Traeger Ironwood grills are one of their best wood pellet grills and this is a comparison post between the TRAEGER IRONWOOD 650 VS. TRAEGER IRONWOOD 885.
The Traeger grills are famous and well known for their quality so, if you are getting one, always do your research and get the best one for your needs.
Traeger produces the best quality wood pellet grills and if you are interested in getting the Ironwood Grill for your backyard, you might want to read the entire post.
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There are two sizes of grills in the Ironwood series and these are the Ironwood 650 grill and the Ironwood 885.
Both the grills work beautifully but which one is better than the other?
Let’s find that out!
You can even leave the food cooking on the grill and then move on and continue with your chores while controlling your phone grill.
Yes, it is as simple as that.
If you are into having a smart grill for yourself, you will love most of the things about this Traeger grill.
Read more to understand the different features on both these grills and which one would be a better pick.
There is a lot to consider here because you are spending thousands of dollars on these grills, so without further ado let’s start with every aspect of these grills.
Basics about the Grills
The Grills are electric in a way, so even though you will be burning wood pellets inside the grill, the grill’s heating mechanism and the circuits that keep the temperature in check need electricity.
You will plug the grill in a socket so make sure that you have an electric socket somewhere near the place where you plan on keeping the grill.
Once you have the grill plugged in, next comes the wood pellets that burn inside the grill.
The grill burns the pellets in a burner that is eight beneath the cooking grates.
There is a feature inside the Ironwood grills where a fan would sway the smoke towards the food so that you can get a more smoky flavored meat cooked inside the grills.
The wood pellets placed in the pellet hopper and go through a screw-like mechanism, the pellets move to the pot where they burn.
The fire starts from a spark ignited with a hot electric rod, so plugging the grill is very important as it starts the fire in the grill using electricity.
Once you understand the basics of how this grill operates, let’s get into the finer details about the grill.
Powering the Traeger Grills
The next step involves burning the wood pellets to power up the Traeger grill to start with the cooking.
When you plug in the Traeger grill, the grill is ready to cook.
You need to click on the knob which would start up the LCD screen on the grill and you can click on different settings to get the grill prepped up for your cooking.
Usually, at first, it is good to prime the grill, this way the wood pellets reach the end of the Auger-like mechanism and stay right on top of the burning pot.
This way when you want to start the burning process in your grill, within just a second the pellet would start dropping in the burning pot and when they are enough pellets, the fire starts.
The priming time, which is the pellets’ time to move from the pellet hopper to the end of the Auger, is about 4 minutes.
This is quite some time and you can decide to prime your grill before you get started with cooking if you plan on saving your time.
The Pellet Hopper is present on the right side of the grill and it can hold a total of 20lbs of pellets.
You can fill up the pellets in the hopper and this way you do not need to babysit the grill and feed in more pellets every hour.
This BBQ grill stores many pellets in the pellet hopper and can last you a good enough time.
You have a different flavor of pellets to choose from as well so that you get different woody flavors every time you cook with a different flavored wood pellet.
The food cooked inside this Traeger grill is extremely smoky and one just cannot ignore how amazing the food tastes.
The grill is very quiet when transferring the pellets from the pellet hopper to the burning pot.
The Traeger grills can go up to a maximum temperature of 500 degrees Fahrenheit and you can Braise, Smoke, Grill, Bake, Roast, and BBQ inside the grill with ease.
The features on both the ironwood grills are pretty much similar and hence I felt there was no need to mention the features separately.
Cooking Space In Traeger Ironwood 650 vs. Traeger Ironwood 885
The main difference between the Traeger Ironwood 650 and the Traeger Firewood 885 is the cooking space. I always believe that you cannot use the space you do not have.
If you are thinking about which one to get, I would recommend the Traeger 885 one since it is larger and cook a lot more than its 650 variant.
Main Difference between Ironwood 650 vs. Traeger Ironwood 885 grills
The Ironwood 850 has a total cooking space of 850 sq. inches and the Ironwood 680 grill has a total cooking space of 690 sq. inches.
