Weber SmokeFire Gen 2 Pellet Grill Review: Did Weber Right the Ship?

Update: Weber has announced a new Searwood pellet grill, and it looks like they will be discontinuing the SmokeFire as the website has it listed as “last chance”. The Searwood isn’t available for sale yet but is expected to be released in the coming months.

The original Weber SmokeFire was one of the most highly anticipated grills of all time.

While it did a lot of things right, it was plagued with serious issues including pellet bridging that would stop pellets from falling into the auger.

Plus there was the occasional grease fire to deal with.

I ordered a brand new SmokeFire Gen 2 to see if Weber has managed to fix those issues.

After smoking and grilling on the larger EX6 for a few months I’ll be sharing what it’s like to own, what’s new and improved, and what still needs work.

Let’s get into the review.

SmokeFire EPX6 Sealth Edition

Since we wrote our review of the SmokeFire Gen 2 Weber has released ANOTHER update, this time only to the larger EX6.

The EPX6 Stealth comes with a sleek all-black finish. It looks like Weber has made a few nice enhancements including:

• The pellet hopper slide has been redesigned to streamline the flow of fuel. The fuel sensor, entry point, and finger guard are all repositioned to improve pellet delivery
• The cleanup system has been redesigned to better contain ash in the removable draw
• Internal lighting added for nighttime cooking
• Lid handle and wheels have been upgraded
• Support for the Weber CRAFTED system which was recently launched with the updated Genesis gas grill lineup
• “Made in the USA” with globally sourced parts

We have a full video review of the Stealth where we talk about our experience cooking on it and what’s new.

Weber SmokeFire EX6 overview & first impressions

At first glance, the 2nd Gen Weber SmokeFire looks exactly the same as the original.

The design, footprint, and specifications are all exactly the same.

I went with the larger EX 6 model (the same size that I tested out when reviewing the first-gen). You can also opt for the EX 4 which gives you a more compact 672 square inches of cooking area.

I’ll run through the basic specs and features, get into what I liked and what I didn’t like, and then go into detail on what it’s like to cook with SmokeFire.

And if you want to see my video review of the SmokeFire Gen 2 check it out below.

SmokeFire EX6 Manufacturer specifications

Total grilling space	1008 sq in
Bottom grate	648 sq in
Top grate	360 sq in
Fuel type	Wood fired pellet
Temperature range	200-600°F
Probes	One meat probe with capacity for four
Pellet hopper	22 lbs capacity
Materials	Porcelain-enameled lid, cook box, and heat distribution plate. Stainless steel cart frame, side table and flavorizer bars.
Warranty	3-5 years
Price	Check latest price at Amazon

After getting the grill assembled my first impression was how good it looked. The paint job is slick and it definitely looks like a Weber and not a Traeger rip-off like a lot of other pellet grills.

The grill has a serious lack of storage area or prep tables. I decided to remedy this by purchasing both the front and side shelves.

I consider the front shelf an almost essential add-on, while the extra side shelf is nice to have but not necessary. It definitely bumps up the price of the grill through.

Key featurers

Size of cooking area: The EX6 that I tested is spacious on the inside. You can cook or smoke a lot of food at one time. To me, this is one of its shining features. 

Temperature range: The grill is capable of 200-600°F. I was able to confirm the grill can hit these ranges.

Searing Capability: Yes, it will sear! The SmokeFire uses a unique open concept where the cooking area isn’t sealed off from the flame. This does lead to an issue that we’ll get into later, but it’s hard to argue with the result. Rich grill marks on a pellet grill are a beautiful thing.

Technology: The Smokefire comes with WIFI and Bluetooth capabilities and communicates with an app on your smartphone.

The Smokefire EX6 comes with four temp probe ports and one complimentary meat probe. When tested, the meat probe is actually quite accurate. The probe works with the Weber Connect App, so you can set an alarm when the meat reaches the set desired temperature. This is one of the shining features of the App. 

