GMG Thermal Blanket on Traeger Lil Tex

[Chris__M]

When the American BBQ Company started stocking GMG grills and accessories, I was a little interested, not because I wanted rid of my Traeger, but because I could see a possible cross-over use of some of the accessories.

GMG produce a fitted thermal blanket for both of their grills, and I thought the smaller Daniel Boone blanket might fit my Lil Tex. So a few months ago, I asked the question over in Pelletheads and was told a resounding "No, it won't fit" by one of the pellet grill experts over there.

However, more recently, someone else hase posted on there about doing exactly that, and this led me to order one for myself. it turns out that the dimensions of the cover are almost an exact fit to the Lil Tex, with only two issues:

1) The position of holes for the handle are in the wrong place.

2) On the left-hand side, the cover extends down past the point where the hooper is bolted on. As a result the left side bunches.

Both of these should be fairly easy to fix with judicious use of scissors, which is what I expected to have to do. However, even without doing this, the cover fits functionally, if not neatly, and is usable straight out of the bag.

The fitted blanket is 72 quid, but I reckon I will see an appreciable saving in pellets, and it will mean that the cold weather will not affect my ability to maintain a good smoking temperature.

Will take a photo of it later, today or tomorrow, so people can see what it looks like on the Traeger.

While I was ordering, I also picked up GMG upper rack, which also fits the Lil Tex perfectly, and gives you an upper rack half the depth of the grill. I had previously bought stainless steel fixings to mount movable shelves in my grill, but never got around to it - this seems much easier to me.

[British BBQ Society]

I saw one of these blankets at a show earlier in the year and almost passed out at the price. As my traegers still have the standard smoke, medium and high settings (not temp controlled) it wouldn't make any difference on the pellet factor. Still think it is much more cost effective getting a boiler jacket for them if you experience extreme weather.

[Chris__M]

My Lil Tex is now mostly being controlled by my home-made controller. I still haven't got as far as automatic temperature control (no reason, other than not having made time for the project), but I now have a completely variable timing feed, under my remote control. So I can emulate the Smoke, Medium or High settings, or any point in between.

This is good, as I was finding on Smoke, I wasn't maintaining more than 150 in cold weather, particularly over night; whereas Medium was too high for my slow cooks. My controller lets me adjust the timing to somewhere between the two, so I can aim for a good smoking temperature.

So for me, I will definitely be saving pellets; more to the point, I suspect I will be able use the Traeger's standard Smoke setting again.

As for the price, no-one ever said this was a cheap hobby!

[joker smoker]

I saw one of these blankets at a show earlier in the year and almost passed out at the price. As my traegers still have the standard smoke, medium and high settings (not temp controlled) it wouldn't make any difference on the pellet factor. Still think it is much more cost effective getting a boiler jacket for them if you experience extreme weather.

As you will be getting lower temps in the cold weather, your cooks will be taking longer therefore you will still be using more pellets. Using a thermal jacket , home made or from American BBQ Co., could still give a big saving. Somebody on pelletheads.com said up to 40%!

[crphillips]

I'm running a Daniel Boone with the thermal blanket and the pellet saving is pretty amazing compared to using it without so I should imagine it will make a big difference on the Traeger. With the thermal blanket and the bigger, cheaper bags of pellets the cost of my cooks has dropped massively.

I think a thermal blanket is even more important if you just have the three position switch as my traeger texas struggled getting up to any kind of decent temperature in cold weather. I used to throw dust sheets over mine and it worked a treat.

The Texas is for sale by the way if anyone wants one.

[Chris__M]

I saw one of these blankets at a show earlier in the year and almost passed out at the price.

Putting things into perspective, before I had my Traeger under a shelter, and it was out in all weather, I bought the standard Traeger hydrotuff cover from Egedius-Grillmanufaktur in Germany.

Now that is pretty much redundent (as my grill is under cover *and* has the blanket over it), I just looked up the price I paid, with a possible view to selling it off cheap to someone.

I paid 84 euros for it - which at current rates is just under 72 quid, the same price as the thermal blanket.

[Chris__M]

First cook with the blanket. I still haven't made any adjustments, which means the lid part of the blanket is simply draped over the handle, rather than under it.

To test it, I have unplugged my home-brewed Barbduino controller, so am relying on the old manual 3 way. In recent weeks, I've needed the Barbduino to hit a decent temperature in this cold weather.

I've got a ribeye on there and a few burgers, and it is holding a steady 195-210 on smoke setting. This is at 7pm on a really cold night.

Needless to say, I am pretty happy!

[British BBQ Society]

Sounds great, nothing exciting planned here tonight but have been "told" that its ribs and chicken tomorrow!

[ozza]

gonna try my DB without the thermal, thought unless im cooking throughout the week on it, I wouldnt make the money back in pellets