Stampede Issues/Disappointment with RT-590 and ReqTeq

[RipJones]

Just to throw this out there. RT was bought by an equity firm 2 years ago, thats when it was announced anyway. I have no first hand experience with the new owners or the grills built since then, but from the couple equity firm takeovers I’ve had experience with, the change of hands usually has an effect on the original product and original employees.

I’ve seen more then a couple excellent restaurants change hands and go straight down the toilet while still having all the great old reviews for folks to read and act on.

There was a thread about this. Since we live so close to RT-HQ, there were a couple of items that popped up. They needed money to grow to the next level. Personally, I think they lost some autonomy in the process. Rec-Teq owns the facility/warehouse in Evans, GA. There were some changes when the "investors" got involved. The "Dirty Gurl" line of cocktail stuff was an internal purchase previously. Rec-teq had both grills and Dirty Gurl on their website. Equity company said "Nope" -- they were investing in grills. Not on the website anymore, but still stored in THEIR warehouse. The Utah location expansion was a good use for the cash infusion. Some of Rec-Teq kind of shut-down (YouTube) and the local things. Probably the China Virus was also to blame. BUT, the people did not change, and it appears that now things are back active. The Academy is back, YouTube is back, and expanded -- Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. I'm still buying a 590. Gotta clear off some more patio space....

 

[gkal1964]

This probably won't help anybody, but I have had my RT590 for about a year now. Have not had any of the issues with the grill described here. Temperatures are scary accurate and with almost no fluctuations. I am getting plenty of smoke at low temps and my high heat cooking works great. In fact since I got the RT590 have rarely used my gas grill, WSM, or Weber kettle. In addition the app is probably the best part of the grill. It works perfect every time. I am not a Recteq fanboy nor is this a humble brag, just surprised at the issues here. I attached my cook from last night. All my cooks been this solid. BTW, fluctuations when smoking are actually a good thing. I have heard that those fluctuations in an offset is part of what makes them so good. I wish you the best.

 

[Greg Jones]

Temperatures are scary accurate and with almost no fluctuations…

To get an informed reading of how the pit temp is, or is not, fluctuating one needs an aftermarket pit probe like what ThermoWorks sells. The temps recorded by the recteq PID probé have been softened by the controller’s algorithm. Here is a graph of my RT-700 running at 375° for about 40 minutes. This is a very acceptable variation to me, but it’s not the 2-3° variation that the controller reported.

 

[gkal1964]

Agreed. I do own a several ThermoWork devices, and I know the RT temp chart is more of an average than an exact minute by minute reading. I have tested my grill and it is pretty accurate with swings in what I would call an acceptable range. My ThermoWorks does not have an app so I can just monitor it manually. Cheers!

 

[Elf]

Hi Everybody,

This post has been a long time coming and I’m covering several different things, some of which I’ve found in common with other owners via posts on this forum. Here is the abbreviated version:

I purchased RecTeq at a premium with the expectation of superior quality and customer service. I have experienced issues with temp spikes, the drip pan, and workmanship that I will describe further below. In addition I have found that unfavorable reviews of their products are disregarded, which I find to be deceptive and unbecoming the brand. I hate the idea of having to overinvest my time to troubleshoot what I expected to be a Cadillac, not a fixer-upper.​

To begin, I was in the market for a new unit as my gasser was on it’s last legs. A couple of friends highly recommended RecTeq and so I started on my journey down the reviews and YouTube rabbit hole to research my options. While RecTeq was higher in price than competing models I considered, I justified this given the all-stainless drum, superior PID, reputation for service, that it would serve as an all-in-one (sold my electric smoker to offset cost), and of course because they look really cool. I was able to negotiate a slight discount beyond what was already published to the site, and I was on my way.

When my unit arrived last October, I assembled and had my first test runs. Even at low temps, the first couple of runs saw slight spikes over the set point. I’m talking… set at 225 or 250, it would jump 5-10 above, then settle-in after 5-10 minutes. Not a huge deal, and I attributed this to the computer learning and it would probably self-resolve.

When I did my burn-in cook a day or two later, sticking to the guidance of chicken thighs, things got worse. I set a temperature of 425 degrees, and let them go. The grill jumped to at least 477, and coupled with my drip pan issue (described later), created a grease fire. Now I made it through this cook, then continued testing the grill at higher temps without any food. The spikes continued but were not as dramatic, ranging anywhere from 10-20 degrees above set point, all eventually settling back.

I contacted ReqTeq with this information, spent a few days emailing results from the app, etc… with what eventually resulted in the Tech attributing all of this to remnant grease. Probably burnt through a good 20 lbs pellets on tests in the process. While remnant grease may have been somewhat logical, I felt it was a cop out, that they were only interested in identifying something quick and easy to make me go away. As I continue to have the issue, I think my gut was correct.

I’m now ~ 5 months in and continue to experience similar results whenever cooking at higher temps (400 and above). The situation would be more manageable if not for the fact that when tending to the food mid-cook, I need to lift the lid. This results of course in some temp loss, and when it tries to re-establish the set-point, I get another spike. Rinse and repeat.

