Camp Chef Woodwind Pro 36 Grill with Sidekick Sear - Pellet Grill & Smoker for Outdoor Cooking - Comes with WIFI Connectivity - Sidekick Compatible - 1236 Sq In Total Rack Surface Area

After one year of owning the Woodwind Pro, I'm so impressed with it (with minor issues discussed below) that I thought I'd share my experience. I smoke two to three times a week year round so the smoker has seen heavy use (I've gone through over 260 pounds of pellets already). Our house has become the neighborhood and family gathering spot, so I've done 20+ briskets, probably 50 racks of ribs, chicken, pork chops, steaks, lamb, hamburgers, etc. So many good meals.Good- Amazing flavors for a pellet grill. I fill up the smoke box with chips and smoke hard and heavy and get plenty of smoke flavor. I tend to leave the butterfly valve cracked open and keep refilling the smoke box to get enough flavor. The pellets on their own (even at smoke level 10) or butterfly closed isn't enough for me.- Consistent Temps. The temps stay pretty even, only swing higher if you use smoke level 10 but never as bad as other smoking methods.- Plenty of space to cook. I've fit four full packer briskets on at one time and six racks of ribs several other times with plenty of space and never feeling cramped.- The wifi is strong and it's nice to be able to monitor and adjust remotely. I've only had it fail on me once in the middle of a cook where it didn't alert me to temp.- The sidekick is a necessity and I wouldn't recommend buying one without it. We've got the flat sear and pizza oven that fit on the side kick, but they aren't critical to me. I've used the flat sear a bunch and the pizza oven once. I now usually tend to just put a cast iron griddle on the sidekick for searing off the steaks/hamburgers/pork chops/roasts etc after smoking.- Easy to clean. It's super simple to vacuum out the ash and scrape down the rest of the grill to clean it up. Dropping the ash into the cup at the bottom before every smoke is also incredible simple.Cons- Grates that come with grill are thin and cheap. One of the top racks was bent on mine, and I didn't like the two piece split design, so I ended up swapping the grates for the pimp my grill set. I'm much happier with those grates and wish it would have come with something more solid.- Pellets drain in a cone pattern down the hopper, which caused the grill to run dry on an overnight smoke even though there were plenty of pellets in the hopper. I took out pellet grate from the top of the hopper and just push the pellets flat each cook now.- The placement of the handle directly above the smoke box makes it a little difficult to refill the chips into the box with the lid closed. It's minor and stupid, but it's annoying picking up the chips that hit the handle or miss the box.- There isn't a cover made specifically for the woodwind pro. The model offered is for older smokers and has a spot for a smoke stack. My old Weber Summit cover fits pretty good even with the sidekick attachment.- The exterior of the lid is starting to de-laminate and peal up on the front edge below the handle. Not sure what to do about this and not crazy about the quality with this issue. If I were to take a star away, this is the only one I'd ding them on. We'll see if it continues to split going forward and may change my review later if it gets too bad.Overall, fantastic smoker. Super easy to use, with incredible results. The de-lamination issue is a little concerning and we'll see how it continues to hold up. Highly recommend.

I've smoked Brisket, Turkey, Chicken, and Salmon very successfully. I use the Camp Chef Turkey Cannon for the Turkey and Chicken: A 17 pound Turkey takes about 4 hours, and turns out excellent (even the white meat) as long as you brine the Turkey overnight. The salmon smokes at a lower temperature, so it can take up 2-4 hours depending on the outside temperature - I can hardly believe how good smoked salmon is fresh out of the smoker! I've read some people say that if you smoke fish in ANY smoker it affects the taste of other meat. I haven't noticed this; I scrape out the salmon drippings and it's fine. The Brisket turns out not just "fork tender" but "spoon tender" - very good, not mushy. It takes about 12-14 hours, so I start mine in the late evening. My only complaints are not show stoppers: (1) The temperature probes have a colored plastic handle that goes very dark after a few uses, but it's not difficult to figure out which socket is connected to a probe. (2) I wish the pellet feeder had a low-pellet warning, I've run out of pellets doing a Brisket on a cold night, so you should check the feeder about half-way through. (3) The Camp Chef App (on my android phone) isn't very stable and can freeze up. I find I have to back out to the main menu and re-enter the screen to see the smoker probe temperatures. Despite these complaints, the results are so good I am happy and have no regrets. Also, I bought the gas-grill sidekick attachment. The grill is a little smaller than I'd like, but it works well.

After waiting for a long time to get a hold of one of the Camp Chef's Apex pellet grills I gave up and decided to go with the good and tested Woodwind Pro.The shipment and delivery were very fast, 3 packages via FedEx, so I pull out my screwdriver and started to put it together with the hope that I would get to use it that same day.Unfortunately, all that ended in just a hope for me that day.The downsides, we need to talk about their quality control, the legs mostly fit, but I had to wrestle one of them as the holes weren't just right. The lid had to be replaced as the steel wasn't cut properly and it was catching on the gasket, the hopper had a busted controller and found some lose screws and nuts sitting at the bottom of the box.Additionally, the parts to be used in each step are bagged and marked for each step, but these bags seldom match the step in the manual or the app they provide. So, you cannot rely on them and you are left to figure it out on your own.Now the good things about this pellet smoker, is that is just an amazing product, the quality of the materials, the cooking results, everything is worth every penny. I would give it a 5 stars if it wouldn't be for the bad quality controls. What really made a difference to help with all the setbacks is their stellar customer support. They are responsive and fast to send you the replacement parts in just a couple of days.One last thing you should know, is that the hopper holds 22lbs of pellets, and that this monster uses about 4lbs per hour. You might have to monitor it very closely for those low and slow cooks.

I was considering several pellet smokers, the smoke box feature sold me on this. The package arrived mangled from FedEx-not the seller's fault. The contents were somehow unharmed. The smoker was easy to assemble and each step was labeled in it's own package for super easily assembly. It took under an hour.The smoker itself works better than expecetd. I had a Traegar which was okay,, This smoker holds temps better, smokes better and distributes the heat much better. Would I but it again, Hell Yes!

This product worked maybe 5 times. Then it stopped heating up at all. Customer service is non responsive. Totally unhelpful. Save yourself the headache and money and buy something that will work from a company that cares about its product.