This is touted as an all-in-one solution for smoking, grilling, backing, and barbecuing. A hot smoker, outdoor oven, and barbecue it is for sure, but a grill, well... it falls a little short (and that is OK!). The difference between smoking, barbecuing, and grilling is the temperature you cook at. Cold smoking is preserving food using salts and smoke without actually cooking them (temperatures around 100 degrees F). Hot smoking is generally done between 175-225 degrees F, grilling requires temperatures upwards of 450 degrees F (with 600 degrees being necessary for a good sear!), and barbecuing is between the two. I can't say enough how convenient it is to be able to set-it-and-forget-it while you go on with your day. I used to smoke in a wood-fired offset smoker. While I loved it, it required constant monitoring and a lot of beer to get through a long cook. It was also possible to oversmoke foods to where they'd be bitter if you weren't careful. With this, just set your temperature and check it every now and then (more towards the end of your cook so you don't overdo it of course). I've even topped off the hopper right before bed and let it cook all night. As a hot smoker and barbecue it is downright amazing, and why I touted it as an outdoor crockpot... "low-and-slow" cooking requires some planning as well as choosing your cuts of meat. You don't want to try grilling a brisket at high temperature unless you feel like burning more calories chewing than you get from eating. Likewise, you have to be pretty careful smoking thin, lean cuts of meat like pork chops (though thick-cut pork chops turn out great if done carefully). The ability to set a low temperature (I do the majority of my barbecuing/hot smoking right at 225), load up the hopper with pellets, and basically ignore this thing for 2-8 hours is pretty incredible. I've done cooks as long as 14 hours, and it holds an accurate temperature that never seems to deviate more than 10 degrees in either direction. Boneless turkey breasts, 12+ pound briskets, beef tenderloin, pork tenderloin, pork shoulder for pulled pork, cornish hens, roaster chickens... they come out simply amazing. Since it is digital, it doesn't need to be babysat, so plan your timing accordingly, throw your meal on, and then head off to do something else for a few hours. Throw some vegetables (asparagus is particularly good) or seasoned, halved potatoes on during the last 30-90 minutes of your cook and you end up with a delicious and healthy meal with virtually no cleanup. Its like being able to throw dinner in the slow-cooker and leave for work, but this is SO much better. You know what else is delicious? Wood-fired baked goods! The local discount grocery store sells frozen pizzas for $3.99. Take one of those, add a little extra cheese and some turkey pepperoni (cuts down on the grease) and bake in your preheated grill (375 for around 22 minutes in my case). The result is that you'll possibly never want to pay the ridiculous cost to have a pizza delivered again. It is that good. Or, get some take-and-bake baguettes or ciabatta and throw it on for 8-10 minutes, and the results will blow you away. If you do a long cook of some delicious meat, when you take it off to rest, turn your grill up to 375 and let it preheat for a few minutes, and you have just the right amount of time to have hot bread alongside your meal. Breakfast foods? You can do that too... Preheat to 350 and melt some butter in a cast-iron skillet while it preheats on the grill. Throw on some turkey kielbasa while the skillet preheats and cook onions in the skillet. Throw the kielbasa in the skillet when the onions are done, and pour in some seasoned eggs and cheese. Close the lid and come back 40 minutes later. You'll have a breakfast fritata that disappears in a hurry, and by the time it is done cooking, your breakfast dishes will already be done. Big win. Do you like to save money? I am pretty sure that this grill has paid for itself by way of my grocery bill. Instead of buying expensive cuts of meat for grilling, now I purchase bulk, on-sale cuts that would be less-than-ideal in other situations. I've found whole briskets for under $4/lb, and chicken quarters and pork for just slightly over $1. I've even purchased entire beef tenderloins (the cut that filet mignon comes from) for $5/lb and smoked the entire thing (amazing). I can load up, smoke everything at once, and freeze a big portion of the leftovers. Most smoked foods are delicious at room temperature, so I'll portion into ~3 meals and freeze. Take a bag out of the freezer and thaw in the fridge for a couple days, and then when I want to eat it I will just let it sit out for a little while. As a grill, well, it is just OK. It does get to a temperature of 450 degrees which is sufficient for hot-and-fast cooking, but it doesn't get hot enough to sear. You'll either need to sear some other way (a blazing cast-iron skillet works, or you can use a propane grill if you have one). By the time you put a few grill marks on your meat it is going to be well-done. Don't get me wrong - the wood-fired taste is pretty amazing, but you just don't get that lovely brown, delicious surface of properly seared meat. I'm experimenting with some whys to overcome this using cast-iron grates laid on top of the grate, or putting a skillet to preheat at 450, but so far the results are just OK. The other issue with grilling on this - particularly when it comes to really fatty meats like burgers, is the grease fire. This thing gets HOT over the firebox, and if you throw on some 73-27 ground beef (the best kind, right?), in no time you are going to have a raging inferno, your grill is going to shut down, and you'll be finishing your burgers elsewhere if they aren't already ruined. Things like hotdogs and sausages seem to work better, but the very staples of grill cookery (burgers and steaks) just won't be at their best. So why three stars? Well, everything is a compromise. This required a few adjustments coming from charcoal and propane, but once I did, I simply love the convenience and versatility. I don't have to stand over a grill flipping and moving things, the results are delicious, and I am saving hundreds of dollars by being able to buy cheap cuts of meat and turn them into something guests beg for. Kids especially love little cornish game hens. I can throw on just about anything that doesn't mind being cooked slow or baked, and carry on with my life before coming back to a hot meal (what a wonderful thing when you are a busy, single guy). The pellets are more convenient than playing with propane tanks and they sell them at the local hardware store. I can stock up when they are on sale, and as long as you keep them dry, they last forever. I'll probably add a propane grill for searing or burgers, but I don't think I'd ever go back to cooking solely over gas. BUT... After about a year I started having some issues where, if I set the grill to anything higher than maybe 300 degrees, the temperature would climb fine, then suddenly spike to 500+ degrees and throw the grill into a high-temp error state. This would happen randomly throughout the cook too, and I had to constantly monitor the grill. As it turns out, the temp sensor was bad. After I replaced the sensor (a really messy job) the grill actually performed better than it did when I bought it, which tells me that the original sensor was always flakey and responsible for some of the odd quirks I thought were just normal for a low-priced pellet grill. This could have been a 5-star product, but poor quality control and a single cheap component soured the experience.
