Your Traeger grill can be used to cook delicious, flavorful meats.
However, if your grill isn’t functioning properly, you’ll lose your entire grilling experience. This is why you should maintain it.
One way you can ensure that it maintains temperature is by troubleshooting it. So, why is my traeger grill losing heat?
Your traeger grill will lose heat for a variety of reasons. First, your grill’s thermostat may be broken.
This will cause the grill to lose heat, even though it’s turned on. Second, the insulation around the thermostat may be worn out or damaged, causing the thermostat to fail.
Finally, the heating element may be broken or clogged, causing your grill to lose heat. Fortunately, all of these problems are easy to fix.
You just need to buy a thermostat replacement kit or clean the insulation around the thermostat.
Let’s start now.
Contents
Why is My Traeger Grill Losing Heat?
Frequently Opening the Lid and Adjusting the Temperature Settings
Make sure you don’t open the lid of your traeger excessively because it will lower the temperature inside and make your food burn up faster as well.
This temperature variation is common when cooking meat on a charcoal grill. Because it involves a lot of changes in temperature from when you start cooking to when you finish cooking the meat.
The heat steadily builds throughout the course of the cooking process and then drops as the meat finishes cooking.
The induction fan generates hot air flow inside your smoker during the startup process when the fire is first lit.
When we repeatedly open the lid, heated air gets exhausted out of the smoker which reduces the temperature of the inside of the smoker significantly. This decreases the amount of time it takes for the food to cook thoroughly on a hot surface.
Drip Tray Liners and Large Pans
Inadequate heat or an inappropriate temperature level in a smoker is necessary for cooking certain foods.
If your food needs to cook at a high temperature, then it could cause problems with your smoker’s temperature.
If you use drip tray liners or large pans to cook your food on the traeger smoker, then it can cause the temperature to drop significantly.
Using a food thermometer can help to determine whether your smoker has reached the desired temperature or not.
It is also critical to use the correct size of pan for cooking your food on a smoker in order to prevent excessive airflow from causing a drop in the temperature of the inside of the cooker.
Greater Ash Buildup inside the Fire Pot
It is important to remember to regularly clean out your ash dump basket in order to avoid a buildup of ash inside the fire pot on your Traeger Pellet Grill.
Without routine cleaning, there is frequently greater accumulation of ash inside the fire pot which can decrease the amount of smoke that is generated through the burn chamber.
Poor Airflow Circulation
If there is insufficient airflow within the cook chamber, it can result in poor circulation.
This could cause the temperature within the cooker to drop considerably.
If the induction fan fails, then the burner does not generate sufficient heat to burn up the pellets properly.
Cold Weather
Traeger grills are primarily designed to heat up quickly and reach high temperatures quickly.
And, ideally, you should have a charcoal chimney starter to light the fire for grilling purposes.
However, you must ensure that your grill has a working fuel source before you begin using it in cold weather.
RTD Probe Sensor Issue
The RTD probe sensor is critical as it measures the internal temperature of the grill so that you can ensure that the meat is properly cooked throughout the grilling process.
A faulty RTD probe will inaccurately measure the internal temperature of the grill resulting in poorly cooked food that could compromise the safe consumption of the food.
These erroneous measurements often mislead the user to believe that the meat is cooked when it is not thereby leading to the possibility of food poisoning through undercooked meat.
Traeger Auger Failure or a Jammed Auger
If your Traeger grill auger is not functioning properly, then the hopper may not feed the grill with wood pellets efficiently causing an interruption in the cooking cycle.
The auger is rotating excessively slowly and you may experience difficulty feeding your wood pellets into the burn chamber.
This signifies that not enough pellets are being fed into the burn chamber. It could be that the gears of the auger are damaged and require repair or replacement.
Poor Quality Wood Pellets
Always use the highest quality wood pellets available in order to obtain the best results from your pellet grill.
Pellets get damp if they are too old and this could result in significant performance issues with your pellet grill.
They, too, lose some nutritional value after they are burned by high temperatures for long periods of time. So, always use the freshest wood pellets available for your pellet grill.
Wood pellets of poor or inferior quality will not burn properly and could damage your cooker.
How to Keep Temperature in a Traeger
Work on maintaining the temperature of a Traeger grill by watching your grill carefull. In addition, make sure that it gets cleaned and serviced regularly if it has not been serviced for a year or more.
Here are some tips to help you keep your Traeger grill’s temperature steady.
Always keep the lid closed on your Traeger grill.
Do not open the lid excessively for reaching into the middle of the grill and lifting it off the briquettes.
The grill lid must be kept closed, and otherwise your grill temperature will start to drop every time you open it for adjusting the ventilation or checking the internal temperature.
Now, when it comes to temperature control on your Traeger grill, always start cooking at a higher temperature.
Then reduce the setting gradually throughout the cooking process.
For more control, try opening the lid 4 to 5 times during the first hour of cooking in order to adjust the temperature of the smoke.
How Can I Raise the Temperature in My Traeger?
The Traeger grill is so advanced that you can raise the cooking temperature through the control panel.
Enter a temperature higher than that which is currently available on your control panel.
Your Traeger will automatically decrease the temperature to the appropriate setting.
Which Traeger Grill Temperature Temperature Should I Set?
For grilling, Traeger recommends a minimum of 225° Fahrenheit for the smoking temperature of the grill.
For slow smoking, a temperature of 225 ° Fahrenheit is recommended as well while a minimum temperature of 225° Fahrenheit should be maintained for cooking with indirect heat on a pellet smoker.
Which Traeger Temperature Settings Work Best?
Temperatures on a Traeger grill range between the low of about 180° Fahrenheit to the high of about 500°F.
You don’t need to bother yourself with using settings from between the lowest to the highest.
Because any setting of between the upper and lower limits of the temperature range will produce good results.
The owner’s handbook for each Traeger model will give guidance on the most appropriate temperatures for specific types of foods.
Every Traeger grill has a manual thermostat that is calibrated for a specific temperature range so you don’t need to worry about it failing to perform as expected.
There are additional temperature gauges on the dashboard of the Traeger grills, but you shouldn’t worry about them.
Because they are not used for regulating the oven temperature and only indicate the current temperature of the pellet fuel.
You can really set any desired temperature on the control panel of your pellet smoker.
However, you should ensure that the meat has reached the required internal temperature before removing it from the cooker.
Also Read: Traeger Grill Not Heating Up to 450
Conclusion
The Traeger barbecue is a high quality product that can provide you with years of reliable service and enjoyment.
Like other Traeger products, Traeger grills offer high performance as well as durability and versatility.
But you need to ensure that your Traeger grill is cleaned and maintained properly on a regular basis to provide optimal performance.
Respecting its power and understanding how to utilize it will give you excellent results from your smoker or grill.
If you do that, you should enjoy your time with your BBQ for many years to come.
