Traeger Lil Tex Review

I have had my Traeger Lil Tex BBQ Smoker for about two months now so I thought I would do a quick review of their product.

I managed to get mine as a demo so I did manage to get a better price than the new $1199.00 but that being said I would have no problem paying that for a grill of this quality.

As it was already assembled I can't first hand tell you about that but after reading the instructions and talking to the guy who did do the assembly it seems pretty easy.

The Traeger burns wood pellets at about $20.0 for a 20 lb bag and they are available in 10 different verities of wood flavours. I usually have about 4 different ones on hand so I have a choice depending on the meat. As far as I can tell you will be spending about the same for pellets as for propane but I have done no scientific study to back this up only my observations as to how long a bag of pellets last compared to a tank of propane.
When I was originally shopping for a smoker I found that most only let you smoke the Traeger allows you to also use it as a BBQ for this reason I wanted one of the Lil Tex models as the junior does not give enough head room to the cover to do a chicken or good size roast comfortably.

PROS.

• I find the unit easy to clean if you cover the catch plate with foil almost all of the grease ends up in the catch bucket.

• The model I have (the Elite) is controllable in 25 degree increments from smoke to 450 degrees. the standard model only has three positions but it looks like you can up grade it.

• The food does taste great with a nice smokey flavor even when not doing a smoked meal, I find this flavor lacking on the propane grill.

CONS

• it does take some time to get the grill up to temperature (about 10 minutes) so you you want to just plop a burger on and be eating in 5 minutes stay with a propane.

• when you run out of pellets i find that I have to clean out the fire box to get it to relight, or else you end up with a BBQ full of pellets.

All in all if I had my choice of buying a comparably priced Propane grill and the Traeger and could only have one it would be the Traeger. As I do have both I do find that I use the Traeger  more usually do to the family asking me to.

Here are links to the Canada site http://www.traegercanada.com/
Traeger USA http://www.traegergrills.com/