Z GRILLS Upgrade 8 in 1 Wood Pellet Grill & Smoker for Outdoor Cooking, BBQ Grill with PID 2.0 Controller, LCD Screen, 697 sq, Meat Probes, Rain Cover

Summary: Great quality first smoker, and I'm a huge skeptic.Long-winded review: Have a lot of info to give, so here goes;Bought this smoker after doing heavy research, reading reviews, poring through forums, and even talking to dozens of people. The facts that it comes with a cover and was deliverable by Amazon were huge bonuses. Box arrived in great shape, all pieces and parts accounted for and intact, straight. Assembly was somewhat tedious, but easy. I was able to assemble the entire smoker by myself - Quick tip: flex the big box, while tipping the cooking chamber back, to sneak the lid open and remove all packing and parts, then assemble the stand before taking the cooking chamber out of the box. This makes things way easier and much lighter, and the cooking chamber then sets immediately on the stand after removing the shipping brace. I like this smoker design because it has the extra shelf out front - VERY handy! Shelves and main grate are all counter-height, not something you find on all smokers. (Usually they are a lower height, which is not as natural feeling.) Basic settings, basic controls, well-built, seems to be very durable, is very stable and secure. Cover fits well, is set up with eyelets to use bungee cords or to install your own drawstring to secure the cover to the smoker. (Although the cover is custom fit, so eyelets will only need to be used for high wind areas.) Timing of this purchase for me was to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving. I ordered early, smoked a big whole roaster chicken to get accustomed to this smoker before attempting the turkey when it counts. Temps held steady for duration of the cook time, meat was amazing! Have smoked chicken, ribs, turkey, and rump roast, can't wait to try a brisket and a tenderloin. Some advice: Read up on multiple smoking methods and times, get accustomed to the whats and whys of each method, and try them out, see what works best for your taste and style. Instructions for the smoker mention covering the grease drain pan with aluminum foil - This is a huge time saver, very good advice, and will help keep the smoker in cleaner condition. Racks have a very durable ceramic/porcelain coating on them. I wash the racks and change the pan foil after every session. Removable ash tray is a huge bonus - Again, not something found on all smokers. Pellet usage is about a pound per hour - Competition blend is a great overall pellet to use, has good flavor for most any meat. Be prepared for a somewhat lengthy initial burn process, and perform this before needing to smoke food. This burns off assembly oils and "seasons" the smoker for use.Only cons for me are no window and no lid-mounted analog temp gauge, but I consider those things to be luxuries, and not terribly important.If you're like me and want to spend your money the best way possible on a great smoker without regret, stop here - You'll be glad you bought this one.

All around great smoker. Assembly was fairly simple. I watched the Z-grill tutorial on YouTube while following the instructions and made life 10x's easier.Side note: Pellet Smokers cook great but lack "smokey" flavor, no matter what brand you go with this will be an issue. Do yourself a favor and invest in some Smoke Tubes. Amazon sells a 2 pack with cleaning brush for just under $16. IT CHANGES THE FLAVOR COMPLETELY! You will get classic Off-Set smoker flavor with the convenience of a pellet smoker. Trust me on that.This last weekend I smoked a Boston Butt and 2 racks of Baby Back Ribs. Easily fit on this smoker. With the Smoke Tubes, it turned out incredible.Temperature is very constant as long as the lid is shut. It does take a little while to full heat up, so don't keep the lid open and longer than you have too.Great product and much cheaper than Traeger or Pitt Boss. Highly recommend.

I don't post many reviews anymore, but this product was worth the effort. After using the unit for about 10 cooks, it has proven to do everything quite well. The only feature missing from this unit that could be attractive to some people is WIFI connectivity, but that is available in a newer version, the 7002C2E/7002F2. I'll try to touch on some key considerations that I thought were important in selecting a pellet smoker, and how this unit fared against those key criteria. First, I wanted a smoker that had a sufficient capacity to smoke a good sized turkey (17-20 pounds). And a really important point related to the grilling area was the pellet hopper capacity. If you're smoking something big, like a whole brisket or a couple of pork butts, you want to have a pellet hopper that's big enough to allow 10 - 12 hours of continuous operation. I was happy to find that this unit has both plenty of room for a big turkey, and sufficient hopper capacity for a long duration cook. Next, I was concerned about the unit's ability to maintain a constant temperature. When you're cooking low and slow, it's really critical to be able to depend on keeping a fairly constant temperature. Again this unit scored very well, as it was able to maintain temperature within about 5 degrees for some long duration cooks. Another important consideration for me was temperature probes. It's very convenient to have integrated temperature probes, so you can monitor internal meat temperature without opening the smoker. This unit has 2 probes, and the temperature from each registers on the control panel. They're not as accurate as my hand-held meat thermometer, but good enough to within +/-3 to 5 degrees. The one and only issue I have encountered with this unit was a lack of ideal smoke flavor in the first few cooks I completed. There is a 'smoke' setting, but the operating temperature when using the 'smoke' setting is very low, so using it effectively makes every cook take longer. The better way to remedy this issue was to use smoke tubes, which can be purchased on Amazon separately. They're inexpensive, and made a big difference in smoke flavor. I found that a single smoke tube can produce supplemental smoke for about 3 hours.Overall, this Z Grills 7002C turned out to be a very good value, and does almost everything really well. I didn't care about WIFI connectivity, and with the inexpensive addition of a set of smoke tubes, this unit does everything I need. My family has raved about the food I have prepared so far, and more experience with the smoker should only make for better results.One other point I didn't state earlier - it's very well made, and feels sturdy. You do have to assemble it yourself, but I was able to do that without assistance in about 45 minutes.

If your expecting a Tregger or Pit Boss like grill/smoker you might be disappointed. I bought this to keep at my campground so I can have my Pit Boss at home. Assembly was way easy! And I was very surprised how well it works. It does not have the fancy Bluetooth & the hopper is smaller & grilling area is also smaller than the Boss. But it absolutely works great. I've smoked beef & pork ribs, brisket, pork butt and they turned out perfect. It grills just fine but there is no sliding cover over fire box to get char, that's no big deal for me! I highly recommend this grill for someone who is on a budget or needs a 2nd one like me. I did find this at my local Kroger as well for $100 less than here a week after I got mine, but that's my luck.