I had to smile at the first one. There is nothing wrong with the video -- it is actually very well done, but the grill he is comparing the Pit Boss to is a Z-Grill, which is a copy (more or less) of Grilla's Silverbac.
In other words, the solution to fixing your Pit Boss' temperature issues is to turn it into a Grilla Grill. As a Chimp owner, I found that humorous.
The "design flaws" he points out in the Pit Boss are interesting. I have never given a moment's thought to the baffle over the firepot in my Chimp, but he certainly suggests that the absence of one on the PitBoss will give you a huge hot spot. (I really wish he had actually shown this with a temperature probe in various places.)
I don't doubt these are real issues with the Pit Boss, else the existence of commercial aftermarket accessories to fix the problems doesn't make much sense. The curved deflector plate is weird to me. I would think a curved piece of metal would be more expensive to fabricate than a flat one, so there must be a reason for one in the Pit Boss.
(And I am coming to the conclusion that "direct grilling" features of pellet grills are mostly marketing and one is perhaps better off without them.)
(And I am coming to the conclusion that "direct grilling" features of pellet grills are mostly marketing and one is perhaps better off without them.) That is the conclusion I came to.
My very first pellet grill was from Cabela's. Looks just like the Pit Boss with direct grilling also. I just covered the direct grill it up with heavy-duty foil.
I have just purchased a 6 probe thermometer to test this exact situation on my new pit boss. I had one cook and the temps were all over the place. I did some research and purchased from the same company he mentioned in his video. I want to get a base line then add one mod at a time and record the temps. The thermometer is do today. Life is a bit hectic at the moment but I hope to get some time tomorrow to do the tests.
Just a quick but long overdue update:
I added the mods mentioned in the video (heat deflector over the fire pot and baffle by the probe. Temps are normalized across the cooking surface. (Sorry no pictures of data points). I have had some very good cooks after making the mods. In the future I still may add a gasket around the door, and I think i will enlarge the temp probe opening to accommodate more probes.
Down side of heat deflector is it sits on top of removable ash pot. So you have to take the grates off and the main heat deflector. Kind of defeats the advantage of removable ash pot.
Still need to do many more cooks for a better understanding of this cooker.
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