Hey all! Hope you and yours are staying safe and as healthy as possible.
Another member messaged me a few weeks ago about my experience with the Eco grill. I wrote that member back, and since it was close to the 1 year mark of owning and using this grill, I decided to use my response as my 1 yr update (and I mentioned in my reply to the member that I might do this).
So, after 1 year with the SNH grill, here are my thoughts (from my reply to the member's questions):
I mostly use it as a grill (chicken, burgers and steaks) and less a smoker. But I did do an 18 pound brisket (about 13 pounds after trimming, and I separated flat from point) and spare ribs over the last two weeks. The brisket took less than 8 hours at 240*.
As far as issues, in December, the igniter went out. I didn’t know it was the igniter that was causing the problem (outlet tripped whenever I tried to start the grill). I emailed the owner and he immediately diagnosed the issue and sent me a new igniter no questions asked. I had to splice the wires to make the new connection because the igniter has a different connector, but he e-mailed me exactly what needed to be done. I think everything is from China.
The body of the unit is actually what I’ve been wanting. I like that it’s stainless steel. No body rust after almost having it a year. I think the fire pot chimney design is unique and efficient. Very little to no ash gets on my food unless I have the flame shield open. I can easily convert to use as a charcoal grill if I wanted since the bottom of the cooking chamber is flat and the burn pot is outside of the cook chamber, a really unique design (I have used charcoal on it to sear steaks).
The controller is basic. No Wi-Fi, but I don’t leave my cooks unattended. The meat temp probe works well and the controller always goes to warming mode when the meat probe reaches its target temp.
Smoking meat, I found that the more food, and larger foods like brisket, keep temps more stable. Smoke flavor is there. It’s not creosote or acrid dirt smoke like I’d get sometimes when I first started to cook on my Weber kettle (charcoal) years ago, but I prefer a cleaner smoke anyway.
I did recently buy a smoke tube out of curiosity and to learn to cold smoke. In my opinion, it’s WAY too smokey! It can definitely overpower the flavor of the food itself, and while it’s been a nice way to add variety to cooks, it’s not necessary to me. The controller does a great job itself imparting smoke to the food.
The cover it came with sucks. It was pretty much disintegrating within the first 6 months and I kept the unit under a covered patio for the first several months with the cover. Water from the sprinkler system and rain still got in it. To be fair I have a brand new cover I bought from Home Depot that looks and feels more durable and better material, but water still gets in! Not a big deal as long as the pellets stay dry.
You might have read about the back burn issue I had a while back. I made adjustments to the controller and fan speed with help from the manufacturer. Everything worked fine. But when I made a switch to using Lumberjack Charcoal Hickory pellets, the fan speed was too fast, pellets burning too hot and fast, blowing flames into the pellet shoot.
Never got a full burn back but it definitely got hot enough to burn the pellet dust on the pellet shoot and cause smoke to go into the hopper (not a big deal but the fan is too powerful for the unit, and the manufacturer even wrote me that that’s why they originally had to tune it down on the programming of the controller).
After contacting Lumberjack Pellets, they confirmed to me that the Char Hickory pellet burns hotter and faster than their 100% Oak pellet. So, I reverted back to the original fan speeds. It works just fine now. If I switch to a different pellet that burns cooler and slower, I may have to change the fan speeds again to accommodate, but it's really easy to do.
BTW, looking back, I now think that my initial burn back problem was caused by wet pellets. My first couple of uses, the unit got caught in a rain storm and pellets got wet where the hopper meets the auger tube. They didn’t burn completely, leading to less heat, causing more wet pellets to be added, ultimately causing a backlog that burned all along the pelllet shoot ramp. (I had to seal with high temp caulk).
Checking the unit to make sure things are dry, especially in the burn pot area has made for smooth cooks.
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That's the end of my response to the user, and essentially that's the gist of my experience with the unit.
I'd buy it again, as I just love the thing. No rust, all stainless, and so easy to make food I enjoy. It was a great price, and I hope the manufacturer stays in business long enough to make other products.
-RrS
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Topic: Smoke-n-Hot Grills...Too! The Eco. (Read 29449 times)