Pellet Fan
Get Started Here => If you want to introduce yourself... => Topic started by: Chris__M on May 16, 2021, 09:01:10 AM
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Thought I would reintroduce myself, as before today, my last post was in 2018.
I went through a couple of years of not really doing much with BBQ for multiple reasons - partly illness (I'm fine now), partly apathy. My trusty Traeger had give up on it's controller - I fashioned a relay and timer mechanism to control the auger for routine cooks, but nothing exciting.
Anyway, I finally pulled the trigger on a grill to replace it - a Louisiana Grills Legacy 1200. I didn't actually intend to buy this, but the grill I had bought was no longer available, so I ended up with this.
So I can see me getting to experimenting again!
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Nice to see you back Chris. I always enjoy the perspective of international members!
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Glad to have back with us! I've often wondered what happened to you because I always enjoy reading your posts.
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I am assuming Lincolnshire has 300 to 325 sunny days a year? :pig:
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Yes, welcome back, and glad to hear that you're "okay" now. I, too, have enjoyed your perspective on sauces, stuffing and such.
Your most recent posts have me jonsin' for a Louisiana Grills Founders Series Premier 1200. You probably didn't do me a favor, there.
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Have a pleasant return Chris! We all need a break of sorts @ some point in time.
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Glad to have back with us! I've often wondered what happened to you because I always enjoy reading your posts.
It really didn't seem that long ago, but it is. A mixture of things - in 2017 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and the following year I was in hospital with cellulitis. Then my blood pressure became an issue. :o
After that, I was actually mostly ok, but each time I felt I was really recovered, something else would knock me back, like a death of a thousand cuts. Nothing really serious, but just enough to keep me tired, and not active with interests.
Anyway, last year we got my medication sorted, and I looked out at my garden and it was a mess. So I started sorting that out, and then COVID happened! Can't catch a break! :D
But I started cooking properly, rather than living off convenience food; and did some BBQ on my old Traeger, running on self-built timer/controller. I've also been making bread a lot, and at Christmas bought myself a home flour mill, which has been fun.
Oh, and I got a dog, a 7 year old beagle called Katie, who makes sure I go out walking every day.
The grill is part of a plan for my kitchen, which is small and lacking in storage. I already do a lot of routine cooking with a Ninja Foodi Multicooker (Pressure Cooker/Slow Cooker/Air Frier), and realised I hadn't used my kitchen's gas oven/hob for over a year. So I am actually getting rid of it, which gives me more cupboard and more top space. I can do almost all of my daily regular cooking in the Foodi, or other counter devices I have (my microwave is also a small combi oven. For the rare times I need a big oven, I can use the Legacy 1200 - so it will be both a grill and an oven for me. It won't make my little kitchen too hot, as well. Plus, with temperatures up to 600°F, I reckon it should be a good bread oven as well.
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I got my wife a Ninja Foodi for her birthday a couple of years ago and she was very apprehensive about it and somewhat overwhelmed by everything it could do. Now we use it three times a week give or take and she loves it for the simplicity and ease of everything for something quick. And we need pictures of Katie please.
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I started off with an Ninja Air Fryer, and then I got an Instant Pot.
I then wanted to buy a friend a present, went to get her an Air Fryer, but they were all out of stock at the time. But they did have this all-singing all dancing Ninja Foodi. My friend was scared of it at first, but then she started using it for everything. Then other friends started buying them, and they started a small friends-only FB group for Ninja users.
I started it all, and yet I felt left out. So I gave my Instant Pot to a neighbour who could use it, and bought the Foodi. Like you, I use it 3-4 times a week.
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Meanwhile, here is Katie. My groomer is very good at taking pictures of the dogs she does, and Katie looks so innocent here. Don't be fooled.
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/xkt2qpk9ssru8pm/katie.jpg?raw=1)
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And more normally her...
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/aqj3wgyv39s303f/katie%20-%20birthday.jpg?raw=1)
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Looking guilty of some crime about to happen... I should tell my wife about the Facebook group to see if she can find one around here. She just got back on there for some reason. I have never partaken.
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Glad you are back and great looking dog as well.
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Another interesting thing that has happened since I was last here is that Pellet Grill availability in the UK has grown.
