so the actual temperature can be seen. It runs the auger continuously until the set temperature is reached, then goes into "keep the fire lit" mode, then on and off as needed. The digital controller does far better than the stock although the temperatures printed for each setting are often far different than what's actually obtained.
OK, that problem solved. The second is that getting the usual sear marks when grilling with the stock grate is just about impossible and nobody likes grey steak. A set of GrillGrates solved that problem.
A third problem is that the auger will empty out the pellets in the middle of the bin creating a hole but the rest of the pellets won't fall in. The pellets aren't sticky but the slope isn't enough for them to overcome friction and fall. The only solution to that is to routinely push pellets toward the middle or refill the hopper. You can't just set it and go off for hours.
We used the PTG almost every day for three months and cooking results were mixed. At low'n'slow cooking temperatures of around 225F to 250F things were rather quickly oversmoked which isn't surprising given the billowing clouds of white smoke. The solution of course is to foil the meat when it's the desired color but of course foiling can change the texture of the meat and I usually don't like to do it. It worked out better at a higher cooking temperature of around 325F I think because it's a cleaner fire with less smoldering, and there was pretty much no smoke flavor or color at the High setting. I think the oversmoking with the PTG is because it's so small compared to the other Traeger pits.
So as with any pit there's a learning curve getting used to the way the pit wants to cook. At the end of three months I could get pretty much the results we wanted but since we had arrived our homebase we immediately bought a 22" WSM and a big grill and the PTG went back in its bay. Do I recommend it? Not particularly, but I don't strongly say to avoid it either.
-jbh-
