gbasden wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 6:48 pm
naednek wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 2:02 pm
don't get a pellet. Get a Masterbuilt Gravity Series. I have the 1050. It's similar to the pellet in terms of convenience, but you get that nice charcoal cook. you can smoke, you can grill, you can BBQ. If you get the 800 series it comes with a griddle.
Please tell me more! Do you have one? Are you happy with it?
I have the Masterbuilt Gravity 1050 Series for over a year. It retails for $799, I know you are in Sacramento where it's BBQ year round so they don't go on sale much, but back east I've seen people get them for 250 off season.
I personally love mine. I came from a Traeger. I like my Traeger but always felt it wasn't smokey enough. You know when you go inside a BBQ joint like JR's off of Florin? It hits ya in the face!
The Masterbuilt was closer to that than the Traeger. I could walk outside to get the mail and smell the sweet smells of apple wood serenading the pork shoulder
The first few meals my family told me how much better it tasted. Same food, just different tool.
Now with all of that said. It's not top of the line. There are failure points. It's like a Traeger in terms of being able to control the heat with a digital controller. Instead of an augur it uses gravity (See what they did?) and a fan. The digital controller controls basically a computer case fan that blows air into the hopper where the charcoal is at. As the charcoal burns down the ashes fall into the ash bin, and the charcoal feeds down due to gravity.
There are 2 sliders that you insert between the hopper and the cooking chamber\ash bin. You take them out when you cook, and put them in when you are done to snuff out the fire. IF you forget, you just wasted a hopper full of charcoal. I've seen people put red tassels on the sliders to remind them
The app has a reminder as well (I think)
The air pushes the smoke and heat inside the cooking chamber. I get pretty good consistent temps inside. Like the Traeger to get a better seal you can mod it with that fireproof seal. I haven't really modded mine and never really had any problems.
There's 3 sensors at each door (cooking chamber, top of hopper, and the ash bin where you also access to light the charcoal). Overtime the grill will get dirty from use, from dumping charcoal in the hopper and the dust getting everywhere, and from the ash. Sometimes that dirt gets into the sensor and the sensor loses connection. This will cause the fan to not turn on. This has happened to me twice over the time I've owned it. For me the fix was to buy a can of electrical cleaner. I just spray it over the sensor, use a towel to push the sensor in and out to get the cleaner inside the sensor and that fixed the issue. Others have taken the sensors out and crossed the wires. This makes the fan always on (controller still controls the speed) Fan stays on when you open the hopper or cooking chamber, and that can be a fun way to shave off your eyebrows.. You can also order replacements parts.
Other issue I've seen from people is sometimes hot charcoal would somehow end up inside the fan and then melt. That hasn't happened to me but I've seen it from people a few times. You can replace the fan and back as new.
The hopper has firebrick in the inside, and then a thin piece of metal that keeps it in place. Overtime that metal will dissolve exposing the firebrick. Masterbuilt says that's by design as it's used to keep it place during shipment. The firebrick will harden overtime and will keep things insulated. It looks horrible inside, but I'm still going strong.
You can buy a mod from a guy who basically makes a certain size stainless steel encasing that goes inside the hopper to help preserve it. I didn't do that and don't plan to.
Lastly the app is good when it works. I haven't had much success. I don't rely on it. But when it does work you can monitor temps on your phone, change temps, receive alerts, power off etc. It comes with 4 probe inserts (think they give you 1 probe) I use a 3rd party temperature reader with 4 probes that I can access with my phone as this works better than their app. The problem is I have no control of the controller. I accepted that and I don't really care as I'm usually outside having a beer escaping the loud house.
I've cooked tri-tip, pork shoulders, steaks, hamburgers, chicken, pork loin, veggies you name it. Done overnight smoking. Charcoal lasts all night but you will want to be up in the morning to refill.
The amount of charcoal you use varies on cook time, cook temp, weather... But for a 20 pound bag I can get about 4 cooks in depending on what I'm cooking.
Anyways you can tell I love mine, but it's not perfect. For the price point I don't expect it to be. It does enough and I can live with some of the issues. Some of these issues doesn't always happen so don't let them dissuade you.