Still a rarity, compared to charcoal and gas, but no longer "what the heck is a pellet grill?" I have a couple of friends who have them now, and a cafe in town with things like pulled pork sandwiches and wurst and similar on the menu has moved from buying in product to smoking their own on a Traeger.
I'm aware of a couple of garden centres who now have at least one pellet grill in their BBQ range, and John Lewis, a nationwide chain of high-end department stores, has 3 different Traegers on their online store (I haven't seen one in store yet, but I don't go there a lot).
Brands we are seeing here include Traeger, GMG, Louisiana/PitBoss, Big Horn, and Weber; and Cookshack and Fast Eddy's on the more commercial side. I am sure there are more that I have forgotten.
I think some of the acceptance of pellet grills has come via the Ooni Pizza Oven, which has become quite popular (and affordable) here. From there, a full pellet grill is not a huge leap.
Sadly, pellet costs have not got any cheaper - in fact, the average cost has gone up, as the supply of super-cheap "Lil Devils" appear to have dried up here. Very sad at that, as I'd quite got to like them - in fact, I was cooking with one of my last bags on Saturday.
Very roughly, we are paying £18 ($25) for 20lb of pellets, which I think is about double the cost in the US. Even so, it is still cheaper than cooking on gas.
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Drifting off into pellets. The prices you list are comparable to Canadian cooking pellets . @ ~ $ 25/ 20 lbs. I don't use them. Much too costly for what they are. I use heating pellets where the sawdust
sourced to manufacture them is known as well as the wood species, and that is: Maple, Oak, Cherry, Hickory and some Walnut. The mills that generate the sawdust are either lumber or furniture. The pellet
mills either are part of the process or acquire the sawdust.
The cost has gone up. It's now $6.50/40 Lbs.
Not sure about the UK. However Germany is heavy into wood pellet use. Heating pellets may be an option depending on pricing, and most important, verifiable content..
BTW, I have been using heating pellets exclusively for 8 + years. The only issue is the 40 Lb bags are heavy.
Oh yes - When Joe Traeger started with the first wood pellet pits, "food grade pellets" didn't exist. As I have always said. Traeger could give their pits away and still be very profitable if their pellets were used
exclusively. They tried.
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Yes, heating pellets are also cheaper here - the company who used to import Lil Devils is actually a heating pellet company (amongst other things).
I'm aware of the arguments for and against but haven't wanted to try it, as (a) it is completely outside my area of knowledge (b) as you say, the UK heating pellet market may not be the same as the US.
(Addendum: A quick check of what the company I know produce tells me it is a mixture of spruce and pine. So definitely not suitable. But other pellets may vary.)
As it happens, a friend is having my old Traeger as a rebuild project - it is missing its controller. After a couple of attempts to write PID code, I fashioned a usable timer controller that has worked well for a couple of years, but Dave will probably go the way of a Raspberry Pi. This happens to be his area of expertise, and - by coincidence - his home heating system uses pellets. So I am fairly sure he will be looking into exactly what his heating pellets are, and whether they would be suitable.
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Nice to have you back in the mix!
Begs the question, is there a Hardwood lumber industry in Britain? Is all furniture imported or is there still some lumber related industries?
Sadly, pellet costs have not got any cheaper - in fact, the average cost has gone up, as the supply of super-cheap "Lil Devils" appear to have dried up here. Very sad at that, as I'd quite got to like them - in fact, I was cooking with one of my last bags on Saturday.
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There certainly used to be, because my late dad worked in the furniture industry! :D
Probably the more popular "named" woods for furniture generally in the UK are Pine and Oak. Certainly used to be British Oak, but not sure these days - I think the higher end furniture uses domestic wood, but there is a lot imported too.
But other popular woods - mahogany, teak and sapele - are more tropical and would have definitely been imported.
Note that the majority of wood pellets are imported from the States. I know, it sounds ridiculous. There used to be a small company turning out bags of nothing but oak pellets, but they disappeared after a couple of years.
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Speaking of pellets (and I will start posting in the proper place soon, I promise...) anyone use CookinPellets? Specifically their "Perfect Mix"?
Amazon are currently doing them at £33.52 ($47) for a 40lb bag, with free Prime delivery. Which doesn't sound bad at all.
