Sams Club Hybrid Grill

I picked up one of these at Sams Club last week and finally got around to putting it together. Other than being a bit of a PITA (lots of parts) the overall quality seems pretty good for a $250 grill. As a hybrid it has the gas side and a charcoal side but also includes an infrared surface. I've never used one of those so I'm excited to give it a try. It also has a bottle opener :thumb:.

I posted this in the "I recently bought myself" thread and was asked for a review. I don't want to hijack that thread so I'll put my thoughts in this one.

I have a Brinkmann Combo at our cabin so I have something to compare it to. I like the flexibility of the Brinkmann and this grill is very similar except for a couple of changes that I think will improve upon the functionality.

The gas side is pretty straight forward but does include porcelain coated grates. I'm not sure what I think of that as I actually think I like the cast iron ones better.

The infrared burner is interesting to me and I will give that a go sometime soon but so far all I have done is fire it up and can tell you that it gets blazing farken hot in a hurry.

The charcoal side is where the improvements are over the Brinkmann. I like the door for adding wood/charcoal without having to remove the grates. I also like the gear shifter for raising the coal bed. I can do that on my Brinkmann as well but its a two handed process and often requires gloves.

The overall construction is absolutely lightweight metal. This will not be a low and slow cooker but I have my eggs for that.

Cooked up some lamb chops tonight over a bed of coals and really liked the gear shifter. I started them out with a nice sear and then moved the coals down to the second position. Hit 140 in no time and turned out great.

I'll post more as I use it. I'd love to hear from anyone else who has this grill.

I had rain and a helpful 4 year old so its a little hard to say on the time. I'd guess 3 hours if you could do it without interruption. The hardest part honestly was matching up the pieces to the instructions. The boxes were all labeled but the labels didn't necessarily match the instructions. The infrared unit was a little tricky. The reviews on the Sam's Club site suggested being very careful while hooking up the thermocouple so spent some extra time on this step as well.

gasAintGrillin said:

As you can tell by my handle, I'm no fan of gas, but it does have its applications. If I was going to buy anything that used any fuel other than wood or charcoal, it would be one of these hybrids.

I'm with you on the porcelain grates. Hopefully they're something close to a standard size so you can swap them out for cast iron when the coating starts to chip away.

Thanks for sharing!

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Once I had a BGE I thought I'd never use a gas grill again. We bought the first hybrid thinking we would just use the gas side to make pancakes or bacon and eggs. We ended up using it a lot more than we thought we would and it is a very nice addition to the egg. I feel like with a big green egg and this kind of grill there are very few things I can't do and we have space to make a ton of food.

I've been very happy with the charcoal side. I really like the height adjustment. I've not used the infrared much have had no problems with it. The gas side is pretty even and does a nice job when I want it. My only complaint is the knobs. They are all going bad on me and the only one that is a striker is the center one. For the price I'm still pleased but I can see that I will need to find replacement controls pretty soon.

Good luck. BTW I didn't call the company until after I had it for maybe 9 months. I think if I had contacted them within the first six months they would have covered the controls.

Make sure to keep the button pushed in until the mesh is hot.