MB560 cooks

[onemanlan]

I've been temporary separated from my Battle Box and '22 Kettle. Decided to pick up this bad boy on clearance after scoping it on BrickSeek for a hot minute. Did not disappoint.

This grill has been as versatile & fun to use as I could have wished for. I wish the app was better & some of the build parts were a bit better quality, but overall it's been a fun grill that really does well in all facets. Jack of all trades of sorts.

The grill




Reverse seared steak - Hickory Smoked


Beef Chuck Ribs - Oak smoked




Lamb ribs #1 with asada



Lamb Ribs #2 - Oak Smoked



Spatchcocked Chicken - Oak smoked




Turkey Breast - Oak smoked






Alabama morning sun


Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[rwalters]

Very nice! Sure seems most really enjoy their MB’s :)

[onemanlan]

Originally Posted by rwalters

Very nice! Sure seems most really enjoy their MB’s :)

Thanks! If it wasn't for the garbage app & the leaking leg of my MB560 I'd rate it higher. So far though I'd give it an 7 or 8 out of 10. Not super efficient, but it does a lot of different things well which includes smoking & sear. Thats impressive considering the price. I hope to see more grills in this market segment in the future. Heck I'd paid for a nicer 1-1.5K version of this style of grill if it checked all the right boxes. I love using charcoal with the option of wood chunks as needed. Its a really fun alternative to pellet cooking.

As I side note I noticed Weber is inching into the smart gas grill market. Thought that was an interesting trend.

[ronbrad62]

Nice looking grub you produced there. You certainly have the hang of that smoker.

[rexster314]

Wanna hot rod the 560 a little bit?
Hook up a Fireboard to the fan, ambient probe inside, and it's the perfect grill. BT or wi-fi, it's rock solid connection impresses everytime

[Titch]

Interesting smoker, I had to google it, you put out nice looking food with it

[onemanlan]

Originally Posted by rexster314

Wanna hot rod the 560 a little bit?
Hook up a Fireboard to the fan, ambient probe inside, and it's the perfect grill. BT or wi-fi, it's rock solid connection impresses everytime

I'm torn on the matter. The grill(gen 1) was ~$300 on clearance and a FB2 would be ~$250. For the most part the grill controls function without issue it gets to temp & holds them fine, but the app is unreliable connecting to BT or wifi. Not sure if it's worth almost the cost of the grill to get those features reliably. That said I am sitting on an older Flameboss 300 that I use for my Battle Box. Not sure how much life it has left in it so there might be consideration of picking up an FB2 in the future, though when I was considering a new PID-fan set up I didn't have FB2 at the top of my list. I suppose it could function for both as needed.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Also thanks for the good thoughts. I was going to pick up a pellet grill before I ended up biting on the MB 560. While I'm sad about what could have been I have been super happy about what has been. Aside the minor hiccups & slight learning curve the grill has been reliable! Its easy to bounce from smoking --> grilling --> searing. It takes a bit more time to go in the reverse direction, but its definitely possible.

I'd recommend picking up this, the MB 800, MB 1050 or the Chargriller 980 if you guys ever see them on sale & are in the market.

[Stingerhook]

You are doing it proud Taylor.

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

Very nice looking grub! Haven't had any problems with the controller? Also, have you done any mods, or running factory?

[worldbfreebase]

more than likely your app problems are related to your wifi signal. Most wifi signals are dual band these days both 2.4 & 5 ghz. When you only have one wifi network set up, the router defaults to trying to connect via 5 ghz. The MB gravity series runs on 2.4 ghz. (it is lower frequency that travels farther and penetrates objects better, so for this application it is the better frequency to use) and has connection issues with a dual signal network.

log into your router, split the signal to a dedicated 2.4 and 5.0. also change the channel. channels 1 , 6 , 11 do not overlap. you can download a wifi analyzer app on your phone to see which channel is least used around your house. change it to that channel.

since I did that, it is a rarity that mine loses connection. It doesn't currently have all the bells and whistles of a fireboard to track cooks and stuff but the app generally works fine. i regularly throw stuff on it to smoke and then go watch sports at the bar and monitor my cook remotely.

[jzadski]

Nice looking cooks. I really enjoy mine, it's a lot of fun. You need to try pizzas on it. They turn out spectacular

[onemanlan]

Originally Posted by jzadski

Nice looking cooks. I really enjoy mine, it's a lot of fun. You need to try pizzas on it. They turn out spectacular

Can do! Great suggestion!

[Shiz-Nit]

Sweet looking cook nicely done

[onemanlan]

Originally Posted by SweetHeatBBQnSC

Very nice looking grub! Haven't had any problems with the controller? Also, have you done any mods, or running factory?

The controller works fine. With the exception of some wifi & bluetooth hiccups it generally controls well. The way I think these grills are designed are to run at a temp deficit if the fan isn't running. If you power it off it will slowly bleed temp until the fire goes out. The fan nudges it along & keeps temp at the desired set point. There are definitely slight swings +/- 20 degrees, however it tends to settle out after a while. That said after having messed with ovens, other smokers, and my Battle Box I have to say that temp oscillations are pretty dang common and sometimes grillers/cookers get bent over having higher resolution temp data than they had before hand. It isn't until they're running a PID or other accurate thermometers do you find out there are regular, and often times acceptable, temp swings with most cooking devices.

The count up feature on the cooker timer is nice. I use it a good bit. The standard probe is massive so I don't use it unless I have a large piece of meat to anchor it in. I've found the supplied probe to be in disagreement with my stand alone thermometer by 5-10 degrees F so I make sure to double check temps at the end.

No mods though I am considering purchasing a grease catcher mod that'll help reduce build up on the flame housing that sits under the meat. I'd also be interested in modifying the charcoal grate to retain charcoal a bit longer than the stock one does. I haven't touched either.

One last note - up to this point I've only smoked by placing wood chunks in the ash pan under the charcoal chute & fire. It works pretty well & it seems the super heated gas plus the falling embers & burning charcoal chunks do a great job of producing smoke flavor. The downside is it eats through wood pieces fairly quickly especially if they're kiln dried. In the future Im going to try to interlace wood chunks with charcoal in the chute to see how that compares. Up until this point I'd been avoiding it because I'm typically around to feed chunks into the pan manually & while making game-time calls on whether to add more or not. With the chute method you're committed after you've set it up in the beginning. I may modify that practice with an upcoming brisket, but thats TBD.

WorldFreeBase - thanks for the tips on the wifi issue! Will give your suggestions a try.

[darita]

I didn't expect a lot from my 560 when I bought it, as I just wanted to get it as an intro to GF smokers. Turns out, it quickly became my go to cooker, over my Primo and MAK2. It's not perfect, but overall, I've never turned out better BBQ than with the 560.
The controller on the MB is basic at best. I now use an FB2Drive and it works great. Displayed temps are a lot more accurate and temp swings are minimal.
All that said...who knew...