New 900 from Costco

[NCARalph]

My Camp Chef Woodwind pellet grill finally ticked me off enough to ditch it. With company there the controller failed (again) forcing me to cook in our kitchen oven!!!!! The shame of it....
That plus lots of rust was just too much for me.

After a lot of looking I wound up with a 900 from Costco for $649 plus tax. It looks like exactly what I want as it has a pizza oven with deflector rather than the 800's flattop which I don't think I'd ever use. If I do want to fry stuff I'll try using the pizza deflector and a large pan, but I'm not holding my breath. The 900 also has upper racks that are about 2" wider than the ones on the 800 which is where they get the extra 100 sq in from. A lot of the LSS mods work for both the 800 and 900 too.

Tomorrow is assembly day.

[Jkahnert]

Congratulations on the new cooker! Can't wait to see pics!!

[WayneT]

Gratz on the MCS therapeutic intervention. Don’t forget to make a donation to your local MCSA chapter.

[Draznnl]

Congrats on the new cooker. Hope it gives you many years of pleasure.

[Clawbear57]

Congrats on new toy, can't wait to see it in action.

[HawkerXP]

Oh boy.......

Can't wait to see it in action!

[UncleSpike]

Is that a LG 900?

[NCARalph]

Assembly went fine, but took just over 4 hours, and I wasn't dawdling either. YouTube videos were a good introduction but there are just a whole lot of parts. Before I started, I took everything out of the shipping box and from inside all the spaces on the smoker and spread them around our patio so I could easily locate stuff.
It's currently in the process of initial seasoning so tomorrow is going to be the first cook. Smoked 500F whole chicken.
Some points on putting this together.

• The heat shields come pre-banged up from the factory, so you don't have to smash them up yourself. Several other pieces were bent up too. Fortunately, the metal they use is thin enough to be easily bent back enough to work.
• I was able to do the whole operation by myself except for the final flip back over to stand it upright. My wife and I did that.
• A good magnetic Phillips head screwdriver really helps in some tight places. Plus, hypothetically, if you fat finger it and drop a screw down between the cook chamber and the outer wall you can just reach down with the screwdriver and pick it up. Hypothetically.
• I wound up doing a little HT paint touch up where the factory had missed a few spots.
• The larger upper shelves, compared to the 800, seem fine. They don't look to be in the way at all.
• The LSS deflector and drip pan holders fit perfectly.
• I put the grease pan in from the back which is a lot easier than from the front. We'll see.
• The charcoal column top gasket leaks despite playing with it. I'm going to have to deal with that.
• Man! Does it heat up fast! Seems to hold temp very stably too. Much faster and stabler than my pellet smoker.

The pizza attachment looks pretty good and I've uploaded a picture of it but I've not used it yet. It has a pair of deflectors for each side that you insert around the manifold so you don't have to change manifolds. They concentrate all the hot air to the bottom of the stone by blocking off the other holes and there are a couple of plates that go on the grill to either side of the oven to minimize heat loss around the over. The oven itself is double walled but the stone itself is a bit thin. The two cross pieces in the photo are essentially clamps that hold the deflectors tight against the side of the manifold. It looks pretty believable and is very easy to set up and tear down. I'll post again once I use it.

[kenrobin]

You mentioned that you're smoking a whole chicken tomorrow at 500 degrees. Did you mean to say 300 degrees? 500 is grilling, not smoking. Have fun with your new toy!

[NCARalph]

No, I cook whole chickens at 500F, all indirect.
Depending on the size, it takes about 45 min to an hour or so. In our Weber and pellet grills I use a smoke tube to get some smoke flavor and will be interested to see how the gravity smoker does with chunks in with the charcoal.
Chicken cooked this way comes out with a very crusty skin and, when cooked to 160F and let rest for 10 min or so, is extremely moist. Guests have commented a couple of times that it doesn't taste like normally cooked chicken. They seem to like it a lot, we certainly do.
I do turkey like this too, but at 400F so it doesn't burn. A small turkey takes about 2 1/2 hours or so. I pull it at 155F internal and let it sit for over half an hour in a cooler.

[bbqLuv]

is this it? Louisiana Grills 900 Pellet Grill with Smokebox, Model#60901 – CostcoChaser

[Dewesq55]

I believe it's the new Masterbuilt Gravity Series 900.

[bbqLuv]

This is probably it price wise

[NCARalph]

No, that's a pellet grill/smoker. The Masterbuilt 900 is a gravity charcoal device.

[Steve R.]

Congrats on the new cooker! I picked up a Gravity Series 1050 a couple of years ago when they went on sale for half price at Walmart, and I use it a lot for both grilling and smoking. The LSS mods are excellent as well, and I highly recommend those for any of these grills.

You're right, there is a TON of assembly required. Like a 1,000+ piece jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces pre-sorted and good directions provided. But for all the work involved, it all went together remarkably well.

[bbqLuv]

What no Pictures?

[NCARalph]

Well I did the 500F whole chicken and while it was good, very crispy skin and nice smoke, it was a bit overdone. Today I measured the actual temperature on the grill vs the controller's opinion. Below 400F, it is quite accurate, however at 400F indicated, it was actually varying between about 410F and 425F, generally around 420F or so. At 500F it was varying between 520F and 535F usually around 530F.
I think what's going on is that the controller's probe is somewhat protected off to the side while the actual chamber is getting the full blast from the manifold.
I think the problem was the outer meat on the chicken got too hot which both overcooked it and increased the temperature rise while resting. Unfortunately I didn't measure the resting temp. Next time I'm going to cook at 470F and monitor the outer meat temp.

[STEbbq]

Are you cooking with a leave in probe? The temp control of the smoker sounds quite good so just monitoring when the chicken reaches near done temp is ideal.

[NCARalph]

Yes, and I do cook to temp, 160F in this case. The issue is that the outer meat, mostly breast, got a bit too done. I think because the higher temp caused too much difference between the center bottom of the breast where I measure and the top.
I've done this exact method on other cookers and the breast wasn't overcooked, but I had also calibrated the temp first. Calibrating, then cooking, may turn out better than the other way around.

[jfmorris]

While I often run full blast on my Weber kettle for chicken parts indirect, I am wondering if for a whole chicken you want something a little more controlled, like 350F to 375F, to get crispy skin without overcooking the outer meat before the breast gets done.... when I rotisserie chickens I am shooting for 350 to 375 grill temp.

[NCARalph]

Another issue I ran into is leaking door gaskets at the firebox and the top of the chute. This apparently caused the charcoal to keep burning for well over an hour after shutting down which wastes charcoal and makes putting the cover on problematic. I got some LavaLock gasket tape to seal them up.

The firebox door frame has a screw head which secures part of the lower back heat shield right in the gasket area. Oddly, the factory installed screw heads are recessed, but this one is right in the middle of the gasket and sticks out. I removed it without anything falling off or vibrating and put the tape over the hole along with all around the rest of the frame. On the front side, the plunger door switch is right at the edge of the gasket making it a tight fit because I didn't want to rub against the plunger. In the end, that completely sealed the door.

The door at the top of the chute was not so easy. I think the problem is that the rubber gasket bulges out a lot when it goes around the corners of the door and doesn't seal well even with the LavaLock gasket in place. I finally wound up with two pieces of LavaLock side by side to give a wider sealing surface but even that didn't do the trick. However, when I put a double layer of heavy duty aluminum foil covering the entire hole to catch the creosote it finally sealed well. The top gasket is pretty poorly engineered IMHO. It should be molded in one piece to conform to the corners. I may revisit this.