What I like:

• Most original issues fixed – No more issues with pellets not feeding, unreliable temperatures or unability to hit those high searing temps.
• Size: EX6 is great for smoking or grilling lots of food at one time! I believe you could easily cook 30 or more burgers at a time. And it has a 2nd tier rack which really adds to its cooking capabilities. 
• Smoking ability: Puts out a continuous amount of light smoke that gives food a beautiful taste
• Grill grates: While there is nothing amazing about these grates, they do tend to be holding up well. Better than some other grills that I have tested. 
• Pellet hopper sensor: This feature triggers an alarm if the pellets in the hopper get too low. This is a really nice feature. I think every pellet grill should have one.
• Pellet Drop Chute: It’s nice when a grill/smoker has a chute to make changing flavor pellets easier. 

What I don’t like:

• Grease and dust trap system: It is disappointing (and dangerous) that this design doesn’t work as described. Luckily you can easily fix the issue by placing aluminum catch pans underneath the grates as Weber now recommends.
• Poor startup mode / no shutdown mode bypass: I wish there was a way to bypass these modes in case the firepot never got going on startup.
• Shelf/Food Prep Area: Unless you buy the pricey front shelf you’ll be limited for prep areas

The SmokeFire Gen 2 is not a major redesign. It’s the grill Weber should have released to start with. You get essentially the same grill but with most of the major issues fixed.

If you’re looking for a ‘do it all’ grill and smoker combo that can handle everything you throw at it from steaks to low and slow ribs and brisket, the SmokeFire is now an excellent choice.

Packaging and assembly

The grill was packaged very well with lots of cardboard, foam, and clear plastic wrapping inside.

Weber does a fantastic job protecting the grill components during shipping and transportation.

Putting this grill together was straightforward. I didn’t run into any surprises or difficulty with the assembly. 

It took about 30 minutes to assemble the Smokefire by myself using basic hand tools and a cordless drill. I also found the instructions to be helpful and simple. 

I didn’t find anything in the assembly or shipping to be any different from my 1st gen Smokefire.

Build quality

I couldn’t pick up on any changes in the build quality with the Gen 2.

The grill has a high standard of quality. The fit and finish look well considered and the parts that need to be strong appear to be.

The paint finish is shiny, and unlike my Gen 1, scratch-free.

The castor wheels are heavy-duty and make it easy to move the grill around.

I really like the looks of the Smokefire. The main grill body and firebox appear to be well designed and built, as does the auger system.

I can understand some people might find the design a little “boring” especially compared to something like the REC TEC RT-700.

The stainless steel grates are nothing to write home about but seem to be holding up well.

Cooking on the Weber SmokeFire

In this section, I’ll cover all of my experience cooking on the Weber SmokeFire including what I liked and what I found annoying.

Using as a Smoker

This is the easiest and most consistent way to use the Smokefire.

It puts out a thin amount of constant smoke and produces fantastic results.

On the Gen 1, I found that making small adjustments in temperature during a cook would result in large temperature swings.

Even bumping the temp up by 5° could actually change the temp by another 20-30°, and I don’t mean just temporarily.

I was pleased to see this wasn’t the case with the Gen 2.

There were very few temp swings or drops which is exactly what you need for great low and slow cooking.

Using the SmokeFire as a Grill

One of the big drawcard of the SmokeFire is its ability to grill. Something most pellet grills struggle with.

While companies like Camp Chef offer solutions like a Sear Box add-on or the “slide and sear” approach, Weber designed the SmokeFire to be a capable grill out of the box.

The Gen 2 was easily able to hit 600°F in about 15-20 minutes. My original gen 1 SmokeFire struggled to ever reach 600°F, often maxing out around 560°F 

I did eventually get this resolved after Weber sent me a revised auger assembly and a firmware update, so I believe the Gen 2 comes standard with these fixes.

Actually using the grill is super easy.

Temperature control and accuracy:

One of the best things about cooking on a pellet grill is being able to set the exact temperature. There’s often a big difference between what the controller says, and what the actual temperature is across the grill.

I tested the grill internal temps using the highly reliable Thermoworks Signals with 3 ambient temp probes.

I’m pleased to report that the difference between the set temp and the temps I recorded were vastly improved from the gen 1.

When I set the grill at 225°F the average deviation was only 8 degrees.

The difference increased when I bumped the temperature up to 450°F, but was still reasonable.

