Camp Chef Pellet Grill

[smokeasaurus]

Biscuit test.  Pillsbury Grands at 350 for 20 minutes.




Very even across the cooking grate and the bottoms were not burnt........this grill is impressive so far.


No periods of visible smoke was seen at the 350 setting. It appears that after the 300 mark the visible smoke is gone. From 160-300 smoke is heavier intermittently. I believe the controller has been programmed this way to add heavier smoke at smoking temperatures. I have seen lots of new pellet grill owners mentioning that they are disappointed with lack of smoke, but Camp Chef has addressed these complaints. No need for a smoke supplement gizmo in this pellet grill...at least up to 300 degree settings.

[smokeasaurus]

I would like to mention that I only mentioned Rec Tec and Yoder as comparisons for pellet consumption. I  have cooked on these pits before and have a load of respect for them. I don't want to make this a Camp Chef vs  __________ battle. I am going to keep this evaluation strictly on how the Camp Chef performs, I will not mention other Mfg's again as I am evaluating this Pellet Grill and Smoker.

Starting next week, I will be cooking in the Camp Chef Pellet Grill and Smoker....finally    I have decided that the first cook will be...........get ready Sparky........Ribs!! 

[smokeasaurus]

Camp Chef has their own line of pellets. So, we will be using them for the cooking portion of the product review.
Here are the flavors:
Orchard Apple
Classic Alder
Smokehouse Hickory
Southwest Mesquite

[smokeasaurus]

Well, we finally got around to putting some food in the Camp Chef........so let the cooking begin 

Now I know for good pit karma, your first cook should be bacon, but man does not live by bacon alone ...   yeah, I said it....

I did include bacon on some cheese and jalapeno stuffed boneless,skinless chicken breasts. I used Camp Chef Apple pellets and ran the grill at 325.

I can not honestly say the pellets smelled like apple wood. The smoke did smell good though and consumption was real good. I was wondering if consumption would go down with meat in the grill, but that was not the case. I put 5 lbs in the hopper and including warm up and 1.75 hours at 325, the grill used 2.5 lbs of pellets.

The grill ran very nice and I purposely placed the chicken in different spots on the cooking grate and they all cooked evenly no matter where they were placed.

I used the temperature lead that you plug into the controller and when the thighs reached 170 internal on the controller, I used my thermo and I got 170.........nice.

The quality of this meal was no different then any other pellet grills I have used. The meat was excellent. Moist and tender and a mellow smoke profile.....we are off to a good start.....

[smokeasaurus]

Eric and I devised a way to add a full second cooking grate to the Camp Chef Pellet Grill and Smoker. However, when I added the thermo to the lid, I had to slip mine over to the left to make room for the probe. This 2nd grate is fully removeable and kicks up the capacity to 700 sq inches......the same as a Rec Tec or a Traeger Texas. I can now fit 5-6 spare ribs laying flat and -3- full packer briskets.........and -4- split chickens and probably -6- pork butts........room for a crowd......If and when you order a Camp Chef grill, just ask Eric for his "exclusive" second cooking grate.....

[smokeasaurus]

Today was rib day on the Camp Chef Pellet Grill and Smoker. I have always felt if a pit can help contribute to great ribs, ya got yourself a keeper. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a keeper here. I made my own spritz and finishing glaze. I had the ribs in brown sugar and pepper and onion for a night and two days with a heavy layer of KC rub. I went all out on these ribs and they were hands down without a doubt the best ribs I have done. They were so good I aint even gonna clean my beard so I can have a snack later 

I used Camp Chef's Smokehouse Hickory pellets and these did smell like hickory. I started off with 6 lbs of pellets in the hopper and did the ribs for 6 hours at 225. Lots of smoke like in the pellet consumption tests and rest assured that the intermittent periods of heavy smoke do not oversmoke the meat....nothing to worry about.

I did run out of pellets at the 4.5 hour mark. Those hickory pellets burn way to quick. I used about 8 lbs to get through the 6 hour cook with took about 6.75 hours because I had to shut the grill off and reprime the auger and start the grill all over again. User error though, not the pits fault. 

I did not rotate the ribs at all and put them back in the grill where they originally were after the restart. After two cooks, it is pretty apparent that this grill doesn't have any glaring hot spots and cooks evenly across the cooking surface.

Take a gander at these beauties:

[smokeasaurus]

Split a whole Angus Chuck Roll with my boss. This big hunk of bovine is just around 15 lbs. Since Tee is waltzing across Texas, I got out Texas Brothers BBQ rub for the seasoning


Well, it is 4 a.m. and Sagebrush Smoochy is fast asleep



Wake up Smooch, we got some product testing to do......that's better....Tee aint the only one that looks good in a cowboy hat!


