The newest "smart" offering from Weber:
Looks like Weber beat Fireboard to the market on a Kettle controller.
Looks like Weber beat Fireboard to the market on a Kettle controller.
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Sure appears so. Weber has a lot bigger resources to pull it off without losing their shirts at least as far as the preliminary drink-a-beer-and-contemplate-this has taken me.
We announced this moments after Weber's release of this info, Max had the inside scoop before any others!
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This is a game changer.Comment
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I'm searching hard, but don't see the value. The value of the Kettle as a smoker, is its cheap. Once the price hits a certain level, why not just buy a WSM ? For about 15 years, I made a lot of good barbecue on an 18 WSM and a Kettle.
And there's a good choice of ATC's that work fine on the WSM .
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I am not a fan of the cart design compared to the existing Performer Deluxe and Performer Premium. I use the charcoal storage - and the propane ignition. The new design seems to give both of those up. I pile stuff like charcoal baskets, the SNS and Vortex on the bottom shelf.
Kinda cool to have the fan controller and temp controller built in, but for the price difference, I can add those. And as others mention, it's not always needed either. I gave my son a $59 SNS to use in the 22" deluxe kettle he picked up on the side of the road (virtually unused!), and its a smoking, searing and grilling machine for him.Comment
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Exactly. Seems “sorta” cool…but I HATE that cart. The Performer Deluxe that I have has an adequate worktop & storage rack. The new one loses both. The ignition system is also quite handy.
Weber did a similar thing with the Kamado vs the WSCGC. The charcoal bin is gone. (Not a deal breaker for ME, but still.) And the bottom shelf used to be solid on one side. Great for storing things that would otherwise fall through. Glad I got my Summit when I did. -
CRO you must be looking at a different Weber site or country site than I am. I just looked at the Weber US site, and the Performer Premium is listed as "coming soon" and it is the new cart style with some shelving and no storage bin, for $649.
All in all I am very disappointed with this move by Weber. I have felt for many years that the Performer Deluxe and Premium were their best all around charcoal grills due to the cart design. And none of the new models have propane ignition.
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I feel like all of this screams the kettle can’t be controlled.
While I admittedly use a fan and fireboard from time to time, yet becoming less and less. Generally though when I use one, I leave the vents set exactly as I would if not using a fan.For me the fan is there just in case, not to manage the cook. I want to remain engaged in learning and understanding my cooker, not turn the duty over to technology,
Personally I wonder if maybe we are giving away a valuable chance to keep our brains engaged in learning, and the benefits that come with that,
I’m sure they will sell a lot of them though.Last edited by Richard Chrz; January 24, 2026, 08:00 AM.Comment
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I call it “kettle creep”.Originally posted by Lynn Dollar View Post
You start with a nice cheap kettle, and everything is fine. Then you add a Vortex; hey, they’re only $40, and the wings are great! Then a S&S looks like a great idea, and of course it is; sure, bricks work, but this thing is cool, and what’s $90 these days? Hundred dollar bills are the new twenties!
A rotisserie? Damn, that would be nice. Sure, I can swing $150. Look what it can do!
Oh: you mean you can buy a kit that turns that kettle into a Smokey Mountain? Only $180? Heck, that beats $550! Oh, wait; the Spider Webcraft is $250, and it includes a door, and hinges, and sure, why not! It’s only $70 more than the cheap one I was looking at!
If I’m going this far, I might as well add a fan and controller… $350.
Holy heck… you mean there’s a Santa Maria attachment for Weber Kettles? Well I never! In for a penny, in for a pound, I say. $180 gets me the cheap one. Now all I need is a place to store it…. Wait, I’ll just leave it on the Kettle, and buy a cabinet to store all the other stuff. $200, but it’s a damn nice cabinet, I’ll put it right over here….
Right. I don’t need help. Not at all.Comment
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The Santa Maria grill looks cool. I guess that is why I bought it. But the only way to cook on is with direct heat. The tri-tips (which is what Santa Maria style is famous for), came out on the dry side. I can get a better result with two zone set up in the Kettle with the lid on. But I am going to try it again. Maybe watch the heat more. There must be a reason that people like the Santa Maria style of cooking.Last edited by briano52; March 19, 2026, 12:45 AM. -
This is brilliant. LOL
And so very true.
I “suffer” from kettle/mission creep all the time. Doh!
Not just kettles but darn near everything. Everything.
That guitar isn’t really THAT much more than the other one… Doesn’t help that I may or may not be capable of making a decision. “What the heck, I’ll take ‘em both.”
But it does explain one of my favourite things to say: “It’s only money. And they’ll make more. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they’re printing more today.” -
Oh yeah, and that Santa Maria attachment is great! Albeit, it pretty much is a one trick pony. But a tri-tip cooked over red oak with one of those can be sublime. Can be, but it requires babysitting.
That said, I’ve only used one and don’t own one. I live in an area that I wouldn’t consider using one: often too dry and occasionally too windy. If the wind kicks up, I want to be able to throw a lid over an open fire. Burning down half a town is generally seen as quite rude and unneighbourly.
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About 10 years ago, I attempted using my Kettle for ribs instead of the WSM. There was just less involved in firing up a Kettle.