Zone temperature variance test

Grill setting	Left	Middle	Right
225°F	222°F	235°F	227°F
450°F	444°F	475°F	490°F

Temperature consistency

The temperature from minute to minute on the grill is actually very good. There are very few temperature swings or drops.

The consistency is conditional though. I noticed very quickly when grilling at higher temps, you have to open up the lid, get in, and get out as quickly as possible.

The grill loses a ton of heat very quickly and cools down fast. It also takes several minutes to get the heat building back up again. I believe some of this is due to the large size of the grill and the fact that all of the heat is coming from 1 single source, unlike a gas grill that would have multiple burners.

Hot and cold zones

I monitored the left, middle, and right sides of the grill during testing.

As you can imagine, the zones recorded different temps with the left and right zones being 15-30° off the middle.

Although the temp varied from side to side, I didn’t find this to really be a problem. The temps only varied at higher cooking. At smoking temps, like say 225°, there were very little to no temp differences.

The impact of these temperature issues will vary based on how you are using the grill:

Shelf/Prep area and storage features

The shelf area that comes with the Gen 2 is still small. It’s really only enough to hold a small plate and a beer, with two knobs for hanging tools.

Weber finally released a range of accessories including a front shelf and additional side shelf.

I have tested both add ons. The front shelves are a huge plus and worth the money. The side shelf is still good if you want to go all out and get all the space that you can, but otherwise, I would get the front shelves over the side shelf.

As far as grill storage goes, the open car design means you don’t have anywhere to leave bags of pellets or your extension cord.  

It’s also worth noting that the custom cover available for the Smokefire is well worth the money. I have had the cover on my 1st gen grill, and it has held up fantastic. Weber seems to have done a good job picking out quality material for these covers.

Pellet loading and consumption

Due to the narrow profile of the grill hopper, pellets often fall in front of the hopper, when filling, and get trapped between the hopper and the grill in “no man’s land”.

This area can’t be reached with a brush or any normal tool to remove the fallen pellets. This issue revealed itself over time of using the grill. The only good way I have found so far to get the pellets removed is with compressed air.

The good news is: I have never had them catch on fire.

Even when I am careful, there are always a few pellets that fall into that area. This doesn’t really happen on other pellet grills due to most of them having hoppers on the end of the grill versus running along the back.

I have tested other pellet grills and not had the same hassles loading pellets and losing so many.

Removing pellets is easy if you want to change them out (or store them in a dry place between cooks).

Pellet consumption

The pellet consumption while smoking is very reasonable and efficient. The consumption while cooking with high heat is pretty significant though.

When trying to sear food at 600°F, it is a bit of a pellet hog and you will tear through some pellets.

• Average consumption rate @ 250°F: ~1.25-1.5 lb per hour
• Average consumption rate @ 600°F: ~4-4.5 lb per hour

While I’m not thrilled with how many pellets the EX6 uses, I also understand that this is a big grill. A big grill trying to reach high temps for cooking is going to take a lot of pellets. So I put that into perspective as well. 

You should get slightly better results on the EX4 model.

Pellet feed problem (pellet bridging)

With my original Gen 1 I experienced two common problems with pellet feeding: pellets not sliding down the ramp and pellet bridging. 

1. The ramp in the hopper was not steep enough; so pellets wouldn’t gravity feed into the auger system.
2. Pellet bridging is where the pellets bunch together and form a void where they normally enter into the auger shoot. This occurred multiple times, especially when grilling at higher temps. 

While Weber fixed this for free by sending out a ramp insert, I’m happy to say the 2nd gen comes standard with the steep ramp fix.

As I write this, I just finished up a 14 hour smoke on some Boston Butts, and the pellets fed with no issue for 9 straight hours. After that, I leveled them back out as a general practice.

Clean up

It’s actually not too bad to clean up, but it’s not as easy as Weber claims.

Any grease from food ends up in the bottom of the grill barrel.

Very little, if any, actually makes its way into the grease tray. And I would say at least 50% or more of the pellet dust does not end up in the dust tray below the firepot.

It ends up in the bottom of the grill, typically all around the holes where the grease is supposed to drain.

So the grease and the dust mix and that is where it remains until you clean it out. 

With that said, unless you have cooked or smoked something super fatty, It’s actually pretty easy to clean out the grill with a metal scraper and a cheap paintbrush.

