Well, I've had about a day to think it over, do research, and think some more. As good as the Traeger looks, I am going with the Weber Q 300. A bit because of the price, but mostly because of the great experience I have had with Weber charcoal grills over the years. I guess you don't mess with success! kcred Here is a link that might be useful: Weber Q 300 gas grill

I have cooked on all three and the TEK IR is the only gas grill that cooks as well as charcoal. It's advantages over charcoal are that it is quick to set up, easy to clean up and does an excellent job of creating the charcoal taste. As many here know, the flavor is created by the smoke from the fat striking the hot surface be it charcoal or something else. The higher the IR energy (from gas or charcoal) and the less the flame, the more smoke generated rather than being turned into additional flame. The TEK creates a great deal of smoke because the IR glass sits between the flame and the dripping grease. On older style IR burners there is still an open flame to ignite the grease drippings reducing the amount of smoke to add flavor. With charcoal, once the embers are glowing red, it is emitting a lot of IR and much less to no flame and hence produces a lot of smoke and flavor. I have owned the FireMagic and I would not purchase another. The burners are cast SS but they still do rust over time and the flavor grills wear out too. They are very hard to clean and the heat was not anywhere near as good as the advertisements. If you are the type that never clean a grill and don't mind a gritty looking grill it may not matter. I am the type that wants it to look clean and inviting each time and the self cleaning feature along with the dishwasher removal panels makes the TEK a breeze to clean and keep looking nice. For me that was worth a lot. The more conventional grills like the Firemagic, even with their ceramic infrared burner are not even a close match.

We love our wood pellet grill. Its a brinkman and purchased on line (don't know where). It was about $500 or more. We are able to buy wood pellets locally and have tried apple and hickory. You must ONLY USE wood pellets for grills NOT the kind for wood pellet stoves. I can take plain hamburgers add a little salt and pepper (sometimes not even that), cook on the grill and the flavor is amazing!!! My picky children and their friends love them. We have also done a turkey twice. The turkey cooks faster than we thought but flavor is great. It is very easy to operate. I never used our gas grill (that was DH's job) but now I use our wood pellet grill myself. We will never go back to a gas grill. Here is the first turkey we did and the grill. This post was edited by debrak2008 on Tue, Oct 8, 13 at 20:02

2Many, I was thinking about how to use the 12" tube for shorter smokes. First thought was to loosely crumple some aluminum foil and stuff in as a space filler and then add pellets to fill. (Except getting foil out would be a bit of a pain.). Thinking that a partial loose fill might cause the pellets to burn too fast? After I ended up with that huge 40# bag of pellets decided not to worry about it; I'll just fill it up and let 'er burn out past the time I remove the food. With pricier pellets, yeh, I'd try conserving the fuel. Course this then strengthens the argument for adding a 6" tube...for shorter smokes and adding part way thru longer smokes. Then again, I was pondering last night why something like a tomato paste can or two with a bunch of holes punched in it wouldn't work... (from a brand with a removable paper label.) Pulled a couple of chicken halves out of the freezer last night. Going to brine overnight and smoke 'em tomorrow. Thinking I'll try to confine the smoke a bit better with the chicken going on what you learned with your bird. I bought the chicken already halved (was in the reduced 'Use today or freeze' bin--perfect, I thought for experiments!) so the halves may be a little more receptive to smoke than a whole bird? Also, more prone to drying out but brining ought to help offset that... This is actually kinda' fun to do. Needed that cause I get burned out on cooking!