Totally. I bought Rec Tec because it is a quality grill for the money. But aesthetics do count and if you don’t like the way something looks that matters. Everybody swears by the Grilla OG but I hate the looks of it. In the end it has to not offend your personal taste.
Lot of truth in the above and I also go back to the post by PJ regardywondering if you overspent and underspending and wondering what might have been.
I too own a Rec Tec. As for the horns, I can take them or leave them because at the end of the day, I really find no barbecue cooker visually pleasing.
Offsets are as ugly to me as drums. Really in the case of many of them, that’s actually all it is. With another smaller drum of box welded to it.
Cabinets remind me of early 20th century refrigerators that used ice blocks.
Kamados look like flower pots.
My Otto Wilde looks like a toaster oven.
My WSM looks like R2D2. And my kettle looks like something from the 60’s because well, that’s what it is. Something from the 60’s.
Smokers and outdoor cookers have never been esthetically pleasing to me. They’re pieces of equipment. Just me, but I don’t care for the esthetics of any of them. I only care what the food, and in most cases certain foods, taste like off of them.
I bought my Rec Tec pellet grill primarily to handle low and slow cooks without having to tend a fire as I had done with a previously owned offset and had to do to a lesser extent with my WSMs and Kamado.
I sear steaks either using my Kamado Joe or as of late my Otto Wilde. I prefer my steaks seared at much hotter temperatures than the average pellet grill can reach. I’m also experimenting with fish in my Otto and like the fact that it can heat up so quickly for quick meals. Literally in about 3 minutes. I cook wings on my Weber Kettle with a Vortex. I get crispier skin and indirect heat is easier and I get more smoke flavor doing them that way with a good lump charcoal than I can get on my pellet grill. I cook plank salmon on my Kamado Joe, preferring the additional smoke from lump charcoal that I can’t get from a pellet grill along with the cedar in the water or white wine soaked plank. I just prefer that medley of flavors as opposed to plank salmon from my pellet grill. The list goes on. I use my lineup based on the taste I’m looking for. I prefer a heavier smoke on ribs, turkeys and chicken so my WSM or my KJ will get those. I prefer rotisserie chickens or kabobs so my Kamado Joe with the Joetisserie will get those. I like the smoke flavor that can be obtained on these foods cooking them this way vs on my pellet grill.
I wasn’t going to spend MAK money on a first pellet cooker which wouldn’t get any more work than my overnight cooks and foods that would have otherwise seen my oven. I also wanted reliable and consistent WiFi connectivity and control.
I mention the oven because someone else has already said it. A pellet smoker is an oven which makes smoke. I find that assessment to be mostly true. I would add to that, smoke from a cleaner burning fuel source, namely pellets, so a lighter smoke flavor can be expected when using them.
I use my pellet smoker much like I use my home oven, but with the intent of adding light smoke to the end result. That’s going to be lobster tails, shrimp en Brouchette, ABTs, stuff which would have seen the oven, plus the overnight cooks of brisket or pork butts. My Kamado Joe gets pizzas.
But I already know that I prefer certain foods cooked a certain way and on certain cookers or type cookers because not all characteristics of multiple cookers can be obtained using just one cooker for everything.
