I apologize if I'm being annoying. But, is it okay to leave the traeger outside as long as its got the cover on it? I'm trying to to do everything right with this thing.
Mine is outside all the time with cover. Stuff rusts out fast here, but the Traeger is holding up quite well. I don't know how it would like being buried in a snowdrift.
If you can store it in the garage, it will take less of a beating, obviously. If I had the room for a shed, I'd keep it in there, for sure.
I've been working 6 days a week lately around 60 hours a week so I haven't had the chance to play with the Traeger yet. I got it all set up and everything. Going to do the initial fire up and the chicken challenge this Saturday. Is there any tips for the initial fire up? Any words of advice?
Tip:resist the urge to keep looking at it. A full chicken is pretty reliability done in an hour and 10. Also dont get to fancy, or overthink things thats when i screw things up. Other than that there isnt much to it.
Traeger sells a blanket for the grills. You wrap the grill with it in the winter so the thing doesn't need to burn so much wood to keep the temperature up to what you set the thermostat to. donkiez' advice is good. The only times I open the grill is to baste or to check the temperature - and that's almost when the food is done. The less you open the grill, the better.
So I didn't do the Chicken Challenge first. Instead I went with a chicken bacon artichoke pizza from Papa Murphy's which was fantastic. So my hopper is still full of pellets. Can I use it again without cleaning them out?
For sure, use it again. I clean mine out a lot less than i should. You can get at least 4-5 cooks before you need a clean.
Set it on 225, leave it for 5 hours, enjoy. Lots of people do the smoke, foil, then cook again method, but I have found it to be way more work than is needed. Here is a before and after of mine
Obviously I am late to the party as you have already made the plunge, but I love my Traeger, in the summer it is pretty much the only thing I use to cook. I have the regular Texas and am very happy I have the bigger one. I am also a hunter, so I make homemade pepperoni and smoke/cook lots of meat on it at once, so having a bigger grill comes in handy. I will also do entire meals on it, meat, veggies, potatoes, etc all on at the same time. I can fill the grill up with pretty much everything I am cooking, so even when I am just cooking for me I get my use out of it. As far as good place to get pellets, Costco has the best price, but they also only have Hickory unless a dealer is in there. Freddies usually has a good deal on BBQ stuff, pellets count as an "accessory", so take advantage of those sales. Accessory wise I have the rib rack, I can get 8 rack of ribs on one half of my grill (could fit 16 racks of ribs if I had to racks). Comes in handy if you are hosting and doing a bunch of ribs, as they take up grill real estate quickly. And I just got the smoking rack for Christmas. My buddy has one, here is a pic of all the pepperoni we were able to get on the grill with it.
Oh yeah... How could I forget this, another reason to have the Big Tex Still had to take a hack saw to the head to make it fit.
I think its ok to use in the rain actually. All the electronics and pellets are covered. Main issue would be keeping the heat consistent. I use mine on the covered portion of the porch though.
Decided to scrap the ribs as I didn't get an early enough start on them. Went up to Gartner's and a got a seasoned half chicken which I'm smoking right now. Also got some New York steaks for dinner tonight. Its lightly raining. I put a couple plastic sacks over my hopper. Hoping no damage.
