Pitboss PBV4PS2 initial thoughts after first smoke.
Sorry so long. I am a detail freak. Synopsis is at end of review
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Pit-Boss-Pro-Series-4-Series-Vertical-Smoker/5013310445
It is with some trepidation that I post this review.
While I am a new pellet grill/smoker user, I felt there is information that might help others considering the jump to Pellet smoking.
As I have read here, pellet smoking is a whole different animal than typical charcoal/wood Masterbuilt gravity Weber WSM and Masterbuilt Electric smokers.
My initial reason for buying this model is for future use in case my Masterbuilt electric gives up the ghost.
I got it at Lowes and elected for Lowes professional assembly.
I had read too many issues from others that received damaged packaging, and I wanted to inspect the unit before I signed for it. The professional assembly was done well, and the unit passed my inspection of typical anomalies I had read about prior to purchase.
This unit is a beast weighing close to 200lbs. It has genuinely nice sized castors for mobility.
The instruction manual is rudimentary at best, but I had done research on start-up and procedures necessary.
I used Pit boss apple pellets for the burn-in then moved to Bear Mountain Butcher blend for the first cook.
Burn-in: The manual recommends a burn-in of 350 degrees for at least ½ hour.
Since I am totally ACHD I mounted my
Inkbirdbbq
I-BBQ-4 T probe just under the middle rate, where I expect to place most of my protein.
Went through the initial auger priming until slight smoke started entering the chamber.
Turned off unit and let it cycle down, then restarted with control set to 350 degrees.
The manual recommends leaving the door open until smoke starts rolling. Closed door and observed. The actual temperature registers on the control panel started climbing. I immediately noticed that my ink bird probe was reading higher than the control panel.
There was an initial amount of smoke as the pot filled with pellets and ignited. Throughout the process the Ink bird kept climbing above what the control panel registered.
FWIW the temp probe for feeding information to the control panel is in the upper right area of the chamber. Typically, hot due to the thermodynamics of the chamber.
When the control panel read 350, my Ink bird read 425. (not acceptable). I took pictures of both readings anticipating a call to support. Called support and was pleasantly surprised to get an English-speaking attendant based at their Arizona HQ. The attendant recommended that I might have a faulty temperature probe and immediately mailed me a replacement probe, which I would have to install myself.
For the record, I bought an aluminum lasagna pan and placed it above the temperature diffuser, as recommended by several I had consulted to keep drippings and grease from
Polluting the diffuser plate and hoping to moderate chamber temps.
I had prepared a slab of baby back ribs for my first cook. I emptied the pellet chamber of the Pit boss pellets and replaced them with Bear Mountain pellets. I left the ink bird probe under my cooking grate towards the front of the chamber. Used the recommended procedure of setting the control panel to smoke mode, which is preset at 140 degrees. As the temperature rose to 140 there was a decent amount of smoke in the chamber. Once the control panel reached 140, I reset the temperature mode to 250 degrees and monitored the temperature graph on my ink Bird. Unlike the burn in the ink bird stayed closer to the control panel, though consistently 20-30 degrees lower than the control panel reading. I can live with that to use as a reference on setting future temperatures for cooking. As the internal crossed the 200 range I noticed that the amount of smoke decreased significantly.
I continued the cook planning for 4 hours for unwrapped ribs. I opened the door twice during the cook to spritz with ACV. The unit recovered nicely and held very steady at 250 with the control panel set at 260.
When the ribs hit 195 with good pullback. I hit the shutdown button and `pulled the ribs.
The ribs were FOTB which bugs me, but not the fault of the smoker. The whole staged startup for better smoke bugs me for ribs.
Mightbe ok for butt or brisket, but I am set in my ways for rib cooking.
Synopsis and concluding thoughts:
I was concerned about buying a Pit boss pellet after reading various reviews from the interweb. I will be keeping this unit and learning to work around idiosyncrasies.
Would I recommend this to a friend? Not a good friend that is not familiar with meat smoking.
This unit is a decent outdoor oven. A smoker it is not.
The unit is huge, and you can make lots of meat at the same time if you can deal with the idiosyncrasies and lack of smoke. I will learn my appliance and deal with it. It was $500 plus tax, so less than a WSM22.
This is not to bash PitBoss, buy I would highly recommend they get their Chinese manufacturers to use higher quality steel screws for the internals.