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Speaking of pellets (and I will start posting in the proper place soon, I promise...) anyone use CookinPellets? Specifically their "Perfect Mix"?
I think they're appropriately named, "Perfect".
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Speaking of pellets (and I will start posting in the proper place soon, I promise...) anyone use CookinPellets? Specifically their "Perfect Mix"?
I think they're appropriately named, "Perfect".
Right. I may get a bag, then, to try. Although I won't be doing any cooking in the next week or so.
Getting this grill has been a challenge with dealing with a company (who shall remain nameless) with staff shortages due to illness. That is not their fault, and I had sympathy at first. But they repeatedly gave delivery promises that they then missed, over 3 weeks, with me doing all the calling.
Then the day before my deadine "my grill or my money back", they actually opened my grill - a Premier 1200 - to assemble it - despite having told me twice before that they had already done so. They found that it was damaged, which is why I ended up with the Legacy 1200 instead.
I live alone, and am now in my early 60s, which is why I went for the "assemble before delivery" option. I did the first cook with the grill by my kitchen door, and was very happy. Yesterday, I went to move it down to the bottom of my garden where the BBQ kit lives (paved all the way).
A wheel fell off - bolts were found along the path, apparently not tightened enough.
So now it is pushed against a garden bench, to stop it tumbling over, and - having paid for assembly - I now need to wait a week or two for a friend to come over and help me tip it up to fix the wheel. (The same friend who is having the Traeger.)
It could easily suck the joy out of a new bit of kit, but I'm trying not to let it get me down. I know I have a bargain with this thing, so I am just looking forward to being able to cook on it again.
At least I got that first cook in.
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Always good to have a Grateful attitude! You would be very pleased with The Prefect Mix!
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I've only been able to get one bag of Hickory CookinPellets and Slaga was kind enough to give it to me at the price he paid for it. I like the B&B and Pit Boss I can easily get around here but the CookinPellets were far superior in my opinion at least. I just wish they had mesquite but it's very hard on equipment according to their representative on here.
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I've ordered a bag of them to try, because the price is relatively good.
I've also discovered a UK pellet manufacturer (Exstream) selling on Amazon, with prices comparable to the general UK market. Have ordered a couple of bags from them, as they had Chestnut - a wood I've never tried before. So I picked up a bag of that and a bag of Cherry.
I like the idea of UK manufactured pellets, simply because they are travelling less miles. Of course, that is as long as the quality is good!
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The weather here has been terribly unreliable - some news sources have reported it is the wettest May that the UK have had on record.
But this morning was bright sunshine, so I managed to get some work on the Traeger I am giving away - a thorough deep clean. Having done that, I turned it on, and the auger wasn't working. ???
So I scooped out the pellets, got the shopvac out, and tried to see what was jamming the auger.
After an hour of scratching my head, I realised that the problem was simply that my external controller was not plugged in (the original controller broke years ago). The external timer controls a relay on the power line to the auger motor. I thought I had it wired to be on when there was no control current to the relay (i.e. it worked on full power if nothing was plugged in), but it seems I had it connected conventionally, which means the controller needed to be powered (which it is, normally - I had unplugged it to pack it up). So when I plugged that in, everything works. What a relief!
As a result, it is possible - weather permitting - that my friend may come across on Friday, when we can both take time off work. He will pick up the old Traeger, but also help me tip the new grill so we can sort the wheel problem.
I think I can see what the problem was. Here are a couple of bolts that dropped out, exactly as they were found. The bolts are not secured by nuts, but just screw into the metal. In which case that locking washer is in the wrong position and is doing exactly nothing to stop the bolt from coming out. So we will have to check all the bolts.
(Note: This is not a problem with Louisiana Grills, but with the company I paid to assemble the grill before delivery. Needless to say, they will not be getting any more business from me. Fortunately there is now more than one company in the UK doing Louisiana grills and accessories.)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/ty7m9drqqigqbao/screws.jpg?raw=1)
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Might ought to check every bolt and screw. My Traeger was put together by Traeger "technicians" and nothing was tight on it. I still think that is why I had such crazy temp swings with it. The RTD probe was loose but I had already bought the Ortech and changed it out anyway.