Installing an Ortech Thermostat on a Traeger Junior

I got a Traeger Junior wood pellet smoker over the summer. Great tool, a little on the small side but I haven’t touched my Weber Charcoal grill since we got it. That says a lot for it.

The one knock on it is the thermostat. While the other more expensive models have digital thermostats with precise temperature controls, the Junior came with a simple thermostat that just offers smoke, medium and high. I did some research and found this thermostat by Ortech, which fixes the issue and is a few bucks cheaper than the Traeger one.



Digital Thermostat Kit for Traeger Grills by Ortech

For this installation you’re going to need a phillips head screwdriver, a tiny flathead and some extra wire tires if you have them. The controller comes with one, we used more.



This is the grill, we pulled it in the house to work on because it was a little on the cold side that day.



Here’s the old thermostat, as you can see very simple controls.



This is the new controller from Ortech, it also comes with a thermostat as the digital display displays the current temperature inside the grill.



Everything comes out the bottom of the hopper. To start unscrew the two holes at the bottom of this picture and the two matching screws on the other side of the hopper.



This will allow the bottom panel to slide down and away from the hopper. The instructions says to slide it down the power cord but in my case…



It actually wasn’t moving because of that little nub. I played with it a bit and didn’t see an easy way to loosen it. Was more worried about keeping it in tact so left it.



Crawl under and take a look and this what you’ll see. All you need to do is clip those wire tires and unplug the four plugs you’ll find in there. If you’re replacing a non-digital thermostat, it slides right out. If you’re replacing a digital one, you’ll have a thermometer wired to the board. I don’t have disassemlby instructions, however, since I added one I can tell you what you need is a tiny flat head screw driver. You’ll unloosen 2 screws and pull the wires out of the box. I have some pictures below of installing the new one you can use as a reference. It’s not complicated. The hardest part will be finding a flathead screwdriver blade small enough.



If you didn’t already have a thermometer installed, you need to install the one that came with the controller. Or… maybe you just want to use the new one. Up to you. If you do, as you can see in the picture above, I’ve removed the grill and the drip pan.

Now is a great time to clean up in there. I just used the brush extension on my shop vac, cleaned it up real quick.



On the left side of the grill, above the fire box, there a little lip that as these two holes in it. This is where you mount the thermometer.



Run the cable down the larger hole and through the hole in the side of the grill between the drum and the hopper.



Then run the wire down the side of the hopper, and back up in then out the front through the hole the thermostat mounts in. This way you can connect it to the thermostat.



In the top corner of the thermostat circuit board on the back you’ll find the little box with two screws that looks like this. You loose those screws and the clamp loosens so you can get the wires in. Then just tighten them back up.



It will look like this. Then just feed all the wires connected to the thermostat back in through the hole in the front and get the thermostat in place.



The book comes with instructions for how to do the wiring.

In our case, there was no purple wire on the thermostat. However, they did put a purple sticker on the plug. I’m not sure if this standard or if they just ran out of purple wire for the batch mine came from.



Once you get everything plugged in, you want to use wire ties to get everything in there as snug as possible. Maybe it’s just too many years of PC building for me but, there’s a fan there and we did our best to not impact air flow.



Screw the bottom panel in. Consider doing like I did and put new foil on your drip pan and get it in and put the grill back on. Take it outside (if you’re working inside) and give it a go.

With the digital thermostat you can now watch the shut down cycle. So make sure to leave it plugged in until that’s fully run. It usually starts at C10 and counts down.

The thermometers on the grill top and the digital read out will not match. If you notice their placement, the thermostat one is right next to the fire box while the built in analog one is at the top of the smoker. The thermostat one will read hotter, I’d go by that. Interestingly enough cooking a turkey in there I deduced the right side actually gets hotter so you’re still not getting a read out of the hottest spot. Good to know if you’re going to grill on it.



My final test was a baccon wrapped turkey, I’ve been cooking them for years in the oven. Came out delicious in the smoker.