You can brush all the dust and debris down into the grease tray and then empty it out. 

Some other reviews have mentioned issues with grease fires.

I smoked a Boston Butt for 18 hours with the meat sitting directly over the middle grate, and a grease fire never occurred.

I’m not saying it is impossible, but I’m not super concerned about it while smoking at lower temperatures. If something fatty was cooked at a high temp, yes, I believe it is possible.

But I could see that happening on any grill at that point. 

Controling SmokeFire with the Weber Connect App

At launch the app was extremely basic and lacked many of the promised features. While this doesn’t specifically apply to the 1st gen or 2nd gen, Weber has continued to add features to the app including:

• More In-app recipes,
• SmokeBoost feature
• Additional phone alert capabilities while cooking

Many of these features were promised by Weber, but not delivered at launch.

During a cook, the main screen shows your grill temperature, plus any alarms and timers you’ve set.

It will also send alerts if something occurs with the grill such as:

• Low pellets warning
• Cooking temp complete
• Grill reaches a set temperature.

The app is still missing some features I would like to see, such as temperature graphing and the ability to program temperature changes, or set SmokeBoost for a set number of hours.

You just download the Weber Connect App for Apple or Android on your phone and follow the instructions.

Start up / shutdown mode

The start-up mode has been much improved. This time I have had no issues with the pellets not catching fire as I did with my Gen 1.

The grill not starting was a major issue for me originally until a new auger assembly and new firmware were installed. So this is a plus for the Gen 2.

However, there are two fundamental issues that Weber still hasn’t addressed even on the Gen 2 Smokefire.

1. There is STILL no “PRIME” button. It would be nice to be able to have a prime button on the grill so pellets can be primed through the auger system faster when changing pellets or just running low in the auger.
2. There is STILL no way to BYPASS the shutdown mode. The shutdown mode will run for 15-20 minutes when turning off the grill no matter what.

It can’t be bypassed, even if you just unplug the grill, it will just give you an error when you plug it back in and make you run shutdown anyway.

This is especially frustrating if you happen to run out of pellets because there is ALSO no prime button to get pellets pushed through the auger.

So your fire will go out before you get more pellets feeding. THEN, you will have to spend 15-20 minutes shutting down the grill, just so you can restart the grill and get the fire started again. 

Also, if the grill happens to get unplugged or your electricity goes off at your house, even for a few seconds, the grill will recognize the error and make you run shutdown mode.

This actually happened to me when smoking meats the other night. My power went off for about 5 seconds and then came back on.

The grill went into shutdown mode. And with no way to bypass it, I just had to wait for it to finish, turn it off, then restart the fire all over again.

It is claimed to be a safety feature, but I disagree. My Camp Chef Woodwind and Pit Boss grills have a bypass feature. To be fair to Weber the Traeger Pro doesn’t have this feature either, but it’s something I see on most grills I test.

Did Weber fix the grease drain?

One of the most dramatic issues with the original SmokeFire was its inclination to catch fire during a long cook.

This issue seemed to be caused by a design decision Weber made.

Essentially, pellet dust blows into the barrel of the grill and settles right in front of the grease drain holes. The grease from cooking meats mix with the pellet dust and forms a paste.

Because of that, the grease never makes it into the grease drain and can build up over time until it eventually catches fire.

I was curious to see if Weber had addressed this, as it is really part of the whole design approach they took.

I’m afraid not.

I think Weber is still in denial about their grease drain system. From all of my testing I can say it doesn’t work.

I have just accepted this fact and put aluminum catch pans underneath the grates as Weber now recommends.

I think even they know that it doesn’t work and don’t know what to do about it.

Alternative grills to consider

At this price point, you start to be spoiled for choice so there are a lot of different grills you could consider, depending on what is important to you.

For my money, I would seriously consider the Camp Chef Woodwind. It has better adjustability, is easier to clean up, offers more shelf space, more versatility, and a better app

I love being able to add different accessories with the SideKick like the Sear Box.

The Weber does offer more consistent temperatures and better looks (in my opinion). If you are OK with a smaller grill and can spend a little extra to add the searing option I like the Camp Chef, but I can understand wanting to go with the SmokeFire as it can smoke and grill all in one, and will cost less.

