Just a follow up with the review now that I have had it for a couple weeks and cooked on it six times:
1. I find the charcoal bucket and and charcoal bowl to be fairly useless / awkward to use. It's not that easy to get in and out of it's storage location, but part of that is stuff we have on our deck next to it. Sliding the bucket in and out has already scratched up the shelf that it is stored on. And finally, the bowl is not that easy to scoop with. You have to lean the bucket one way to get the charcoal on that side, put the bowl on the other side, and then lean it back so the charcoal falls in to the bowl. I think when it is empty, I'll probably clean it out and use it for tool storage that I don't need frequently.
2. The igniter system works, but it does take the specified times they list in the manual. With the charcoal grate in the lower position for smoking, 7 - 10 minutes, upper position for grilling 12 - 14 mins. The first time I smoked on it, I expected to see smoke after 3 or 4 minutes, so I thought I was doing something wrong when I didn't. It took about 6 minutes before I saw some smoke, and about 8 before I thought it was lit enough to turn off the gas. I also feel the flame is affected by wind, and closing the lower vents helps that problem. Lid open, of course.
3. I had some humidity in my thermometer when I first got it. Weber says this can happen, and they would replace it if it was too bad or didn't go away. It did go away after several cooks / sitting in the hot sun.
4. That stainless steel table top sure looks pretty. Unless the sun is beating down on you. Then it is pretty blinding. I am thinking of getting four 1' square heat resistant tiles, nice pattern type, putting some rubber feet on them, and covering the top of the table. We'll see.
5. The ash sweep doesn't overlap. If you start all the way to the left, sweep it over all the way to the right, there is about an inch that doesn't get swept towards the hole. Seems if the motion was an inch or two more, it would get more ash out. Also, a couple of the sweep blades don't seem to be up against the bowl up near the tips. I can probably just bend those down, but it might just be my vision as the fire goes out fairly quickly when in the close position.
6. I still haven't mastered catching the temps on the way up. I tend to close the vents too much, almost snuffing out the fire. Then I open it up too much and over shoot any ways. I'm getting there, and I am sure that's the cook, not the cooker. Just taking me a little time to adjust. But once I get it to a desired temp, it holds pretty steady.
7. Changing temps (low and slow to high heat sear, or worse, over shooting and dropping back down) can be done. It does take a little time, but not as much as I would think it would for a ceramic. Going from 275* to 400* took less than 10 minutes when I did the wings. If I would have started that five minutes earlier, my wings would have been really crispy. As it was, they were done and I needed to pull them before they dried out.
8. This thing is efficient. I have continued to reuse charcoal from the previous cooks. Sometimes I add a little fresh if I think I am going to be cooking for a while. For yesterday's salmon, what I had leftover from the burgers was more than enough to burn at 300* plus for the short time I needed. There wasn't a whole lot left, so I let it just burn out this time. First time I have done that.
9. This thing is still expensive, but it cooks great. The ribs and sausages could have come off my cabinet smoker. The steak was as close to Sous Vide looking as I have ever done on a grill. The wings were great, just starting to be crisp, cooks problem that they didn't get perfectly crispy. I messed up some thighs (I didn't post them here), but that had nothing to do with the cook itself. I put too much rub on them and it turned into a dry powder on the skin. The meat was tender, juicy, and delicious. Those burgers I did had some awesome color to them. And the salmon was as good as I have ever done (cook wise).
BTW, I was talking to the wife last week and she brought up the smoker and why. I reminded her of the rusting / wearing out of parts, and my wanting to go back to a charcoal grill. She said "oh, that's right", and proceeded to tell me that the food looks good and the grill looks like a spaceship. We didn't talk money, and I hope we don't...
