I retired my 7 year old Grilla Grills Chimp and went with the new Weber Smoque (small version). I have not seen a lot on this or any other forum on this unit so thought i would post some pics and first impressions. This unit is suppose to have a new method to “engulf” the meat in smoke with vents in the pan. Other key feature besides the standard ones is an easy clean “no vacuum” system of scraping the ash into a pan, the same one the grease drippings go into. When i looked at it in the store i was not convinced of either and my decision was not influenced by those features. My first impression is that was a good thing cause if you ask me, it is a whole lot faster to just get the shop vac out then to scrape stuff down a hole and it is still a pellet grill, you only get so much smoke. I will say the ribs i made were infused with smoke clear through.That said a couple of new things for me from where i am coming from (Chimp) this things holds a steady temp all through the cook. So much so I am not sure I believe it. I question whether it is not just telling me the internal temp is what i set it at. It literally never varied even 5 degrees from set temp. My Chip never held temps like this in either the PID or PRO mode it had. Though i think the temp swings help in smoke profile but with these even temps i got decent smoke profile for a pellet grill. I would say it was a bit better than my Chimp. Another surprise is how quite this thing is. At times i did not think it was even on. The last item i will mention and what pushed me toward this unit is the small footprint it takes up on my deck and yet i have more grill space than my Chimp and the upper shelf was designed to hold a 9x13 baking pan. And the cook chamber has plenty of height for my over the top chili and a turkey larger than 12 lbs (what i was limited to in my Chimp)
So here are some pics of the unit and the first cook, a Chuck Roast and i did ribs but no pics. Sorry the pic is the meat the next day in the fridge but gives an idea of the smoke ring. I used smoke boost setting for the first 90 minutes. The chuckie took 11 hours.
At this point it meets my expectations. One of which was to be able to readily get parts. Grilla sold out a couple of years ago to a large company and the customer service and product availability has not been what it was (at least for me).
So here are some pics of the unit and the first cook, a Chuck Roast and i did ribs but no pics. Sorry the pic is the meat the next day in the fridge but gives an idea of the smoke ring. I used smoke boost setting for the first 90 minutes. The chuckie took 11 hours.
At this point it meets my expectations. One of which was to be able to readily get parts. Grilla sold out a couple of years ago to a large company and the customer service and product availability has not been what it was (at least for me).