You’ve also got the Traeger Ironwood for a bit more or the Pro for a bit less. Features are fairly similar, although the Weber should get the edge when it comes to grilling.

Who should buy this grill?

So, is the 2nd generation Smokefire better than the 1st generation?

Yes and no.

It IS better than the 1st gen, but only because many of the issues were worked out through the 1st gen and incorporated into the 2nd gen grills.

If you have a 1st gen already, it’s not worth your time to get a 2nd gen. You basically already have it if you have performed all the fixes that Weber provides to you through customer service.

If you don’t have one but are buying one, make sure it is listed as a 2nd gen model. 

All in all, I believe the Weber SmokeFire is a great grill and smoker. It has the best and most consistent smoking ability of any grill/smoker I have used, producing a small amount of constant smoke throughout the cook.

It does have its compromises though, just like any grill this large. It consumes quite a bit more pellets than a small grill would.

It requires a great deal more pellets to sear than other models that use a direct flame mode tip searing method. The grease drain is a little frustrating. The “no bypass” shutdown mode is A LOT frustrating if you ever happen to run out of pellets, the fire goes out, or the electricity ever shuts off or you happen to pop a fuse. 

But being brutally honest, I think there are better grills out there. While the grill performs well, it still has several quirks/issues that make it less than rock-solid dependable, especially for the price tag that comes with it.

That brings an end to our review of the Gen 2 Weber SmokeFire. We’ve left some of the initial content we wrote about the launch in case you need to refer back to anything.

Launch controversy

After several years covering the barbecue industry, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a product launch with more controversy.

High level summary:

• Before launch, the SmokeFire was hyped up to insane levels
• Straight after launch, there was a rush of people uploading videos and bad reviews saying the product had serious design flaws and issues
• Not all of the complaints were valid, but this is definitely a flawed product.
• As of writing the EX6 has a 3.1/5 rating on the Weber website

While this isn’t strictly part of our review, I wanted to include a section that covered some of the details behind the product launch to help you understand why you get such strong emotions on both sides when it comes to this grill.

Before it went on sale, everyone was hyping the Weber SmokeFire up, saying how amazing it was going to be.

It didn’t help that Weber only let a handful of people test the grill out behind closed doors, in controlled conditions on tested prototypes.

Videos like the one below only stoked the excitement levels. I should point out that I don’t have anything against Baby Back Maniac, which is a fantastic YouTube channel which you should definitely check out.

When the grill finally started shipping in February 2020, excitement turned to confusion and disappointment as initial reviews started to come in.

The same person who made the video above posted an overnight cook video which ended in a grease fire.

Lots of people were also complaining about the design of the pellet hopper not being steep enough, resulting in pellets not dropping down into the auger.

People also questioned Weber‘s decision to allow grease to fall directly onto the ‘Flavorizer’ bars and then sit at the bottom of the grill where it mixes with the ash.

To make matters worse, the companion app was clearly rushed and didn’t function correctly when the grill first shipped. A firmware update was also required, and if you didn’t do that you were hit with even more problems.

These initial negative reviews resulted in a rush of canceled orders

Things were looking bleak for Weber, until Meathead from amazingribs.com went off on his Facebook page, claiming that the initial testers didn’t know what they were doing, and we should all wait until they had time to publish their review before making up our minds.

Some other barbecue “influencers” like Harry So from SlapYoDaddyBBQ also posted more positive videos that didn’t run into any dangerous grease fires.

Now that it’s been out for a few months and the dust has started to settle the conclusion seems to be that the SmokeFire is a promising product, with some serious flaws.

It’s disappointing that Weber would ship a product with so many obvious flaws. Although when you think that they’ve have so many years to perfect the design of their gas and charcoal grills and smokers, it’s not surprising that their first attempt at a pellet grill isn’t perfect.

It really comes down to your personal preferences. If you’re happy to be an early adopter and don’t mind having to follow a few workarounds, the SmokeFire could be perfect for you.

NOTE: The below section is our initial write-up when we heard about the SmokeFire.

The first wood pellet smoker from Weber

Rumors have been floating around about this new grill for a while now so we were excited to finally get some details from Weber.

