A friend had this grill and made chicken thighs on it. They were to die for! I had to have one and ordered it within days. There is a learning curve in using it. I have tried salmon, chicken, pork ribs, and beef on it. Everything has been good and it is getting better the more I use it. The things to learn are the cooking and smoking times and marinating and cooking sauces. There are things that seem better if they are smoked for a while and then cooked. Of course, timing is the key. It did come with a cook book and this has been a great help.
Unlike normal BBQ grills, there are some things that can be cooked with sauce on them. As the temperatures are lower than traditional grills, the sauce normally doesn't burn.
The grill itself is very well made. Assembly is straight forward and it is very sturdy. I would buy it again and recommend it without reservation.
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If you want a smoker that is convenient, affordable, and not too big, then the junior is for you. You will get the same results as the larger more expensive pellet grills but in a much smaller size. The junior is large enough to smoke a whole turkey, fit a large pizza (take and bake pizzas come out amazing!!!), or anything you can think of.
The only drawback to the junior over its larger brothers is the size of the pellet hopper. The hopper is intentionally smaller than it needs to be, probably as an incentive to buy a larger more expensive Traeger. You can expect six hours or so of smoke time before having to add more pellets. It is not too difficult to extend the hopper using sheet metal from the local hardware store (thin gauge from the project center for $12). With that done I can smoke for 16 hours without refilling the hopper, set it and forget it!
As a smoker the junior excels, everything comes out amazing. As a grill, the junior works very well but it takes longer than a propane or charcoal grill. Cooking burgers for example can take 30 minutes or more, but they are fantastic, like nothing you have ever had! I use my junior almost everyday. Sometimes several times a day. It will make the best baked potato you have ever had. Try an apple pie, corn bread, smoked salmon, vegetables, jerky, anything you can imagine. Just read and follow the simple directions, and the included cookbook is a nice surprise.
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UPDATE:
We've used the Jr for a couple of months now. We've gone through 2 bags of pellets. In order to use the Traeger, we had to replace the switch with a custom on/off/fan only configuration. This allows you to switch to fan for the last 10 minute cool down/burn out. We got the idea from another commenter that claimed the bigger Traegers have this system. This puts the fan on the pot so that any unburned pellets finish burning, turn to ash, and blow away from the auger. This keeps it from burning backward into the hopper.
I'm giving this a 1 star because Traeger should be ashamed of themselves for not including this configuration in the first place. Otherwise you are almost guaranteed a backburn into the hopper if you cook for an hour and then turn it off. Yep, that happened again as my son didn't realize you had to turn to fan and as the backburn starts, you can't stop it easily. We really hate this BBQ.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
We got one from a local store about a month ago. Since then we cook about 2-3 times a week on it: whole chicken (small), steak, baked potato, chicken breast, hamburger, asparagus, skewer-less kabob, etc. I would return the darn thing if the food didn't turn out sooo good.
Now for the bad bits. The hopper is constantly hanging up the pellets so that if you don't check the hopper every 10 minutes (and keep it filled to the top), your food stops cooking. We think this is a serious design flaw. I don't know how people are expected to smoke up to 10 hours on the thing.
The second problem is that the fire pot is so small that you end up plugging it up causing the pellets to catch on fire inside the auger. So we have to vacuum it out every single time after we use it (after it has cooled). This is a serious "hands on" grill. After 10 years with my $89 crappy Charbroil that required cleaning 1 time a year, it's a bit of a let down.
The third problem is that the pellets are expensive ($12-$19 per bag depending on where you get them) and we go through a bag in about a month. Before, I purchased $9 of gas for most of a whole year (we grill year round).
The fourth problem is that actual start up time is pretty long. You have to set it to smoke for 4 minutes and then set to high for 10 minutes to get it hot. If there is a feed problem, you have to wait to cool (10 minutes?), clean it, then start the process again. We've had this issue 2 out of 10 times so far with food on the grill not finished. You avoid this by vacuuming the darn thing each and every time.
Honest reviews on Traeger Junior Pellet Grill
It works very well. I did have trouble with the igniter but Traeger sent a replacement overnight. Everything I cooked so far has turned out to be delicious. The best baby-back ribs I have ever eaten.
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When it works its great, unfortunately it's unreliable and fails as often as it works. Three out of eight times I used it the combustion unit failed to light the pellets but the hooper kept feeding the pellets resulting in unlit pellets overflowing into the body of the unit.
Traeger support was helpful, but the advise was always the same turn off the unit, empty the hooper combustion chamber, restart the unit and cook as normal this is a messy task.
There's nothing worse than returning home to uncooked ribs due to the unit failing. Like I said it's great when it works, but it's completely unreliable.
