- Convenient tool caddy rack
- Electronic auto start ignition
- Easy to clean porcelain grill grates
- Easy empty hopper so you can clear out pellets between cooks
- Set it and forget it consistency
- At 120 lb this Traeger may be difficult to manipulate for some people
- Straight legs are not as stable as a seahorse design
- 380 square inches may not be large enough
If you love the taste of smoked cooked food and want a versatile smoker with convenient features for your backyard, this Traeger Renegade Elite may be the grill you’ve been looking for. This is a grill truly made for the backyard grilling enthusiast and is packed with great features. Read this Traeger Renegade Elite Review to decide if it is the right pellet grill for you.
This Traeger features the Digital Elite controller that will consistently keep temperatures within 20 degrees of your set temperature with an easy to turn dial. The EZ Drain grease system prevents flare-ups and makes clean-up a breeze.
Extra features like a wire front prep rack and a tool caddy rack take this little smoker above and beyond competing pellet grills. No more balancing your food while you load or unload the grill, just rest your plates and dishes on the sturdy rack and smoothly transfer food to the cooking surface. The tool caddy rack features not only hooks to hang your tools so they won’t get your surfaces dirty while you’re cooking but also a little basket for you to put your sauces so that they won’t be spilled while you’re working.
If the extra features of the Renegade are not particularly appealing to you and you would rather have a reliable Traeger grill that offers more grilling space, the lil Tex Elite 22 may be the grill for you as it offers additional square inches in a sleek design.
Traeger Renegade Elite
- Convenient tool caddy rack
- Convenient wire front prep rack
- Electronic auto start ignition
- Easy to clean porcelain grill grates
- Easy empty hopper so you can clear out pellets between cooks
- Set it and forget it consistency
- Within 20 degrees of your set temperature may not be accurate enough for all cooking
- 380 square inches may not feel like enough for a price tag of nearly $700
- At 120 lb this Traeger may be difficult to manipulate for some people
- Straight legs are not as stable as a seahorse design
Traeger Renegade Elite Specifications
- 3 year warranty
- Digital Elite controller
- 380 square inches of grilling area
- Auto start
Traeger Renegade Elite Review
Traeger was the maker of the original pellet grill and this versatile Traeger Renegade proves their continuing dedication to the traditional pellet grill while also continuing to innovate useful features that the backyard griller will love. Traeger grills run on 100% wood pellets that are a renewable waste product of hardwood production and old orchard trees. No additive but vegetable oil is added to Traeger pellets so you can feel good about the smoke that is cooking your food.
Pellet grills give you the versatility to slow smoke your meats to fall off the bone perfection or achieve a blistering sear to blacken meats and lock in juices. You can even bake your own pizza with an authentic wood burning flavor.
A Digital Elite controller keeps this Renegade Grill within 20 degrees of your setting. This degree of accuracy is sufficient for most barbecuing and smoking and your grill will still get hot enough to achieve a good sear, but it is a good idea to have an external thermometer and a meat probe to verify the ambient temperature within the grill and ensure that food is cooked to the ideal temperature without overcooking.
The Traeger Renegade smoker was made with the griller in mind, and features lots of convenient little aspects that will make you love this grill. A wire front prep rack means that you won’t have to have a friend or family member hold the food or do a balancing act when you are loading and unloading your grill. This rack is near enough to the grill to make transferring food from it to the cooking surface a breeze, but far enough away that you can work immediately here without experiencing too much heat. You can put your tools or serving plates as well as the dishes holding raw meat on this convenient rack.
One of the complaints of many pellet grills is that it is often difficult to change pellets between cooks. An asset of pellet grills is that they allow you to choose the flavor of your pellets to match what you are cooking, so it is important to be able to change pellets between cooks without waiting for all the pellets to be used up. Traeger utilizes an innovative hopper clean-out door on their Renegade that allows you to empty out the pellets simply by opening a door on the back of the hopper so that you can reload your new flavor.
Meat drippings are collected by an easy drain grease system that prevents dangerous flare-ups and collects all of the extra grease from your cooking into a convenient bucket that is easy to empty out so that your grill and patio stay clean. This makes the Traeger Renegade smoker the perfect tool for smoking delicious oily fish like salmon.
The tool caddy rack is a clever idea that solves the problem of where to put your tools and sauces while you are working. Hooks allow you to hang your tools while you are cooking so you don’t have to worry about getting your work surfaces covered in sauce. A convenient place to put your tools will make clean up easier after every cook. This caddy goes one step further by providing a little basket for you to put sauces in so that they won’t turn over while you’re working.
The all-terrain wheels of this Traeger Renegade Elite make it easy for you to move your grill around your property or around your neighborhood.
If you would rather have more space than features, the lil Tex Elite 22 is a comparable grill with a similar size and price that offers 418 square in of grilling area, compared to the 380 square in offered by the Renegade. This smoker is missing the convenient features like the wire loading rack and tool caddy, but if a sleek design and slightly more grilling space are more important it may be worth looking into.
