Pellet smoker / pit boss

[Rob Luter]

I gave up on anything that needs electrons to work. I had a Masterbuilt cabinet smoker that worked great, until it didn’t. The temp controls shorted out internally not long after the warranty lapsed. A new control was almost the same as a new smoker. I’ve used a Weber kettle for 35 years and got a Green Egg about 5 years ago. Between the two I can cook or smoke almost anything.

[Scott Winners]

One significant advantage to pellet smokers is some jurisdictions with very high fire danger allow them to be used most of the time. I have a cousin in San Diego, where the fire season is 11 months per year. He can do amazing things with a gas smoker because he simply had to learn how to do it to get good BBQ, but he got a midrange pellet smoker a couple years ago and he loves it. I think he is not supposed to run it in red flag conditions, but he is good to cook in green, yellow, orange and who knows what else.

The draw back to me is fuel cost and variety. I brought some coffee branches home from Hawaii once. I am not going to tell you it was the best food ever, but it was pretty good, it was different, and all I had to do was throw the branches on burning charcoal in my Weber. I got a lilac bush growing in the front yard that gives excellent flavor to lamb, supposed to be real similar flavor to Mediteranean Oak. My cross the street neighbor's lilac bush isn't worth a hoot for cooking on, when you get some lilac just cook up a sliced potato first before you commit to meat.

[Michael J Evans]

Well I did some actual timing today (not to 500 yet) and here is my times for getting up to 225 smoking temp
3:42 to get first puff of smoke
6:47 to get initial smoke / burn off (get to clear blue smoke)
27:54 to get up to 225, measured with two different proves.
So Basically 30 minutes to get up to smoking temp.
I'm currently smoking a chicken and when it's done will time it to 500.

[John M Wilson]

I did some timing yesterday when cooking some burgers:

Time to ignition: 4 minutes
Time to 225: 8 minutes
Time to 500: 18 minutes

This was on my Traeger Ironwood 650, with the lid closed the entire time to 500 degrees. Since the times are very similar to my Son-in-Law's Pit Boss, I think you have something going on with yours that is not normal.

[Dwayne Watt]

Thanks John
I need to time mine to make sure I'm not over exaggerating, but tonight was another night of frustration with it. Tried to have the wife turn it on while I was at work, she couldn't get it to ignite.
Came home and spent another 30 mins trying to get it to ignite. Finally removed the auger and went through the prime process again which took about 15 minutes to get smoking. Getting up to temp didn't take to long after I finally got it going.
Thinking hard about returning it, but I would have to rent a trailer to return it and WalMart (in one piece) would not give me a yes or no since it's used. I don't have the box since I literally cut it up as soon as I got done building it. The Walmart associate just said "yea I think, well I'm not really sure and I can't get anyone to help you. So yea maybe, just bring it and and we'll see" I told them I'd either have to rent a trailer or disassemble and she just said bring it in with all the parts and I think it'll be okay... 樂

Give customer service a call at Danson / PitBoss. They will probably have you take it back to Walmart after going through some troubleshooting, but can give you good insight on the function of this grill. I have a vertical smoker that had some electrical problems and they were very accommodating. For pure smoke cooking, I am sold on the vertical units.