Smokin' Is Good For You

[WonderMonkey]

Hello, Mike here, coming to you from Ohio. Just bought my first pellet stove (RT-590) after an electric smoker died. I was kindof happy the electric one died as I got it when I was barely home enough to do anything and wanted to the simplicity of the controls. Since then, the pellet smokers and onboard computers give me the control I like, and more!

I'm not incredibly experienced as a smoker, so I'm hoping to dig in and experiment. My brother in law and I butchered two hogs (as part of a class) a few weeks ago so I have a freezer full of meat to play around with.

Hello!

 

[WonderMonkey]

Also, I had an issue with the handles. One handle has a bolt that just spins when I attempt to hook it to the smoker lid. The other handle has a bolt that just spins when I attempt to back it out before reattaching it to the lid. I called support and they didn't even ask questions, just put another set on order. That concerned me as if this is so common that it wasn't a surprise to them, then .... that smells like an issue. I know (found out) that the smoker is made overseas, I hope there isn't an ongoing quality issue that I'll experience.

 

[Newb]

That’s just their normal customer service. I have a 590 that was shipped to me last year. I love it. I had some WiFi connection issues early on, but customer support helped me resolve them quickly. Welcome to the team. Experimenting is my favorite part. I take notes on everything I do.

 

[WonderMonkey]

Also, I had an issue with the handles. One handle has a bolt that just spins when I attempt to hook it to the smoker lid. The other handle has a bolt that just spins when I attempt to back it out before reattaching it to the lid. I called support and they didn't even ask questions, just put another set on order. That concerned me as if this is so common that it wasn't a surprise to them, then .... that smells like an issue. I know (found out) that the smoker is made overseas, I hope there isn't an ongoing quality issue that I'll experience.

Received my new handles today. I needed a cutoff wheel in my Dremel tool to get the wonked up bolt disconnected but after that, the others went on easily and it looks great. I'm still a bit upset that two of the handles were messed up out of the box, but I can't do anything about that.

The difference between the two sets of handles is that on the new set, both sets of bolts were screwed in most of the way. On the messed up set of handles, one bolt on each handle was in just a bit and required some force to get them out. They were jammed from the factory so someone probably cross-threaded them in during assembly and decided to not do anything about it. I can only assume they don't have QA on those items. When I put the handles on, the ones that were cross-threaded not surprisingly jammed up again. What I SHOULD have done was attempted to thread them in before putting them on the grill to see if they would go in right. I didn't do that.

Hopefully, this is an isolated pair of handles.