Carry on
John
Sorry so long. I am a detail freak. Synopsis is at end of review
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Pit-Boss-Pro-Series-4-Series-Vertical-Smoker/5013310445
It is with some trepidation that I post this review.
While I am a new pellet grill/smoker user, I felt there is information that might help others considering the jump to Pellet smoking.
As I have read here, pellet smoking is a whole different animal than typical charcoal/wood Masterbuilt gravity Weber WSM and Masterbuilt Electric smokers.
My initial reason for buying this model is for future use in case my Masterbuilt electric gives up the ghost.
I got it at Lowes and elected for Lowes professional assembly.
I had read too many issues from others that received damaged packaging, and I wanted to inspect the unit before I signed for it. The professional assembly was done well, and the unit passed my inspection of typical anomalies I had read about prior to purchase.
This unit is a beast weighing close to 200lbs. It has genuinely nice sized castors for mobility.
The instruction manual is rudimentary at best, but I had done research on start-up and procedures necessary.
I used Pit boss apple pellets for the burn-in then moved to Bear Mountain Butcher blend for the first cook.
Burn-in: The manual recommends a burn-in of 350 degrees for at least ½ hour.
Since I am totally ACHD I mounted my
Inkbirdbbq
I-BBQ-4 T probe just under the middle rate, where I expect to place most of my protein. Went through the initial auger priming until slight smoke started entering the chamber.
Turned off unit and let it cycle down, then restarted with control set to 350 degrees.
The manual recommends leaving the door open until smoke starts rolling. Closed door and observed. The actual temperature registers on the control panel started climbing. I immediately noticed that my ink bird probe was reading higher than the control panel.
There was an initial amount of smoke as the pot filled with pellets and ignited. Throughout the process the Ink bird kept climbing above what the control panel registered.
FWIW the temp probe for feeding information to the control panel is in the upper right area of the chamber. Typically, hot due to the thermodynamics of the chamber.
When the control panel read 350, my Ink bird read 425. (not acceptable). I took pictures of both readings anticipating a call to support. Called support and was pleasantly surprised to get an English-speaking attendant based at their Arizona HQ. The attendant recommended that I might have a faulty temperature probe and immediately mailed me a replacement probe, which I would have to install myself.
For the record, I bought an aluminum lasagna pan and placed it above the temperature diffuser, as recommended by several I had consulted to keep drippings and grease from
Polluting the diffuser plate and hoping to moderate chamber temps.
I had prepared a slab of baby back ribs for my first cook. I emptied the pellet chamber of the Pit boss pellets and replaced them with Bear Mountain pellets. I left the ink bird probe under my cooking grate towards the front of the chamber. Used the recommended procedure of setting the control panel to smoke mode, which is preset at 140 degrees. As the temperature rose to 140 there was a decent amount of smoke in the chamber. Once the control panel reached 140, I reset the temperature mode to 250 degrees and monitored the temperature graph on my ink Bird. Unlike the burn in the ink bird stayed closer to the control panel, though consistently 20-30 degrees lower than the control panel reading. I can live with that to use as a reference on setting future temperatures for cooking. As the internal crossed the 200 range I noticed that the amount of smoke decreased significantly.
I continued the cook planning for 4 hours for unwrapped ribs. I opened the door twice during the cook to spritz with ACV. The unit recovered nicely and held very steady at 250 with the control panel set at 260.
When the ribs hit 195 with good pullback. I hit the shutdown button and `pulled the ribs.
The ribs were FOTB which bugs me, but not the fault of the smoker. The whole staged startup for better smoke bugs me for ribs.
Mightbe ok for butt or brisket, but I am set in my ways for rib cooking.
Synopsis and concluding thoughts:
I was concerned about buying a Pit boss pellet after reading various reviews from the interweb. I will be keeping this unit and learning to work around idiosyncrasies.
Would I recommend this to a friend? Not a good friend that is not familiar with meat smoking.
This unit is a decent outdoor oven. A smoker it is not.
The unit is huge, and you can make lots of meat at the same time if you can deal with the idiosyncrasies and lack of smoke. I will learn my appliance and deal with it. It was $500 plus tax, so less than a WSM22.
This is not to bash PitBoss, buy I would highly recommend they get their Chinese manufacturers to use higher quality steel screws for the internals.
Carry on
John
