Pre-Paleolithic era Treager?

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SmilinNSmokin

Fire Starter
Original poster
Nov 23, 2023
52
29
After almost burning my cold smokehouse down by using it to cook, I remembered that a friend of mine about 90 mins a way upgraded his old Treager and offered the Treager to me 6 months ago. Back in the summer when he offered it to me, my wife told me no that I could not have it, that I already had a smoker. I told him to hold onto it, and I would try to convince her, which did not happen until last month when I almost burned my Smokehouse down.

So I went and picked it up two weeks ago, and he did tell me it was still working. However, the auger shaft was completely plugged with old moistened and then hardened old pellets due to being outside for so long in the cold elements. So I deconstructed it to get to the auger to see if I could remove the old pellets. Mind you, I have no experience in anything of the sort, but I was successful and after loosening the motor and getting access to the auger shaft, I quickly unplugged it and now it seems to be working fine.

I have no idea how old the Treager is, but I do have a model number inside that says BBQ 075, and it only has a low, medium, and high temperature setting. There are no dials to control temperatures other than that. It seems to be working as it was pushing the old pellets through, and I saw it generating heat and smoke from the pellets.

This afternoon I’m planning on running a small batch of pellets through it just to get all the old pellets out and put new pellets through. Then this week I’m going to do a thorough cleaning inside and out to remove rust, grease, ash, etc., and may even put the heat resistant paint that I bought last week on the outside.

I have no idea if it will cook anything decently, but while I’m trying to decide on what to do next with either an offset smoker or a new pellet grill, I’m gonna give this thing a ride!
 

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Play with it and see where the grate temps run. I’m not so sure that you can’t upgrade the electronics so a call to Treagar might be a smart move.
 
Here's some reading material:

 
Here's some reading material:

Thank you. I looked at that manual as well as a couple other manuals that say BBQ 075, and even though there’s a sticker inside the hopper of my Treager that says BBQ 075, it doesn’t look like the one I have is the same model as the ones pictured in the manuals I see on the website. I looked at several models and they all have a dial on the front. Mine only has a switch on the end of the hopper.

After clearing out the auger, I put fresh pellets in and they moved through the auger fine. I also noticed a slight smoke coming from the heating element in the fire chamber inside the grill. The very little smoke or heat output whatsoever. I even went so far as to put a handful of fresh pellets in the burner cup, and hit it with a torch and it burn for 25 minutes, all the auger put new pellets in, and the metal on the outside of the smoker was cold to the touch. I don’t think I ever got it over 100° inside, except for when I , use my torch initially.

I am thinking there might be issues with the heating element, because I let it go for four hours, and when I opened up the grill, there was a ton of smoke that came pouring out, the pellets were orange with some ash, but it felt like a cold smoker inside the grill. Just wasn’t getting hot inside whatsoever. :(
 
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