Traeger Bottom Feeding Burn Pot

So here it is. The Traeger bottom feeding burn pot. I am really excited to try this baby out. If it would have shown up a week earlier, we had a spell of fifty degree weather, it would have had a fire in it. As it was, it was mid eighties and I just didn't feel like starting a fire.

Here are a few more images of it:

You can see here the air hole configuration. They no longer have air holes around the bottom of the burn pot and where the corn comes in you can see is obviously no longer in the middle of the burn pot. The other thing that is important to note, the seam for the inner chamber is no longer directly across from where the corn comes in. I think that will be an important detail when it comes to the life span of these pots. Directly across from the corn inlet, on the old pots anyway, is an area of very intense heat. I always thought having the inner welded seam in that spot seemed like a bad idea. That was always the first spots in the old pots that the welds seemed to crack and let go.

Also, one other thing that seems to be a little different from the old pots is that the stainless seems to be scored or something. You can actually see it in this picture. See the vertical lines down next to the corn entry hole. The old pots didn't have those, they were perfectly smooth inside. Now, I don't know if this is just because it is an early production unit, close to a prototype. Maybe once this goes into production it will be built differently, or maybe there is some advantage to building them this way and it is the wave of the future.

Here you can really see where the corn is coming in. It is way down at the bottom compared to the old pots. From the outside, it is almost like they took the old design and turned it upside down.

Also you can see now that the went to a different structure on the holder for the bottom slide door. My old burn pot had a stainless channel that formed right in with the burn pot above. Now, it is more like a hunk of angle iron that was welded on the side. Again, I don't know if this is because it is an early production unit.

I have had this pot sitting here for a couple of months and I am just now getting around to writting. Life is just so busy sometimes. I did one day get a fire in this burn pot. ...and it went poorly. Not because of any fault of Traeger's though. It was really pretty funny, in hindsight, that is, and, I shot video of it. If I get some time I will go ahead and post it just so you can get to see me being a dumb ass. Basically what happened was the boiler really needed cleaning. I mean, it REALLY needed cleaning. But what was happening was the outside temps were hovering in the low sixties during the days, and drop into the 40s at night. But, clear and sunny almost every day. I hadn't given the boiler it's spring cleaning. It was still dirty from the winters burning where I had run alot of corn through it since the last time I cleaned up the flues. They needed to be cleaned. ...but, every few days we would get a cloudy day, and I would have to run it. So, I didn't want to do all the work of the spring cleaning, then two weeks later when it did finally turn warm, have to clean it again. So, I put it off and put it off. Then, this pot shows up and I just had to run it. ....but, because it was a warmer day, with less draft because of the heat, and being nearly plugged with fly ash, the draft was almost totally gone. The results were pretty smokey. I got the fire out after a few minutes of me saying on video, ....jeeze sure is a lot of smoke commin' outta there...."

So I am sorry to my Traeger readers. I don't really have a report for you. You will have to wait for the first cool day this fall, when I can light a proper fire. I do offer this as a beacon of hope. I live in Wisconsin. The first cool day of the fall could be next Tuesday.

--ja