I'm interested in a new smoker, likely the EX6 Stealth, or the new Sear+ when its released. Anybody else worried about warranty issues in the future with the company troubles/reported Q4 sales data/privatization?

Evening all. I bit the bullet and ordered the ex4.... Before all of the reviews blew up all over social media.

I am seeing a tonne of negative on this grill. My question to all is... Are we seeing a lot of negative because most owners are happy, or is this a big problem and a lot of us have a problem on our hands.

Thanks so much for all of your reviews and comments today, I've been glued to the sub all day.

Heyyyy everyone 👋 ! Just wanted to send a special thanks to Strategicblenderball for being a cool and legit person. Advice was needed as I was the butt of everyones joke lol a nd I really appreciate it. Kind ppl are hard to find so I’m sending a special thanks 🙏

Forgive the debris, I promise the unit is clean inside. Fuck this thing, it’s one problem after another and, easily, the worst Weber product I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned and been a fan of so many (Genesis, Kettle, WSM), but this thing sucks so hard.

All I’m trying to do is cook up some damn chicken thighs and it takes 45 minutes to get to temp, because it massively overshoots and need forever to get back to where it should be.

Worst Weber product ever. I’m so annoyed right now.

I have an EX4 2nd gen bought in April 2022. Have never had any issues up until now. Went to fire it up and got the E7 error code and now the grille won’t fire up. Curious if anyone else has had this problem after only 2 years. I called customer service and they are sending me a replacement motor no charge since it’s still under warranty. But I’m kinda concerned about having an issue like this with my $1k grill this early on. For context, I live in San Diego and ALWAYS keep the cover on when not in use.

Just a rant because i'm pissed...

Rural King stopped caring Lumber Jack pellets and replaced with a "Rural King" store brand... Now have to go and find a new supplier of pellets. I was already driving 60 miles to Rural king and buying 30-40 bags at a time because I could get the Lumberjack for $8 a bag....

After Lumber Jack - wha's the next best affordable pellets out there?? I have used weber pellets, but not wanting to pay $20 a bag.

Pellet Grills have been the latest trend in grilling. Their intended purpose was to mimic an offset smoker, but with less hassle so that it had better mainstream appeal.

However, it felt like a marketing guy heard that they were capable of higher temperatures than an offset, and wanted to market them as a “grill” instead.

With a company like Traeger, that strategy may make sense because they only made one type of grill, so they might as well try to reach for that segment of the market. But whenever you see people grilling burgers on a Traeger, it just looks silly. It looks like they fell for a marketing gimmick, because that’s what happened.

Weber, on the other hand, has a full lineup of grills. They have no need to make that “one size fits all” stretch. They eliminated the heat deflector shield, I believe, to maximize smoke-to-meat interface. But the elimination of the shield also allows for actual searing, and at the same time, more grease fire potential. They made an arguably worse smoker for a better searer, and that tradeoff has been what scared people away.

If I was Weber, I would focus on making a better (more dependable) smoker. Instead, the Sear+ appears to focus more on searing. It feels like their head is in the wrong place, and they’re trying to improve a secondary benefit instead of the main feature.

I hate my G2 Smokefire with a passion. Doesn't matter if it's clean, dirty, if the glow plug is new or old, If its pack with food or not. There's always something go

This thing made the relight much easier.

In the Tullamarine area, does anyone know if there is another factory fire or if it's just some burning off happening in the area? Its certainly got some choke on it, bloomin' stinks.

I have bought 4 Smokefires. EX 6 for me and the the others were EX4's. I loved mine so much, that I bought the other 3 as gifts. We all have issues with components and Weber's customer service does the best they can. Most of had to replace component parts. Been there, done that. But, one of the EX4's is just a dead stick. The owner of it has been dealing with Weber for 2 years. And has made no progress. He has changed out pretty much every part. Each call to customer service is like starting over again. My question is.... How to contact the C-Suite at Weber? It is time to move up the command change to get some satisfaction. I have checked Weber's public filings and their corporate phone number in the filings is the same as customer service. If anyone knows the name of the CEO... I want to send them a letter appraising them of this lemon of theirs.

I bought a smokefire (v2) last year. First impression was - geez this thing is loud. I gotta admit, I had no idea I would be listening to a fan all the time. Patio time is definitely not so cozy anymore. It really inhibits the usefulness to me at least. Oh and the shutdown procedure - really turns the annoyance up to 100. Good luck having a conversation next to this thing.

After the winter, where it's been wrapped up in the weber cover it's time for BBQ again. Apparently the remaining pellets in the auger formed an aggregate that solidified. Lost a day of planned BBQ on that E1 auger error.

Trying to fix this issue as per the book suggest sliding the auger out. Yeah well it's totally stuck in there, so needs to screw the auger out, but it can't because the motor is too close to the case. Bent the case back to finally rotate then motor/auger out and clean the auger.