Steven Raichlen wrote a book in 2005 called " Ribs, Ribs, Outrageous Ribs " . And I began cooking diff recipes from the book. For a lot of them, he set up the Kettle two zone with a full chimney of coals, to get the Kettle running at 325 to 350. He was cooking baby backs in an hour and 1/2 .
But what I found doing the indirect cook, there was just not enough room to get the ribs far enough away from the radiant heat of the coals. My solution was to buy a 26" Kettle, but that wasn't much better. Should've never left the WSM.
Using the Kettle as a smoker just did not work for me. However, I never tried a snake method and did not own a SnS at that time. Raichlen's recommendation for a lower cook temp, was to use 1/2 chimney of coals.
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Huskee yes, only ribs. And only baby back ribs. I tried two configurations. One laying the rack down the middle with coals on both sides in baskets. I think I put 25 coals on each side, but I've slept a few times since.
The other setting up a two zone cook with coals on one side, using fire bricks as a partition.
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Sort've coincidence, Raichlen posted a beef rib cook on IG yesterday. He's using a 22 WSM. He's evolved. I also noticed he cooked at 275* . In the 2005 rib book, his smoker temps were 225 to 250.
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Lynn Dollar Raichlen thinks ribs should have some pull and doesn’t seem to like the long cooking time. I have been a devotee to 225, but more recently have gone as high as 275. My 18” Weber is too small to do the snake method, but I have used it on my son’s 26.” It works like a charm. I’ve even done it on a pork 10# pork shoulder on one load of charcoal.Last edited by LA Pork Butt; January 26, 2026, 04:57 PM.Comment
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I've got to wonder whether this guy trying to run the Kettle at 180* , has some bearing on his findings. I gotta doubt Weber intended for it to be run at that temp.
His views and algos will do a lot better, if he's critical of the product. That's true for all these YouTubers. Controversy sells. That's been true for forever.
Early on, YT was just backyard guys using their phones. Now its a cottage industry and I'm highly suspect of it all -
This same guy posted his latest video a few days ago and said Weber fixed some things with the update to firmware.
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This same YouTuber, Grill Top Experience, does another video that I think is a bit disingenuous.
Charcoal creating white smoke when first ignited, depends largely on the brand. Did the maker add a chemical that speeds ignition ? I use B&B that has only natural additives and there's very little white smoke at the start.
And he runs a snake to show how the fire moving from coal to coal, does not create the white smoke we see when we fire up a chimney. He attributes that to the coals heating before they ignite. But that's not really the problem with charcoal/chunk. Its the chunk that creates the white smoke.
I've run one snake in a Kettle in my life. That was a couple weeks ago. And I noticed that when only charcoal was burning, there was very little smoke. But when the fire hit the chunks that were interspersed, that's when the white smoke showed. He does not address that, even though there are chunks in his snake.
Last edited by Lynn Dollar; March 12, 2026, 05:12 AM.Comment
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I'm with you, Lynn. I rarely if ever watch YT grill/BBQ channels, because as you say above "controversy sells". Lately for content creators, and sadly even many BBQ ones, much of it is about clicks and clickbait-y captions instead of true honest scientific info...I can't stand that nonsense. Barking dogs, much of it. -
Huskee in this case the creator's title doesn't align with his results. Title says the grill was a " disaster " . Yet, he softened that a great deal in the video by saying the problems were an easy softward fix, that's assuming it actually does have those problems.
I recently had a conversation with Google AI about titles of vids. The title definitely has a huge impact on the searchability ( is that a word ? ) of the vid. And the more views it will get. I think YT trains them.
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Well from personal experience with the Searwood, I feel his points are valid. I would love to see the thermocouple show real temperatures instead of some fake held temperature like it does now. It has to get way off track before it registers the spike.Comment
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If Masterbuilt could overcome their quality issues they would really make a huge dent in this industry. IMHO. -
I feel the same way. Gravity fed charcoal seems cool but I see them on Facebook all the time now with people trying to offload them. They fixed a lot of issues with the XL but it’s expensive. Weber will most likely fix things… maybe next generation? -
I'm continually amazed how gravity feed has not gained more traction with the backyard bbq user. I owned a MB560. I found it on sale at WalMart for $200. I was amazed at the thin blue smoke, the temp control, the air flow through cooker was really good. As a smoker it was really good.
People get into problems when they try to use it as a grill. They run the temps up to 700* and its just not built for that. They have a " cheap feel " to them.
People also don't keep them clean.
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After further thought, I need to add a caveat to my post on the location of the ambient temp probe used by the controller.
On a Masterbuilt gravity feed, the heat source is consistent. It enters the cook chamber at the same place, every time. The hot spots will be the same. Convection will mostly be the same, depending upon how hot the cooker is running, the higher the heat, the faster the fan runs, and the more air moving into the cooker.
Same with a pellet smoker. The fire pot is permanently located and convection is the same for every cook.
Even an offset stickburner will have a consistent entry point for heat, though hot spots can vary with the amount of air flow through the smoker.
But on a Kettle, the coal bed can be in any location. With a snake, the fire moves around the outside. Kettles have great convection but the area where the fire is, will always be hotter. So I don't know if Weber can really account for those variables by calibrating the controller.
How Weber decided to permanently locate the ambient probe, must've been a huge discussion.
If running a snake, as fire moves around the cooker, its gonna create different hot spots. If the fire runs directly under the probe, then its gonna react differently. Me, I think I'd be really careful about where I built my snake.
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