Weber Smoque or Searwood

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Weber Smoque

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I don’t have an opinion because I haven’t used either, but this name is terrible.

I’m going to give you an honest opinion here because I just bought a Weber Searwood 600 XL 3 months ago. Funny thing is I was dead set on purchasing a RecTeq Flagship 1100. I didn’t even know Weber made a pellet grill until I watched some RecTeq comparison videos on YouTube between the Flagship vs Searwood. Go to an Ace Hardware and take the grates off and look closely at how the Searwood is engineered and the quality of the build. It doesn’t have a traditional drip pan like my CampChef I use at work or the ZGrill I had at the camp. I replaced my 7 year old Traeger with the Weber and they aren’t even in the same universe as far as versatility. Look these pellet grills are all engineered very similar and for the most part they smoke meat decent, but searing things has always been my biggest complaint on a pellet grill. This Weber Searwood 600 XL is their newest model and I love it. From my understanding Weber is fairly new to the pellet grill game and screwed up the first 1 or 2 attempts, but they did have some really innovative ideas so I was told but their earlier grill had issues. Well whatever they didn’t have figured out they fixed it this time with the Searwood. It has a V shaped drip pan so all the juices run down to a drip dump underneath the belly of the grill. Other pellet grills have a sloped drip pan that you have to use foil or grill pads to make cleanup easier. Searwood requires no aluminum foil you just let the grease hit the V shaped drip pan. Underneath the drip pan and over the extra large burn pot is this heavy duty cast iron heat diffuser that gets red hot at 600 degrees. There are these sear grates similar to a Weber gas grill in there to help sizzle the drippings. It’s a breeze to pull all of that stuff out of there and clean nor do I have a ton of ashes build up like my other three pellet grills. No more vacuuming a pellet grill to clean. It’s holds the temp with zero fluctuations. Can go from 600 degrees to completely shut off in 15 minutes or less. The Weber Searwood 600 XL is a beast and Weber knocked this one out of the park. The accessories that Weber offers are awesome. I bought a heavy duty carbon steel flattop griddle for it and after using it several times I gave my Blackstone to a friend because I don’t need it now. This Searwood has a setting to grill with the lid open and the settings control how hot it gets. I bought a Weber rotisserie that can cook two whole chickens, a turkey, prime rib, etc. I also bought a basket that fastens to the rotisserie that you can shove wings or vegetables in and it’s awesome. Love how it came with two sturdy meat temp probes and it’s nice sitting on the couch monitoring everything from my phone. I’m a huge fan of ReqTeq, but I think Weber has taken the pellet grill to new innovative heights that other competitors will emulate on some of their newer grills on down the road. Also love how I can dump my pellets into a container and not have to leave them in the hopper. I’m sure I’m leaving some things I like out, but the Weber engineering, quality of build, and Webers useful accessories are tough to beat. That 600 XL is huge. I smoked a 20 pound brisket on there and it looked small. I’d rather have too big of a grill than a smaller one though, but that’s just me. Running at say 250 degrees you can barely tell it’s on because it’s so quite. It will sear a steak at 600 degrees with grate marks too. If you use charcoal pellets you blindly would think it come off a Weber Kettle or a normal charcoal grill.

Note: I did extensive research and relied on the recommendations on YouTube from someone called Sambo’s Place and The Basement Hangout. Sambo did a 6 month and 1 year follow up video which eased my fear that I’d have issues a year later. Sambo HATED his previous Weber SmokeFire grill so bad I think Weber refunded some of his money or replaced his grill with the Searwood. Like I noted above, Weber hadn’t figured it all out in the first attempts at pellet grills, but their engineers nailed it on this one. For the price range the Weber Searwood 600 XL is the best pellet grill you can purchase along with the ReqTeq Flagship 1100. What sold me over the ReqTeq is I like how it’s engineered and is much easier to clean. To me it’s built more solid because my neighbor bought the Flagship.

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Weber is fairly new to the pellet grill game and screwed up the first 1 or 2 attempts

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Yup, they messed up with the Smokefire. I have one of them and it's built like a tank but had a bunch of issues. Weber's customer service has been awesome to deal with. Every time they sent me parts they threw in 2 or 3 bags of pellets for the inconvenience. I changed out the control module a couple of weeks ago and it's been running flawless since. Fingers crossed that it keeps it up. I was told last time if I had more issues they'd do an exchange for one of the Searwood models. I can't really be too upset about considering what I paid. Mine was a display model from a local hardware store. They gave it to me for $400. They'd used it a bit at the store but hadn't registered it for the warranty.

I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of the Searwoods or Smoques. From what I've read Weber has corrected all of their issues that their first pellet grill attempt had.