Thanks guys. I am having fun with my new grill! So what was in the box.... a Mak 2 Star General!
I assembled with a friend which was a must. Some of my powder coat was scrapped off during shipping. Luckily the damage to the powder coat is inside the pellet hopper and the cold smoke draw so not a big deal. Looks like some of the parts (the grease draw in the pellet hopper and the grease tray in the cold smoke box) that are in these areas during shipping moved around and caused the scrapes. Bruce and Dennis at Mak are sending me some high temperature paint to touch up these areas!
Build quality on the grill is excellent. I love the finish on the stainless steel as it will conceal scratches really well. I have had other stainless steel grills before and trying to clean without scratching was a major pain so I appreciate the finish!
We had some friends over for dinner the same night it was assembled so I made some burgers. I had the grill set at 450F with the flame zone covers removed. They are not kidding when they call this a flame zone! I am not sure if this is what is supposed to happen or if it was a grease fire caused by the grease dripping onto the hot flame zone pan but I think I will get leaner ground beef next time (I had 80/20 mix)! The burgers came out great
The next day, I attached the Mak Mobile to the grill which was not too hard to do. I then did some cold smoked cheese. Had the cheese in the smoker for about 25 minutes and it took on a ton of smoke flavor and was delicious!
I then decided to attempt a tri-tip. It was my first time doing a tri-tip. It came out ok. I put the Mak on smoke mode for an hour. The Mak held it temperature incredibly well. I then raised the temp to 220F to get the meat to an internal temperature 110F. I then removed the flame zone cover, attached my searing grate and raised the grill to 450F. I then seared the meat.
I had a probe plugged in as well. The probe temperature was on the graph but when I unplugged the probe, the log of the probe temp disappeared from the graph on Mak Mobile. Anyone know how to prevent that?
I look forward to doing some more cooking on this beast!
