Traeger’s Ranger Pellet Grill ($399.99) is a portable tabletop grill that lets you show off your smoking skills just about anywhere you go (as long as your have access to an electric outlet). It uses all-wood pellets as fuel and offers a few neat features including a cooking timer, a Keep Warm setting, and precise temperature controls. You also get a cast iron griddle for cooking breakfast, and a meat probe that lets you know when your food is cooked to your desired temperature. The Ranger delivered moist, smoky food in testing, and did a wonderful job of maintaining an even cooking temperature, but I wish it was able to connect to the Traeger mobile app like its smarter (and much more expensive) sibling, the Ironwood 650.
Design and Features
At 13 by 21 by 20 inches (HWD), the Ranger is small enough to fit on a picnic table or on a tailgate, but at 60 pounds, it is 15 pounds heavier than the Asmoke Portable Pellet Grill. It sports a matte black finish and has a stainless steel handle and a pair of hinges that secure the lid to the bottom half of the grill.
On the left side of the grill is a digital control panel with small LCD and a meat probe jack. Below the screen is a round controller with up and down buttons for setting the temperature and timer, a Keep Warm button that sets the grill to 165 degrees Fahrenheit to keep food warm without overcooking, an Ignite button, and a multipurpose Center button that turns the grill on and off and lets you cycle through the various programming modes (Temperature, Timer, Probe Alarm). The LCD shows your set and current cooking temperatures and has indicators that tell you when the timer is set, the meat probe is connected, and the Keep Warm mode is enabled.
The interior of the grill has a pellet hopper with an 8-pound capacity and offers 184 square inches of cooking space. As is the case with the Asmoke AS300, this grill isn’t designed for marathon 10-hour smoking cycles. However, according to Traeger, it will accommodate one rack of ribs, six burgers, or 10 hotdogs. The Ranger comes with a porcelain coated grill grate, a cast iron griddle, a grease drip tray, and a grease bucket. You also get an owner’s manual, a meat probe, four rubber feet, assorted screws and washers, and a screwdriver for assembling the grill.
The Ranger lets you set your desired cooking temperature in 5-degree increments and offers a few features that the AS300 doesn’t, including a programmable timer, the above-mentioned Keep Warm mode, and an alert that tell you when your food has reached your desired internal temperature.
It uses the same auger-driven mechanism as the Timberline 1300 and Ironwood 650 grills, which feeds pellets from the hopper to a firepot where they are ignited and burned as fuel. An internal fan helps maintain an even temperature throughout the cooking chamber.
This grill lacks the smarts that it’s bigger (and pricier) siblings offer, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios and a mobile app, which means you don’t get mobile alerts and can’t use your phone to monitor the temperature and pre-program recipes. All programming is done using the onboard control panel.
Traeger sells wood pellets in 20 or 33 pound bags that range in price from $18.99 to $29.99. Flavors include Alder, Apple, Cherry, Hickory, Mesquite, Oak, and Pecan, as well as a couple of blends. It also sell rubs, sauces, and a variety of accessories including grill covers, BBQ tools, and apparel.
Installation and Performance
Setting up the Ranger is easy. Using the included screwdriver and hardware, I attached the feet to the base of the grill and then attached the handle to the lid. I filled the hopper with Apple wood pellets, plugged in the power cord, and pressed both the up arrow and Ignite buttons at the same time to prime the auger. Once a small amount of pellets had made their way into the firepot, I pressed both buttons again to stop the priming action and placed the drip tray in the bottom of the grill. I then attached the grease bucket to the outside of the tray, installed the grill grate, and pressed the up arrow until the temperature reading was 450 degrees, then pressed the Ignite button, closed the lid, and let the grill run for around 30 minutes at 450 degrees to season the interior. I was now ready to cook.
To test the Ranger, I decided to slow cook a batch of country-style pork ribs. I started off by seasoning the ribs with Traeger’s Pork and Poultry Rub and setting the temperature to 225 degrees. Once the grill came up to temp (around 15 minutes), I placed the ribs directly on the grill grate and cooked them for three hours. During this time, I continuously checked the chamber temperature and it stayed within five degrees of my set temperature.
After three hours I wrapped the ribs in tinfoil, added two cups of apple juice and two pats of butter, sealed the foil, and returned the ribs to the grill. I set the temperature to 275 degrees and cooked the ribs until the meat probe read 190 degrees, which took another two hours. I let the ribs sit in the foil for around 30 minutes and was rewarded with incredibly tasty fall-off-the-bone smoked ribs.
The Ranger also did a fantastic job grilling up a couple of hamburgers and hot dogs at high heat, and a slow-cooked chicken had a nice, lightly smoked flavor and was moist with crispy skin.
Conclusions
The Traeger Ranger is an excellent choice for campers, tailgaters, or anyone looking to add wood-fired smokiness to their outdoor grilled dishes. At 60 pounds it isn’t exactly light, but it’s small enough to throw in the trunk of your car and is outfitted with an assortment of useful features including a cook timer, a probe alarm, a Keep Warm mode, and precise digital temperature controls. It’s easy to set up and delivered perfectly cooked food in our tests, but it’s missing the smart features that you get with its bigger, more expensive sibling (and our reigning Editors’ Choice), the Traeger Ironwood 650.
