Pellet cooker reviews

[Gibby328]

I know we see bias in literally everything these day... but I have been trying to figure out why when I was looking to find the right pellet grill I would never see the grills I wanted to see or thought should be there. For instance I hear a lot of people bring up bbqguys.com. Sure sounds like it would be good for reviews but like most other they push traeger and camp chef they have Memphis to but first two are common on the review list. You see a lot of cheap Amazon grills on lists too but normally not made in America or recteq grills anywhere. Kinda venting because it was so frustrating when making a decision. Do you know why we don't see these other reputable brands in on reviews?
I have found this site extremely helpful and proud to say I will have a 1250 next week.

[glitchy]

Where do you hear a lot of people bring up bbqguys.com? I don’t think that’s here. A few of us recognize that’s a big grill dealer that also makes Blaze gas grills. What are you expecting to be there as a retailer? And what is the 1250 that you will have next week? I apologize for not knowing it by it’s model.

Edit: My apologies for the late night whiskey rant on Memphis, it’s pretty obvious about what I think of their outsourcing but doesn’t pertain to your question at all.

[glitchy]

I didn't see the channel this was posted in last night. Hope you love the new RecTeq. All signs point to them being pretty nice pellet grills and they appear to use better materials than a lot of other imported pellet grills. RecTeq does curate their reviews though, so that was probably why you were having a hard time finding a lot of unbiased reviews for them. From what I've seen their products are good enough they shouldn't need to do that, but they do so anyway.

[Gibby328]

I have heard they curate their reviews. That is pretty disheartening. I googled for reviews of pellet grills and bbqguys was one site doing reviews is all nothing special about them and and person online had brought up that site. I just now searched "best pellet grill" bbqguys was #2 after the ads. Traeger it seems is on all lists. Maybe it is because they are the ones that started them and has brand recognition with pricing.

[DavidNorcross]

Welcome to the Pit from Virginia. I really do not rely on online reviews. I have seen the RecTeq 1250 and looks to be a nice cooker. I rely heavily on this group for reviews and also spend alot of time on SOME YouTube channels prior to purchase.

[Gibby328]

When I first started looking at grills I thought I could read reviews to at least help narrow my pics. You are right. It came down to places like this and YouTube reviews. I think online reviews rely heavily on directing people to Amazon for the purchase because they are an affiliate.

[au4stree]

My brother has a Recteq and loves it. I helped him put his together and it screams quality, SS parts at everyturn. The material is not your typical flimsy metal associated with other brands. To your original question, businesses figured out long ago that if they can control reviews it can only help sell more widgets. Certainly, it isn't exactly right, but they do what they can to gain an edge. Like David said above, I read online reviews with a healthy skepticism.

I can attest to Traeger's products as I owned one for about 10 years, but that was when they were a small business owned by the family. They do not resemble that now.

[GolfGeezer]

Actually, to me the benefit of BBQGuys are the sheer number of brands and products they have online with a fair amount of pictures and a fairly detailed summary list of features, materials, configurations, etc. For reviews online, besides the GREAT info on the Amazingribs.com free site, reviews that are in-depth testing of products and features that you can count on, I used searches for "complaints about..."

However, the biggest challenge, I find, is being able to actually get your hands on a products: see how it is built, see and touch the materials, see how grease management works, ease of access, shelving or not, etc. The hardest part of buying my MAK 2 Star is the fact MAK does not have large relationship with any retailers (they used to), so no showrooms. I had a lot of discussions in online forums questioning various aspects of the two main pellet cookers I thought i wanted (MAK vs the old style Memphis Pro).

Bottom line: I understand your frustration, but even if there were such a place, "see, touch, feel, ask" is still the most essential approach in my book. And The Pit is a great place to do that!

[rickgregory]

"..."see, touch, feel, ask" is still the most essential approach in my book. And The Pit is a great place to do that!"

Wait, WHAT? Is there a secret section of the Pit that I don't know about where people are touching and feeling?

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

rickgregory I have offered to let people come touch and feel in the past but no one took me up on it, I was even gonna let them play with my MAK too

[Panhead John]

Not sure if you checked here at AR or not, but this is one of the best places anywhere for BBQ product reviews. As others have mentioned, our own Max Good, and a few others, provide us with excellent unbiased reviews on the free side. I know you said you’ve already ordered one, but be sure in the future to check Amazing Ribs first. Max is the only full time BBQ cooker reviewer in the world, that we know of.

https://amazingribs.com/grill-and-sm...l_type=pellets

[bbqLuv]

Panhead John nailed it.
You done good.

[Waiting for the Worms]

Helpful. Informative. On topic.
Okay, who hacked PJ's account?!? I need to know who to send the reward money to.

[Panhead John]

Hey Will, don’t get used to it!

[RonB]

Welcome to The Pit.

[bbqLuv]

Hello from NW Oregon.
Interesting you should bring this up.
Although I have a Traeger Timberline 850, Love it, by the way, I enjoy learning about all the other grills and smokers.

[Gibby328]

I grew up in Oregon and my folks now live in Vancouver. I am glad you like the Timberline. I almost got one when they came through Costco.