SmokeFire Specs & Features

• 22lb Pellet hopper
• Plated steel cooking grates
• Stainless steel flavorizer bars
• Easy-clean ash & grease drawer
• 200-600°F temperature range
• Includes one meat probe with capacity for up to four
• Porcelain-enamel heat distribution plate
• Weber connect smart grilling technology

We’re happy to say that the only difference between the two grills is the size of the grill grates so you don’t get punished for buying the cheaper option.

It always annoyed us that Traeger reserve some features for their more expensive models.

At first glance, the design of this grill looks similar to the Traeger Ironwood series. It’s clear that Weber are looking to compete with Traeger who is currently dominating the pellet grill market.

The Weber looks competitively priced, with the more expensive model offering more grilling space than the Traeger Ironwood 650.

Price comparison:

• Traeger Ironwood 650 – $1,199.99
• Weber SmokeFire EX4 672 – $999.00

The SmokeFire offers a few features that look to set it apart from the rest of the competition.

You can see an overview in this marketing video from Weber, and we’ll go into more detail in the sections below.

https://youtu.be/NwGN72jFjL4

Finally a pellet grill with built-in searing capability

We’ve always objected to the name “pellet grill” as these cookers make far better smokers / outdoor ovens.

Simply put, most pellet grills we’ve looked at struggle to properly sear a steak.

Manufacturers have tried to get around this limitation. Camp Chef is known for its searing station attachment, although you have to purchase that separately.

Pit Boss pellet grills use a sliding plate to allow searing over an open flame, but the flame area gives you limited space for searing.

The Smoke Fire gets around this design flaw in two ways.

First off you have the higher max temperature of 600°F (most pellet grills top out at 450-500°F).

More importantly, Weber has made good use of their stainless steel flavorizer bars (used on their gas grills) to help direct heat from the firepot to the cooking grate.

If they can pull this trick off, the SmokeFire will quickly become one of the best grill smoker combos available.

Improved grease and ash management

Cleaning up grease and ash has always been a major problem for pellet smoker owners. The SmokeFire has a few nifty looking innovations that look to help solve these problems

• The angled flavorizer bars and heat deflector channel ash and grease separately through the center of the grill, before it is divereted into a removable pan that slides out from the front.
• The deflector over the firepot helps ash from getting in the cooking chamber
• The bottom of the firepot has perforations to allow ash to drop down into the pan

Weber refers to this feature “Bucket-free grease & ash removal” which is a reference to the grease bucket commonly seen on pellet grills.

We’ll have to wait and see how well this system works in the real world. In the photo above it looks like the ash and grease are separate, but it will be interesting to see if this is actually the case or if it ends up making more mess.

Pellet hopper and auger design reduces jams

If you were wondering why the box on the side was so small, it’s because Weber has placed the 22-pound pellet hopper at the back of the grill.

This allows them to use a shorter, inclined auger which is aimed at reducing pellet jams.

We’re happy to see you can open the hopper at the bottom to remove unused pellets or if you want to swap to a different type. This is a great feature as many pellet grills require a shop vac to clean out old pellets.

The auger includes a sensor to let the companion app know when pellets drop below a certain level.

WiFi connected smart grill

Weber has already dabbled in this area with the acquisition and development of the iGrill Bluetooth thermometer line, however, this is their first attempt at a truly WiFi-connected grill.

The grill will connect to your WiFi and then you’ll be able to control it through the Weber Connect App.

Weber has partnered with smart cooking technology company June to offer an app with temperature doneness reports and ETA on when food will be done based on food and grill temperature.

None of this sounds revolutionary, with all current-generation Traeger grills offering similar capabilities.

Weber hope to set themselves apart with detailed recipes and step-by-step instructions built into the app.

One feature that caught our eye was “flip notifications”. That could definitely come in handy.

Conclusion

We’ll have to wait until the release of the SmartFire on February 10, 2020 before we can reach a final verdict, but from what we’ve seen it looks promising.

The searing capability looks like the killer feature that will make this grill stand out from the competition.

Weber Connect features look to be at least as good as the best smart grill offerings from other brands.

The price makes this grill competitive with Traeger, although starting at $999.00 this definitely isn’t a budget option.