Moving on to the drip pan issues… I have my RT-590 placed on a level surface, an outside deck. The tilt of the drip pan I assumed would be enough to carry any grease into the disposal without further assistance but this has not been the case for me. Per above, I’ve had issues with grease fires, resulting from the grease simply not making it off of the pan (in combination with temp spikes). I started off lining with foil, and ensured it was as flat and smooth as possible on the pan. I later moved on to elevating the hopper-side of the grill to ensure sufficient tilt. I also tried the overpriced RecTeq custom drip pan liner, which failed after the 1st cook, due to another grease fire. The curious thing to me, is the portion of the pan directly above the pot gets so hot, that at times there is a visible outline in the foil. I’ve even had the foil crumble and disintegrate in a ring shape (matching the shape of the pot) after one use. The damn thing gets so hot that any grease which makes contact, it seems like it just collects there and either sticks creating a mess, or eventually catches fire.

A couple more issues… I noticed on initial assembly one of the screws that fastens the drum to the legs was poorly installed (angled, not flush), leaving a slight air gap from the drum to the exterior. Some heat escapes and has created an anodized look on the stainless portion of the front of my grill. Not huge, but another detractor. Also, the orange-red high temp sealant which was applied across the seams of the drum has all but crumbled away and burnt off. Don’t know if this is something I should be concerned with?

Yet another frustration regarding performance is that I expected the smoke to be significantly more at the low setting, similar to my electric smoker. I have been able to compensate for the most part using a smoke tube, but that was another learning curve.

Regarding the product reviews… I left a deserved 2-star review for the custom drip pan liner over 2 weeks ago. Immediately after I received the automated email reply, stating the contribution would be reviewed. Well… seems like pooey to me. There has been no follow-up, and I am of the impression it will be ignored. Shame on you RecTeq.

Other information… I have used various reputable pellets and am currently running Bear Mountain. Different pellets have made no difference. I regularly remove ash after every 3rd/4th cook. I have not adjusted the feed rate to this point, but appears this may be a logical next step.

So, to summarize:

• Purchased for superior quality despite higher cost point.
• Over-temp issues combined with drip-pan issues = grease fires.
• Unsure if issue with the screw and sealant are of concern.
• My otherwise beautiful looking grill has to sit on ugly lifters to allow grease to flow, and I am only comfortable using at temps below 400.
• Believe that RecTeq ignores unfavorable reviews.

In fairness, I have not yet invested the necessary time to register my issues with RecTeq Customer Service, as have been languishing the idea of weeks of back and forth as has been reported in other threads. As mentioned above, I was not happy the first time around with Service and don’t want to go through it again. Probably no other choice unless the forum saves me.

I know I’m throwing a lot of complaints here. I really do want this thing to work, but I’m already soured on the experience thus far. It’s frustrating to think it is going to require extensive effort on my part, which is NOT what I expected.

I guess what I’m looking for are any suggestions, consolations, whatever you got. I do not plan on cooking much as I’m currently in the middle of an Ohio winter, about 23 degrees right now. So I appreciate any help but may be a little slow to try suggestions that involve, sending pics, etc.

Thanks gang!

I have had two issues with my 590. My meat probes are not accurate. My main issue is pellets don’t get to auger when pellets are low. I can’t set it and forget it. As a positive note, when my smoker was damaged during a storm, they sent me a new lid at no charge.

 

[Threadcutter]

I have a 700 Bull, so I'm not making any direct comparisons here.

The PID control on the 700 is probably about as good as you can get on a pellet grill. I suspect that both the 700's and the 590's PID loops are similar, if not identical (in design/implementation). I'm not saying it's great, but there are challenges with PID in general.

The first challenge is the volume of air/thermal mass inside of the drum, plus the thermal conductivity of a very large drum.

The second challenge that goes hand in hand with the first is that the heat source (pellet fire pot) is relatively small, compared to the large thermal mass.

Then, the burn rate (and corresponding heat produced/rate at which the heat is produced) is relatively low, when compared to the thermal mass. This means that the PID loop needs to go like hell in order to close the gap between the setpoint and the feedback as quickly as possible. If the burn pot were say, two to three times larger (hotter, faster), the grill's PID loop would reduce the setpoint vs. feedback error more quickly. But, that's at the cost of a much higher rate of pellet consumption.

Usually, grill manufacturers will set the Proportional, Integral and Derivative Gain values to fairly low values, to keep the (PID) Loop stable. Higher gain values can lead to instability and oscillation. You'd know it if you had it. With lower gain values comes more lethargic response times. Personally, I've not come to care if my grill overshoots by twenty or so degrees when it's initially ramping up to setpoint. But with all of the variable environments (temp/humidity wise) that these grills are put into, a "soft" (low gain) PID Loop is preferrable, if not mandatory from a practical standpoint.

What I have noticed is that the feedback loop on the 700 has a great big, long time constant filter on it. When I compare the indicated temperature on the 700 vs my Thermoworks "Signals", it's very obvious just how much filtering the 700 has on it. It's really obvious when the grill is working it's way up to setpoint, or when the grill is trying to get back to setpoint after opening/closing the lid.

BUT, at the end of the day, what matters is how well the grill maintains a stable setpoint over the course of the cook. I'm satisfied with the 700 in that regard. Once the grill hits setpoint and settles in for the cook, I see the difference between the 700 indicated temperature and the Thermoworks Signal as only being 2 - 4 degrees. I could go into the 700 parameters and trim the offset, but I'm too lazy/don't care enough about it. I look primarily at the Thermoworks and adjust the 700 setpoint accordingly.

Not trying to go off into the weeds, but it looks like RT finally got a working version of the App that actually connects to WiFi again, huh ? Mine crapped about about 6 months ago. I gave up on the update back then and constantly re-installing it. I did do it again about a month or 6 weeks ago and the WiFi is back to working again. I did a cook yesterday and I got a notification that there was a new update available. No Thank You