[Jfrosty27]

First, welcome to the pit. Second, congrats on the RT-1250 on the way. I have had an RT-700 for two and a half years or so and absolutely love it.

[RAGBBQ]

I had a RT-680 for three years, and had some issues with it. I replaced it with the RT-700 two years ago, and no issues. It has performed flawlessly so far.

[radiodome21]

Last year I bought a Traeger 575 without doing any kind of research before hand. I acted impulsively and the local Home Depot had one in stock, and I bought it without ever opening up my laptop which is something I almost never do. Couldn’t be really any happier with it. Where are some hiccups? Yes. But it still puts out good food and I like it a lot. That was at our Lakehouse. After my experiences with the Traeger I decided that I wanted a pellet smoker at my house. Did tons of research, narrowed it down between Grilla and Recteq and went with Grilla. Couldn’t be happier. I used the reviews from this website, YouTube and comments from The Pit as well. I also looked up complaints on different brands and searched out reviews from people who owned their smokers for a while too for their input.

[DavidNorcross]

I have burned through a couple bags of pellets with my Silverbac as well and could not be happier.

[glitchy]

I had a Traeger 575 for a short while. It was actually a decent grill. Had they fixed the launch day firmware issue faster I might still have it. Traeger gets a bad rap and I don’t love some of their recent shenanigans, but overall they’re decent pellet smokers. There are just better made and better priced competitors when you start looking closer. I bet your Grilla has better quality materials though?

[radiodome21]

The only things that my Traeger does better than the Grilla is their front shelf and that they make drip liners. I use foil in my silverback but the trays save time and foil for wrapping. My Silverback front self isn’t level. It was a little tricky to install as the directions were useless. Luckily they have a YouTube video which was great. But The left arm always sags a little and I can’t fight out why. I have reattached it and the bolt can’t get any tighter but it does bother me. The Traeger Wifire was very glitchy in the beginning but I haven’t had any issues in a while. The grilla probé was glitchy too but Grilla’s great customer service rectified that, something that Traeger can’t match. But I went with Grilla because while they are comparable in price you get more from Grilla and Rectec, which is why those were my choices.

[glitchy]

My issues were the temps. 225 was close, but 350 was only 300 and 450 was 350-370. It was very widespread and there was a good sized group on FB complaining about it. Several of us called Traeger support and were told we were imagining it, but I think taking 45-60 minutes to cook burgers at ‘450’ is as much proof as my Fireboard readings. They supposedly fixed it with firmware the day after I returned mine. That was only issue I had with it.

[Gibby328]

With the double insulated lid do you go through pellets less than your Traeger? I thought that was a pretty cool feature.

[radiodome21]

I’ve only had the grilla since April so haven’t smoked in the cold yet and we weren’t able to use the Traeger at our lake house because of construction in the yard. I could t find the power cord because the workers moved it. I’ll definitely be smoking on both of them this winter.

[glitchy]

Another thought about your original question as far as reviews. Grills really aren’t easy items to objectively review and pellet grills with all the varying features are probably the hardest to review well. That’s why Max and the rest of the team’s reviews here are so valuable, they put a lot of time into the studying the details of heat distribution, accuracy, efficiency, construction quality, etc.

Pellet grills are also expensive products, so small companies aren’t able to send 1000 or even 100 of them out to various parties to be reviewed. Most people think $1000 for a grill is total insanity, so the reviews for a Z-Grill gets a bigger audience. So, you have to hang out with the insane people that will spend that kind of money on a grill to get hands on feedback. I see a large number of new pellet grills in the neighborhood now when I go for walks. Most of them are the cheapest models you can find in stores or online. Pit Boss, Z-Grills, etc. if they aren’t Traeger. There’s only a couple Recteqs and one GMG that I have noticed. No American grills or SmokeFires that I’ve noticed within a couple miles. So, while RecTeq, Grilla, MAK, etc. sell a fair number of grills and make some money, but if you were to put them in stores everywhere expensive grills are still pretty slow movers. My WSCG grill had been at ACE for a couple years. I know of a couple people that bought MAKs from dealers 2-3 years after MAK went to being direct. The pandemic has changed it some with people seeing more value in quality grills as they use them more.

[Waiting for the Worms]

Unbiased information is always hard to come by. Just based on what I have heard from folk here that own them, you made a good choice.
Can't wait to see pics of the new cooker and the food coming off of it.

[Redwng]

There are a number of YT videos now about using various RT cookers but none when I got mine.

I've had my RT 680 for seven years and while there have been a few hiccups it still works and RT has some great customer service. I have cooked about 25 briskets overnight and it worked flawlessly. At the price point of the RT it is a good bargain.

Mine has started to warp just a little but still works. I have replaced the controller, probe and igniter...all were covered under their 6 year warranty. We use ours probably 4-5 times a month but may use it much more.

Good luck, enjoy your new cooker and share pics.

[Gibby328]

I had a friend tell me I would be stupid to not get a grilla grill. I may have gotten one if they had on as large as the 700. The Warranty and watching so many YouTube videos ultimately got my vote. It is nice to see a company that follows through with their warranty and does not make jump through hoops to get problems fixed.
Thanks! I will share my first pics even if it turns out ugly haha.