If you want to entertain using your Traeger grills then the Traeger 885 is the perfect option.
Let’s get a little bit more specific on how much each of the grills can take-
The Ironwood 650 can cook 8 Chickens, 5 Rib Racks, and 6 Pork Butts while the Ironwood 885 can cook 10 chickens, 7 Rib Racks, and 9 Pork Butts.
The grills have a top grate as well which means you get the regular space on the bottom grate of the Ironwood 885 along with half of the area on top to cook more items.
This two-tier grate design on the Ironwood grill helps you cook a lot of food at once.
You can remove the top rack as well according to your convenience.
The top rack is best for slow cooks like cooking a brisket.
You can control the grill via phone even when you are away from it there
You can cook A LOT on both these grills as they have ample space, which makes it perfect for someone who loves to host small get-together parties.
Cooking Temperature of the Meat
There are two temperature probes that you can fix on the grill which you can use to measure the steak’s temperature.
This makes cooking easier as you can check if the meat inside is cooked or not.
This helps in cooking steaks to perfection and the fact that you can have two of them makes it even easier to cook more meat at once and monitor their cooking temperature.
The Traeger Ironwood grills can go up to a maximum temperature of 500 degrees Fahrenheit and you can Braise, Smoke, Grill, Bake, Roast, and BBQ inside the grill with ease.
Cooking inside the Grill
The Traeger Ironwood grill has one feature that makes it better than the Traeger Pro Grill and that is the smoke feature where you can change the fan speed that stokes the fire in a way that the grill produces more smoke.
Then the downward draft exhaust system comes into play which forces the smoke to escape through ports present right at the cooking surface which makes your food even smokier and gives you that nice flavor that you are looking for while cooking with the grill.
This makes cooking inside this grill an excellent experience and you do not find this feature on the Traeger Pro grill series.
The Traeger App also comes in handy when you are cooking inside the grill. You can control the settings and the cooking temperatures of the grill through your phone.
You even have different recipes in the app so if you plan on cooking any of those recipes, you will get the entire temperature settings and the timings for which you need to cook the meat.
This helps if you are cooking for the first time and want as many recommendations as possible to explore the Traeger Grills.
The Traeger grills have a unique wood-fired flour that it coats very food with that has been cooked inside it.
Controlling the Grill with your phone
You can control the grill with your phone at any point in time making cooking inside these grills so convenient.
I liked the fact that I could control this grill even from work or inside the house.
So, there is no need to sweat it out while standing around the grill and all you have to do is change the temperature settings on the grill and see the changes for yourself.
This makes cooking on the grill so easy and this is probably one of the best features of the Traeger Grills if you have been thinking about this feature and if it is worth it then trust me it is.
You can even go old school and cook while standing near the grill as that would help you monitor every step of the cooking but in my experience, once you use the app, you get addicted to it.
It is nice to sit in the comfort of your home and operate the grill while you continue doing some other work.
So, which Ironwood grill is better?
The main difference between the Traeger Ironwood 650 and the Traeger Ironwood 800 is the cooking space.
The rest is almost the same and both the grills have pretty similar features.
The cooking space will be important for someone who likes to have friends over or who loves to cook for friends and family.
The Ironwood 850 would be a better choice if you want a larger grill that could accommodate your friends and family’s food needs.
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It is always better to get the bigger one as it is a one-time investment and want to do it right.
However, if you are not going to have more than a few people around and limit yourself to just family gatherings then the Ironwood 650 grill would just fine.
The best feature on both the grill remains that you can control them with an app on your phone. This just makes cooking inside both these grills so much easier.
You no longer need to stand in the heat with the grill on and season your meat, all you need to do is season it and keep it inside and change the temperature on the app and leave it alone to cook slowly.
The grill is perfect for slow cooking but you could do so much more with it.
The grill can roast, bake, braise, smoke, grill, and BBQ with Traeger’s product.
The grills can reach a temperature of 500 degrees Fahrenheit which is perfect to cook anything you would like inside. There is so much that one could do with these grills.
If you have the Traeger Ironwood grill then let us know your experience in the comments below!
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