New Masterbuilt Gravity Series 1050

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

Awesome cooker Jason and thanks for the breakdown on it. Keep it smoking brother!

 

[jlrichar]

Thanks for your response Jason. Am really considering getting the 1050, have yet to see one in person. I have seen and touched the 560 though. But I think the extra size and build quality of the 1050 warrant the higher price. I have heard that the wifi/ blue tooth is sketchy on both models. What has been your experience with them? While not a deal breaker for me, am curious

I have mostly ignored the BT/WiFi cause I’m home. I also have a fireboard for temps that’s is 100% reliable. The few times I used the Masterbuilt app it worked, though it looses connection when the app is backgrounded and requires pushing a button on the grill to reconnect. Perhaps someday I’ll connect the fan to my FireBoard drive. I really want to learn how the oem controller works before I start making any changes though. I doubt MasterBuilt will update the app to be as powerful and reliable as FireBoard drive, but you never know.

I’m mostly very happy with the grill. My biggest gripe would be how the upper grates sit and slide. It’s too many pieces and not that intuitive. And they can fall out of their slots if not positioned properly. On the other hand the main cast iron grates are fantastic. After having used lots of different grates over the years CI is my favorite as long as it’s not porcelain coated.

 

[KevinJ]

Jason curious to see if you have tried to top off the chute say when it's still half full to avoid the dirty smoke problem?

 

[jlrichar]

Jason curious to see if you have tried to top off the chute say when it's still half full to avoid the dirty smoke problem?

The one and only time I added charcoal it was about 1/4 full, and I brought it to half full. I had it set to 225 at the time, and it took about an hour for the smoke to clean up.



I noticed this on other charcoal cookers as well. Putting cold charcoal in a hot smoker always results in dirty smoke for a bit. What I started doing with my Akorn is to get a small amount of charcoal fully lit on the main charcoal grate, and use it to heat up (but not light) a large supply of charcoal on a higher grate for an hour or so. Once smoke is clean I dump the upper grate into the lower, and set dampers to control air supply (or use FireBoard drive). It quickly gets to temp, and holds for up to ~12ish hours of good smoke on the Akorn. Thing is, its a tiny work surface, and it was only good, not great smoke flavor. I think I could improve on the smoke flavor by playing around with where I place wood chunks, but its a big pain. The masterbuilt is just so easy to get 7 hours of great clean smoke.



Maybe on the Masterbuilt I could add charcoal like you suggest at the halfway point, though there is still going to be dirty smoke from the cold charcoal.



I'm actually curious what is going on here? I think either there is residual leftover bad smelling outgassing compounds left over from charcoal production, or charcoal absorbs all kinds of stuff when it is cold/cools, and when you heat it all that bad smelling stuff outgasses. If it is the latter, then I wonder how long charcoal that has been lit, and then cools will take to become dirty again? Is it dirty as soon as it cools? Or does it take days/weeks to become dirty again? If it takes a while, then a strategy that might work, is to empty the charcoal leftovers of any previous cooks after the charcoal is cold and save that "conditioned" charcoal for the future in a nice airtight container, and start new cooks with fresh charcoal. Do this every time to build up a supply of "conditioned" charcoal, and then use the conditioned charcoal to refill during cooks. It really is not a lot of extra work if it works. It kinda doesn't work if you only do long low and slow cooks that always require adding charcoal. If you are like me and do a ~3:1 ratio of weeknight grilling to weekend smoking, then it might work well.

 

[Eckie]

Just saw this smoker online today, and found your thread. I missed it if you already stated, but what kind of cook times are you getting out of a hopper full?

 

[rexster314]

Just saw this smoker online today, and found your thread. I missed it if you already stated, but what kind of cook times are you getting out of a hopper full?

Depending on what type of charcoal (briquettes, lump, other) and considering each type varies in cook time, a reasonable guess is 8 hours or more if you're smoking a brisket. Less if you're searing meat at 600-700 degrees. Charcoal is not same all, same all. Royal Oak is known for having rocks in their bags. Some also leaves a fine, powdery ash, some leaves a lot of small unburned chunks