I bought this as a gift for my husband his birthday is not until May 13th so I haven’t given it to him yet but I know he will LOVE it when he gets it! So I’ll do an update after his first use.
I cooked some chicken today no problem. After starting the shutdown process my wife asked me to cook some bacon. I let the grill fully finish shutting down. I then restarted it and it appeared to fire back up. After a few minutes, it quit heating. I went through the shutdown process again and turned the grill completely off. cleaned the burner can (which had very little ash) and tried again....no fire. I'll completely clean it tomorrow and try again. If it doesn't work we have a warranty issue!
Smoked at 250 with oak for 2.5 hours. Wrapped in Foil with butter and a little brown sugar for another 2hrs. Unwrapped and lightly sauced with Asian BBQ sauce and some hot honey. Placed back on the smoker open boat style for 20 minutes. Let cool and cut. Grill worked very well and maintained heat within a couple of degrees and consumed a minimal amount of pellets.
It was a learning experience since I have never used a smoker type grill before. The steps using the controller took a little while to figure out but we got there. So far I have done split chicken breast, heated a previously cooked ham, Salmon, and a pork loin. The pork loin was just OK but the others were really nice, the ham had a fantastic smoky flavor. Salmon coame out great as well, chicken breast ok but it was somewhat operator error.
This is an amazing product. The results are on point and ease of operation makes a first time pellet smoker owner look like a champ. Assembly is a breeze and start up relatively simple. The only shortcoming is the WiFi connection and app. I’m still working through that at week 3 but have had several smokes that came out flawlessly the difficulty monitoring the cook using the application.
I have cooked on the grill about 7 times and I have fell in love with it. Best decision I made on picking a smoker. Z Grills really packaged the grill well. I couldn’t believe all the care taken to protect the items they ship, I really appreciated that as a customer. Assembly is not terrible but I could see some confusion for people who are not a “handy” type person. Some things were confusing. But I give it 5 stars and would highly recommend buying the grill. The food I have cooked has tasted great, alot of smoke flavor, all meats were nice and juicy. So simple anybody can use it. The app is nice and convenient! I was smoking a brisket while I was across town taking my daughter to dance school all the while monitoring my grill and probe temps on the phone. I could change the temps while I was away from home as well. Thought that was a Very cool feature. The ash pan is a great addition also, my brother purchased a pit boss and hates he doesn’t have the option for an ash pan. 10-10