Hitting the $500 price point with a pellet cooker is hard to do but I'm sure Brinkmann has the production capacity and material buying power to do it. I haven't seen any reviews, but then I haven't looked for any, either. It is an attractively styled unit. I wish them well. Distributing through big box retailers is difficult because sales are so often impulse and the floor staff have minimal or no knowledge and are not incented to develop it. The number of returned units may be higher than normal due to uninformed buyers expecting heavy smoke from it and not doing any research about pellet cooking techniques. On the flip side, this could be a boon to the second buyer who picks it up at a discount and who knows what he or she is buying.
I've had two Brinkmann cookers. The first was a very simple, small charcoal smoker with two racks and a water pan. I bought it in the earlly 80's and used it a few times before giving it away. It was a bear to keep any kind of steady temperature and the metal was very thin and rusted quickly. The second was a small offset. It was high maintenance as well but I did finally learn to do basic smoking on it and the firebox doubled as a grill. It rusted out in about three years. My guess (I haven't seen one up close and personal) is that the metal will be thin on this pellet cooker to hold down costs. That will only affect temperature stability/pellet consumption/lifespan, not cooking quality for those who learn to use it. Also, if well maintained, it should last several years.
I'm glad to see Brinkmann enter the pellet cooker market. Overall, the "popularity of the breed" will only increase ultimately and this will be a positive thing for higher end pellet cooker companies (MAK, Memphis, FE, Yoder, etc.) which will be trade-up targets for those wanting more features/space/benefits after learning on a more basic, less expensive machine. The further proliferation of good brand cooking pellets into more stores will be appreciated by us pellet cookers, too.
Hub
