Weber Smokefire Pellet Grill

Specs

Temperature Range: 200° – 600° Fahrenheit

Wi-fi Compatibility: Yes

Hopper Capacity: 22 lbs $999+

Pellet grilling is a misnomer. Pellet grills cannot grill. Since their introduction in 1980, every design — from Traeger’s first models to today’s smart-tech-filled behemoths — have operated almost entirely off convection heat (like a smoky oven). This is ideal for slow cooking, but convective heat does not effectively sear steaks, burgers and pork chops (unless you like overcooked meat). To sear, you need conductive or radiative heat, like hot steel on a charcoal grill or the extreme heat put off in the interior of a toaster oven.

Weber’s Smokefire is the first pellet grill to pull it off.

Fair warning: grill-design nerdery incoming. The guts of most pellet grills are the same — a hopper holds pellets, the pellets feed into an auger that programmatically pushes the pellets into a fire pot, which is equipped with fans and ignites the pellets, circulating warm, smokey air through the grill. Each moving piece is controlled by built-in computers to keep the temperature as even as possible.

The problem for 99 percent of pellet grills is parked between the grates and the fire pot below; a downward-sloping metal sheet acts as a shield over the fire pot to prevent grease fires by pushing drippings into separate chambers for disposal. This shield does its job and dooms the grill at the same time. Building a solid barrier between a heat source and the food inhibits browning. Weber’s solution was comically simple: to copy itself.

The brand’s gas grills are equipped with what it calls Flavorizer Bars — upside-down, V-shaped shields that diffuse heat around the grill and protect the flame from dripping grease. Importantly, they are narrow and positioned over each burner so they don’t choke the grill of firepower. Weber slapped the same tech in its pellet grill and created the first pellet grill to effectively char a steak. Innovative? Not particularly. Effective? You betcha.