Masterbuilt® Gravity Series® 1050 Digital Charcoal Grill and Smoker with Digital Control, App Connectivity and 1,050 Cooking Square Inches in Black, Model MB20041220

Delivery/unboxing: the package weight is about 190lbs. Be ready for that. I moved the box into my garage, where I opened and started moving the individual pieces to where I'd be building. This keeps all those tiny pieces of Styrofoam out of your life.Construction: they only provide a little wrench to use for tightening the swivel wheels. You'll need a Phillips head screwdriver, a 19mm wrench or ratchet with socket, and a pair of channel locks. It took me 3 hours, by myself, including the unboxing time to assemble. You'll assemble it upside down, so if you're not comfortable flipping the thing over by yourself, a second person will come in handy. There are a few screws that took some extra love and attention, but the build is mostly pretty easy.Function: ran it through the pre-seasoning burns and they went great. Grill gets up to 400 degrees in just a couple of minutes (literally) and the app is great for monitoring temp. Definitely different from charcoal grills and pellet smokers, so be sure to watch some instructional videos for startup and cooking.Verdict: I imagine you'll have less issues with this than pellet grills/smokers that seemingly everyone has gone to. There is no auger, which seems to be the most common fail point. There's a temp control and a variable speed fan. The rest of it is just hardware that can rust or wear down like anything. Love it so far and cant wait to do some cooking on this thing.

First let's get a couple critical things out of the way: The most important thing is to know is that from time to time you need to adjust and tighten up the U bolts on the clasps. As I learned with my first one (the 800) it is almost always those clamps not being tight enough to get the sensor buttons to fully press down, in order for the fan to run. There are 3: Hopper, coal door, and grill door. When you get all 3 to positively press down on the safety switches, almost all your problems go away. It's rarely actually the fan that is the issue. Wipe away grease on the door lid switch every time you use it.I started smoking on Weber Kettles 30 years ago (still love them) and have tried them all: Pit Boss (pellet smoker, what a joke) Kamado dragon ("red" egg, always fought the vent for just the right temp, not worth the hassle,) Traegar (yawn, so/so smoking, everything just tastes like the pellets, can't get good bark) and Char Broil offset smoker (not bad but rusted out way too early.) Honorable mention: The Oklahoma Joe Tahoma was so terribly bad that I took it back to Lowe's after just one grill. That thing is a fire hazard as you cannot snuff out the coals! I even called them and they verified you just have to let them burn out. Scary. Propane grills are only good for condo rentals, in my experience.I had the Masterbuilt 800 but it was destroyed in a tornado. So with my insurance check and a little more inflated dollars, I upgraded to the 1050.The 850 and 1050 have addressed the design flaw of the 800 which was the giant vent slit in the back. Now it's just a steady gap along the back of the lid which is much smaller and higher than the old design vent. Very happy to see this get re-engineered.When you are done, you are done. You turn the power off and slide the coalbox intake & output doors back into place, and 45 minutes later you it is typically cool enough to cover it back up. Note: Keep an eye on the weather. If you think it's gonna rain less than 1 hour after you're done with it, you may need to cook indoors or smoke another day. Just don't leave it exposed to the rain.There's no gimmick to this: Its coal, wood, or both. Period. (Don't try pellets. They're too tiny and will fall right through the grate.) To start it, a good blowtorch (I prefer the Harbor Freight "gun" style) to the bottom of the coals for 90 seconds, you will be up to temp in 7-10 minutes with the fan blowing. Yes it's that fast. You get real smoke at a perfect temp and no taste of pelletized compressed cellulose garbage in your meats.I've smoked everything on these: Turkey, chicken, pork shoulder, brisket, tuna, salmon, ribs, peppers, tenderloins. If you're after low and slow, which this excels at, these bark up far better than pelletized smokers. I'll never touch a pellet smoker again.I've cold smoked steaks, filets, and chucks. Magnificent.Grilling is so ridiculously easy and predictable, it blows every grill away. I've never had a better grilling experience than these Masterbuilts.One last thing I love about these: The shelves are directly attached to the grill but do not get blazing hot! Warm after a while, but no risk of burning your hands or stomach, unlike that scary Oklahoma Joe's one I took back!

