Received the smoker from Amazon much earlier than expected, have already run a 13# brisket, and then a bunch of boneless chicken thighs & some pork chops. Going purely by the temp probes for determining cook time, this thing cooks darn near perfect. The Wi-Fi feature is flawless, a must have feature IMO. I'm able to monitor the smoker, get alerts, and change settings anywhere I have internet connection on my phone, so it's cloud based and not tied solely to my home's Wi-Fi.
UPS put a good size dent in the side panel of the hopper, probably not all that uncommon when you're sending a 150lb box across country. Build quality is pretty average, material is thick enough, but not exactly professional quality-- about what I was expecting for the price. I had to re-tighten a bunch of the factory installed screws, and a couple heads (philips) were stripped during factory assembly.
As far as function goes, I'm impressed. My only gripe is that the heating isn't uniform throughout the grill, the left side and rear of the smoker get hotter than the rest, usually requiring me to rotate the food once during the smoke. Not terribly inconvenient, I can live with it. I still have to play with the chimney clearance, not sure I have it set correctly as the manual is pretty vague on how much to open it.
This thing can sure chew through some pellets though. I smoked the 13# brisket (less after trimming fat) for about 10 hours at 240F, used about 15# of pellets in that time. Weather was cool (low 50's) and rainy though (smoker is sheltered from the rain), so I imagine pellet consumption will lessen with the arrival of warmer weather. I've been using Lumberjack brand pellets from Rural King ($8 / 20lb) and they seem pretty good. Brisket was smoked with Charcoal Hickory flavor, and I used their 100% cherry on the pork & chicken thighs. Fantastic results each time. All in all very happy with this purchase!