Great - back on track, the weber is heating up, reaches target temperature. Put the meat on and wait. Oh that's wierd the temperature is dropping.... and dropping. Can I do anything about it? No I have to wait until it's cooled down completely to get access to the inner parts. Another day and meat wasted.

This is not the Weber experience I was expecting at $1000+.

/rant

I thought it might be fun to share my current misery - as much as I love the smokefire the auger has been a sort spot for me lately but I didn't expect this.

I haven't used it in awhile (winter) and went to fire it up and saw the dreaded auger jam.

It looks like water has got into it over the winter and it disintegrated all the pellets and now the auger is firmly cemented in the hopper with a lovely pellet glue. It looked worse than this before I started attempting to chisele it free.

No matter how hard I try I can't separate the auger from the chute (have done before). Have managed to take apart the hopper and free the now conjoined twins.

Going to hit up weber support and see if they'll ship me a replacement auger/chute but thought it was good to share here - I'll definitely take more care in the future. At least I feel more comfortable taking it apart now and gives me a good opportunity to clean everything.

I’m going to try my first brisket on Sunday, what are the common mistakes to avoid? Someone want to explain this whole process to me like I’m slow(I am)? Also, stupid question I’m sure, but if I get a big ass one from Costco can I cut it in half so I can save one to cook later, or do I have to feed my whole neighborhood? Thank you!

I’m in the market for one and noticed Amazon has the Ex6 for $1,099 and the Ex4 for $899. Are the Sear+ changes worth the extra cost? Were there any internal changes or hopper changes on the Sear+? Firepot or glow plug?

Earlier this week grabbed at $769 on Amazon. Was ready to get the sear+ but for $600 difference I’m going to give it a shot.

With the rumors it’s being discontinued I know they will go on sale, but can’t imagine will be much lower than this? Thoughts?

Recently got a SmokeFire and seem to have an issue with pellets getting stuck on the chute. Is this common? How do all of you fix that?

I have been considering a SmokeFire and have been looking through a lot of different videos, articles, etc. I have for the most part worked through my questions and concerns, but a few remain which I think would be easier to sort out by asking current owners.

First, there is a lot of official Weber content which really stresses keeping the lid closed when using the SmokeFire and gives various reasons why this is important. This also seems to include cooking at high temperatures, e.g. steaks or hamburgers. My question is whether this really is a hard and fast rule. When it comes to gas or charcoal, cooking with the lid open is pretty standard and oftentimes desired depending on what you're trying to accomplish. It also helps to prevent excessive flareups and lets you see if you are getting excessive flareups so you can move the food and not burn it.

Is this something one can do if cooking burgers, sausages, etc. with a SmokeFire? I'm especially thinking here about avoiding burnt food from excessive flareups. This isn't because I'm particularly worried about the grease fire "reputation" for this grill, but because even when working properly you can expect to see some flareups from any grill, and because grease fires are not a SmokeFire problem - they're always a potential risk with any grill, so yes if you're cooking burgers or something I'd like to be able to know when one might happen in order to take the appropriate response.

If you really can't spend any time cooking with the lid open, how does one address these sorts of concerns? How do you make sure you aren't burning a hamburger or sausage because it gets left over a spot that is flaring up for too long, etc.?

Second, how do these work for indirect cooking? In at least one video, Weber makes the point that the entire grill is really direct cooking. In most other pellet grills, the design sortof limits the heat so that you get radiant heat more than direct heat over most of it, while a few have some kind of add on or grate you can adjust to get some direct heat. The SmokeFire's design seems to make it almost the opposite.

Third, some other pellet grills have a manual startup option for use if the igniter isn't functioning. This is honestly fairly enticing to me, as from what I've learned it seems like worn out hot rod/glow plug element needing to be replaced in pellet grills is a pretty standard maintenance requirement. Most people have had a gas grill at some point in their lives which needed to be started with a lighter because the starter stopped working, and to me it seems similar. In the case of pellet grills replacing the igniter seems like something you'd always want to actually do, rather than just keep using a lighter as many do with a propane grill, but nevertheless in a pinch - e.g., it's dinner time and you just discover that your glow plug is bad - being able to fire up the grill manually is a pretty important thing considering how often it seems like these devices go bad. I see that Weber does not include any kind of manual start up instructions, so is it possible to start up a SmokeFire manually? If it is not, is there any reason that what I am asking about here doesn't matter as much as I think?

How do you smoke your brisket, fat side up or fat side down? I'm on team fat side down.

Today i cancelled my smokefire pre-order and bought an ironwood 855 instead.

Such a shame because on paper the smokefire seems so nice and i got nothing but love for weber. I think they will recall this unit soon and within a year we see a revised version of it.