Good score! Man, I’ve never been a fan of Traeger since their inception lol. Everything just tasted the same, imo it would ruin a good cut.
I originally picked up the Chargriller Akorn as my first ever komado and got 8 years out of it before the parts failures were costing more than the grill was worth to replace. When I bought it, I did it because "hard core" BBQ guys swore that pellet grills dont' come anywhere near legit bbq quality. When we built the new deck we had budgeted for the new grill and the traeger "looked" like it could do absolutely everything and had all these fancy bells and whistles. but literally everything we cooked on it came out dry. flavors were fine but I couldn't get anything from a brisket, to a steak, burger, chicken, fish, or lastly pizza, to work! and the firebox sucked, it constantly woudl put itself out. the metal is so thin, it doesn't hold heat at all. the only thing on the traeger that was great was the wifi lol. I took the dog for a long walk and 1+ miles away the app was giving me temperature updates. If only their app/electronic engineers did the actual bbq design too!
People love the idea that you can have it all without the effort of more detail, but there’s no replacement for proven methods. If you want a traditional slow-smoked result, you need to use a traditional slow-smoke method.
I have a gas grill I use for steaks, prepped chicken, etc. It’s fast, covenient, I can make things taste great compared to baking, pan frying etc. But it’s not a charcoal BBQ or slow smoker - it’s just exactly what it is.
Oh yeah you’ll like that….those are like the Big Green Eggs, like we have, and everything tastes fantastic.
all true! I did a lot of research and kept finding reviews that rated the komado joe right with the egg They appear to be nearly identical and have THICK ceramic bases. I like the fire pot on the Komado Joe a bit more. It's 250lbs of ceramic! the Akorn was ceramic coated. I was able to pick that grill up and literally throw it in the back of the truck. the Komado Joe required smart physics to not risk damaging my new ceramic cooker.
The green egg was $899 but did not include a stand (+$399), or fire pot (+149), or smoke diffuser (+$149), or multi level cooking surface (+$149.) by the time you finish nickle and diming yourself you're about $2k deep on that damn thing.
The Komado Joe came complete with all of those things for $799 and as far as I can tell, physically, is the same unit with the cast iron vent on top as well which should last longer than me.
With the money we got back from returning the Traeger, I was able to get the KJ, a propane grill for my wife (his and hers) and still had money left over for the garden project we're working on. we'll be testing her robot grill tonight (I call it the Crushinator, from Futurama. She calls it Grillbot)
The Traeger could take 30-60 minutes to get to temp, and once it warmed past about 100f, there was hardly any smoke at all. even when set on super smoke. It had a max temp of 500f and was incredibly hard to get to even 400f.
The KJ gets as hot as I want it in about 30 minutes. I can moderate it down to 225 or lower for the low and slow (I hung at about 235 for yesterdays cook) or can go as high as 700+.
The Grillbot I turned it on briefly yesterday for my wife and was over 200f in about 60 seconds lol.
so this will be an awesome trade for the Traeger. high quality smoker for me and a FAST grill for her which is super important because she doesn't need/want to have to deal with charcoal and wood everytime she just wants to quickly grill up some chicken breasts/veggies, etc.
In the end, I absolutely fell in love with the big green egg when I could actually see one in the store Sunday. the accesosories, the build quality, all of it. I was ready to buy one in a heart beat, so I'm really glad that I was able to get the KJ since that left money in the budget for the propane grill for my wife. but being able to actually touch a green egg showed me just how incredibly high of quality they are compared to what I used in the past (akorn)