Got oak pellets in the hopper and the grill set for 275....here we go

[smokeasaurus]

After -7- hours when the chuck roll hit 170 internal, I foiled it with some lager and kosher salt added. Into the oven at 300 till internal reached 195. Then a nice -2- hour rest and I got this:


Put on some gloves and the evil Chuckie Roll pulled like a pork butt. I may never do a briskie again....this has way more flavor


I had Camp Chef mesquite pellets in the hopper when I started the grill up. I did not care for the smell of them when the grill was heating up and I cleaned out the hopper real quick and added 100% Oak pellets.

The Camp Chef Pellet Grill and Smoker performed just like I thought it would....perfectly.......

[smokeasaurus]

Grabbed some cornish game hens and got em nekked (removed the skin) Coated em with clover honey and Grub Rub. See everyone by the Camp Chef Pellet Grill a little later...........



Got -8- Game hens on the cooking grate with the grill set for 250. Using Camp Chef Classic Alder pellets. These pellets smell real good,

[smokeasaurus]

2.5 hours later the game hens were at 165 internal. I rolled the dice a bit taking off the skin but the breast meat was not dried out.
The classic alder pellets are really nice...gonna have to get some more of these...........th grill ran at 250 the entire time and I was a bit worried about the smoke being heavy since the skin was off,but those alder pellets gave the hens a kiss of smoke and everybody was pleased. I really look forward to using this grill...I am going to have to stretch this product review out a bit longer....

[smokeasaurus]

Gonna toss a pork butt in the Camp Chef Pellet Grill a little later this evening for its first overnight cook. But gosh darnit, I gotta sweet tooth.

Time for some Pillsbury chocolate cookies.......15 minutes at 350 and guess what...they all cooked evenly 

[smokeasaurus]

I have had some reservations about doing an overnight cook and I was correct. I put a pork butt in around 8:30 last night and set the grill for lo-smoke (160). Now, most folk would start the cook maybe round 11 p.m. and go at 225...but old Smoke goes to bed early and gets up early....   At the lo-smoke setting, there was a bunch of smoke all night long ( got the stinky eye today from a couple of neighbors) so I won't be doing anymore overnight cooks with this grill. The butt came out real nice but the bark was a tad bitter from all the smoke during the night portion of the cook. I just set that off to the side and we had some good eats. Very moist and tender...there isn't much this grill can't cook...

[smokeasaurus]

It is time to do some grilling in the Camp Chef Pellet Grill. The hopper was loaded with oak pellets and the grill was set to high.
It took about 35 minutes for the grill to reach its maximum temp of 471 degrees.
I wanted to use some Grill Grates but I promised this review will be done with no gizmos or gadgets so the Grill Grates were not used. This grill needs Grill Grates when high heat grilling. I felt during the cook that the grill had to really work hard to hang around 470. I did -10- frozen patties and the grill once again cooked very evenly across the cooking grates, there was no chance that any searing was going to happen. The burgers were good though, just not grilled, more like baked hot burgers. Did get some slight grill marks though, close, but no cigar. I think with Grill Grates, grilling will be no problem, but grilling is clearly not this grills strong points.

[smokeasaurus]

Well, it took almost -2- months but it is time for this review to come to a close. We have grilled. We have smoked. We have roasted. We did a overnight cook. We checked for pellet consumption. We checked for cooking grate temps. We used different types of pellets. We did it all folks.

This is a very nice pellet grill. I am going to use some brand names to illustrate where I feel this grill fits into the scheme of things.

This grill is no Mak or Memphis or Yoder. This grill is not entry level by any means. I still feel the best pellet grill for under 1,000 bucks is the Rec Tec. The next best grill is this one. At Eric's smoking lo price for forum members, this is a no brainer at 1/2 the price. I feel the Camp Chef Pellet Grill is a notch above Green Mountain Grills. It has worked flawlessly for me throughout the review. The controls are super easy to use. Lots of smoke at lo settings. The sweet spot for this grill is between 250 and 350. It just works so nice in this range. The lower settings produce a gang of smoke and can be used in the beginning to get your smoke profile going and then bump up the temps. This grill doesn't grill too well, get some grill grates and you should be OK. The built in temp probe is very accurate. The grill has amazingly tight temps across the entire cooking surface. The grill looks small but holds plenty of food for a family of six.The fire-pot clean out is worth the price of admission all by itself. Super easy clean-up. Nice fit and finish and easy assembly. This is a very well thought out grill. The pellet consumption is very lo (almost Memphis-like....but nothing beats a Memphis).

 In closing, if I was going to buy another pellet grill, I would choose this one. I have had a blast cooking on it and I am going to miss it. If you are in the market for a pellet grill, you would do yourself a great disservice by not giving this grill the hairy eye-ball.
If you have any questions,please send me a pm and if you would like to order send the grillgeek a pm and he will get ya taken care of.

I sure would like to thank Eric for having enough trust in me to test his latest offering and I thank everyone for checking out this product review.

I hope I did a good job...........

[smokeasaurus]

Just want you all to know that the Camp Chef Pellet Grill is now offered in a deluxe version with a stainless steel lid. It has gotten very good reviews on another forum that is strictly pellet driven.

But hey, we all knew this for a while now