First off, let me say that I fully intend to give Memphis Grill the opportunity to correct the problems I am experiencing, so the jury is still out on where this all leads. With that said, customer service never responded to my email about a month ago, so I’ll be calling them this week instead.
I love the concept of this grill—lots of real estate and indirect pellet cooking with a hot swappable insert that allows for direct sear over the fire pot. But so far, there’s some real kinks to work out.
My first challenge was upon initial break in. I followed the instructions provided, but when the grill reached high temp (400°), the center grate would not budge in order to swap out the insert. The frame had expanded and flexed so much that the center grate became wedged. This was the initial concern that I contacted Memphis Grill about, with no response.
After using the unit a time or two, a couple of other issues came up. The touchscreen is incredibly hard to adjust—the buttons on the screen are extremely small, and the "touch point" for the temp setting is actually below the button itself and not right on it. The slider is super sensitive and easy to accidentally touch, often setting the temp way out of the desired range. A recent firmware update helped this problem some by spacing the buttons farther from the slider, but it’s far from a perfect solution.
The other issue that came up was "over temping." The grill was constantly overshooting the set temp by 50°-60° in the initial stages of cooking. It would eventually settle out, but it always wants to run hot. I’ve mitigated that some by starting off at 50° below my desired temp then slowly increasing the temp as I cook, but it ought to be more hands off than that.
The best feature of this grill is the direct sear, but tonight that led to a complete failure. After about 3 minutes on "extreme sear," the blower started making a racket, then shut down completely, stopping my cook in its tracks. I shut off the grill and let it cool down, then removed the back panel to inspect the blower. It was completely melted!
I’ll post on here how my experience with customer service goes. But in the meantime, DO NOT BUY OR RECOMMEND THIS GRILL! Too many kinks still need to be worked out with this one, and I’m getting dinged for being an early adapter…
I love the concept of this grill—lots of real estate and indirect pellet cooking with a hot swappable insert that allows for direct sear over the fire pot. But so far, there’s some real kinks to work out.
My first challenge was upon initial break in. I followed the instructions provided, but when the grill reached high temp (400°), the center grate would not budge in order to swap out the insert. The frame had expanded and flexed so much that the center grate became wedged. This was the initial concern that I contacted Memphis Grill about, with no response.
After using the unit a time or two, a couple of other issues came up. The touchscreen is incredibly hard to adjust—the buttons on the screen are extremely small, and the "touch point" for the temp setting is actually below the button itself and not right on it. The slider is super sensitive and easy to accidentally touch, often setting the temp way out of the desired range. A recent firmware update helped this problem some by spacing the buttons farther from the slider, but it’s far from a perfect solution.
The other issue that came up was "over temping." The grill was constantly overshooting the set temp by 50°-60° in the initial stages of cooking. It would eventually settle out, but it always wants to run hot. I’ve mitigated that some by starting off at 50° below my desired temp then slowly increasing the temp as I cook, but it ought to be more hands off than that.
The best feature of this grill is the direct sear, but tonight that led to a complete failure. After about 3 minutes on "extreme sear," the blower started making a racket, then shut down completely, stopping my cook in its tracks. I shut off the grill and let it cool down, then removed the back panel to inspect the blower. It was completely melted!
I’ll post on here how my experience with customer service goes. But in the meantime, DO NOT BUY OR RECOMMEND THIS GRILL! Too many kinks still need to be worked out with this one, and I’m getting dinged for being an early adapter…
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