Last edit / comment on this purchase. If required we will review on the replacement unit. As mentioned below the smoker failed. Would not power on. Masterbuilt stopped responding for help on facebook. I called Amazon who provided a replacement unit. WE APPRECIATE THE HELP & SUPPORT FROM AMAZON. Hoping that the second unit is better. If the second unit fails we will return not replace.==================0 I put this at the top (this is new vs original review) since it is the most important comment. I have used the smoke two times. Three times counting today. one brisket, 2 pork shoulders, 2 racks of ribs. All in prep for friends coming over to celebrate July 4th and it stopped working. NO POWER.1 Time to put together is at least 3.5 hours. Mine was longer. Lots of parts and it will be a pain to put it together. You could hire someone but if you want it done right better to do it yourself. If I were to rate this from 1-10 it would be a 2, maybe a 3, They can / should make this easier2 Instruction manual is ok. Part of the reason it takes so long to put together is the amount of time you will spend trying to figure out how to do the next step. Using that 1-10 scale this is a 5, maybe a 6.3 Delivery from amazon was flawless. From the moment it was ordered to the delivery in our garage they were outstanding. I do know others did not have this experience. Seeing the comments on support from others this might be something that you want to buy from a good store to get around the manufactures support issues. A perfect score 10 out of 104 Nothing bent, nothing broken, no damage. Everything inside the box was perfect. Another 10 out of 10 and one of the two perfect score Masterbuilt gets.5 Wireless app is no better and no worse than other wireless apps. Don't buy it for the app. On the other hand do not avoid it because of the app. 5 out of 106 Price. This is expensive. Hoping it was worth the cost. Still early. No score7 Temperature control. Still early but the temperature control is outstanding. This could be why you buy this grill. Lots of warnings about fan failures. If the fan fails this turns into a big pile of trash. Still from our perspective 10 out of 108 We were warned about the smoke during burn in but this was not an issue for us. No score9 The glue they use for the advertisement posters is a big problem. I like the fact they try to protect the grill, this makes a lot of sense. But removing the paper and glue pulls the paint off the grill. You read it right removing the paper will remove the paint from the grill. Support don’t want to address the problem but I’ve seen this type of thing before (I'm old). It showed signs of rust when the paint got pulled off. This might not be a problem now but it will be a problem in the future. Right now it should be their problem and they should send a replacement part. In a couple of years when I am sure I will be calling for help it will be my problem. Makes me think we will have other quality issues 0 out of 109A (Addition since the original review. They did provide a new lid vs me sending it back. An agreeable solution to a problem that should not happen.10 Quality Other people’s reviews mentioned high heat melting the switches. We will heed the warning and never use this for high heat cooking. We have a gas grill (Kitchen Aid) for high heat. Still this is disappointing. Wondering if this will be a problem for us? No score for now.11 Support. Reading the reviews and our experience so far tells us support is going to be a problem. It is all web based. Very disappointing. Given the cost they should provide outstanding support. Support in the past from other manufactures with less expensive smokers (green Keg) has been nothing less than outstanding. Kitchen Aid on the other hand has support issues too. It is still early and I reserve the right to review and edit this review over time but right now it’s a 2 disappointing 2 out of 10. If I had seen the comments on bad support earlier it is unlikely we would have made this purchase. Support, especially on expensive products like this is a reason to purchase / not purchase.11A (an addition since the original review) no phone support. On a day like today, a major event for my family, for it to fail with no phone support is unacceptable. Do I try to return it? If I had purchased from a big box retailer the answer is yes. Not sure how this will work but might be where it all ends. This is sad.