Z GRILLS Wood Pellet Smoker Grill, 8 in 1 BBQ Grill with Auto Temperature Control, 697 sq in Cooking Area for Backyard, Patio and Outdoor Cooking, 7002E, Sliver

I got the 7002B version and am extremely happy with the overall value. Like others, I've eyed a traeger but couldn't figure out why they were so damn expensive. I went through a similar buying process with my Vision kamado grill - I could never justify a big green egg. Important to note, I do still own and will always own my Vision S series kamado, however it will soon be converted to propane.My experiences then with this Z-grill are tempered by my existing stellar Vision grill.For low and slow the Zgrill pellet system CRUSHES a charcoal kamado. Kamado's are great but if you want to do low and slow then the initial setup can be painful, if you over shoot your temp it takes awhile to bring it back down. Take yours eyes off it and over shoot during cooking ... well you get the idea.Zgrill, turn it on, set the temp, walk away. Keep an eye on the timer and you're set.Thus far I've done burgers twice at 450 and they turned out stellar. Beer can style chicken once at 450 and again, stellar result. Pork tenderloin twice, once a longer smoke at 225 and last night a quick run at 450 both turned out perfect. The really killer result though was doing 3-2-1 ribs ... 3 hours at smoke, 2 at 225, 1 hour at 450 which actually turned out to be about 25m for half the ribs (smaller baby backs) and about 40 minutes for the two larger/thicker racks. These were the best ribs i've ever done, i couldn't even cut them into individual ribs as the bones just fell out so the family descended upon these like savage animals.Some things to note:1) compared to my thermoworks smoke thermometers the internal thermo is never quite in agreement but its close enough. I do use my thermoworks religiously for both meat and internal air temp monitoring. however after these 5 runs i know what to expect at various temps from the internal thermo so if i'm doing more than one piece of meat that needs monitoring, i have no issues relying on just the internal. again, it aint perfect, but its close enough.2) I have modified the Zgrill.First, I added 6 firebricks to the bottom. After my first use (burgers at 450) i noticed some issues getting to and holding high temps along with the usual left to right temp discrepancy that pellet grills often have. The firebricks solved those.Second, added a seal for the door.Third, wrapped a bungie chord around the right front wheel and use this to hold the door tightly closed.cost for these 3 was like $40 and well worth it as IMO it is a much more stable grill now.Brisket is scheduled for the big game and i'm excited to do a real long low n slow cook.Over all, including the cost of the mods I did, it is really hard to beat the cost/performance of this Zgrill. Would highly recommend to anyone.

Before buying this, I only ever had a simple charcoal or propane grill. This pellet grill is so easy to use and makes food so delicious it feels like cheating.I chose Z Grills because I wasn't impressed with the reviews for Pitt Boss stating how bad their customer service was. The PB was more $, and where is that value if they have bad service?The grill came undamaged and went together easily. It crushed making a 9.5lb pork butt (pictured) in 14 hours. My family went crazy over it. It's also easy to clean and took maybe 15 min tops to clean after the pork butt. The provided cover is thick and seems to be made well.My only suggestion is to use allen screws and bolts, the phillips provided strip very easily despite trying to be careful with them. The provided screw driver is laughable for putting this together.

It took me about 2 hours to assemble the grill alone In a cramped space. I did the 45 minute burn out on high and the controller held the temperature good. It got as hot as 465 degrees at first then brought everything in and had about a 10 to 15 degree swing from 440 to 455 degrees and held in that area most of the time. I did everything exactly by the manual. A few days later I did my first cook, baby back ribs and beef ribs using pecan pellets. I smoked the ribs for 3 hours then rapped them in foil for three hours. I had a 20 degree swing a couple of times in the beginning. Then it settled out to a 10 degree swing most of the time with a little more at times and a little less at times. As far as the temperature swing, conventional ovens generally have a 30 degree swing in temps as the burner cycles off and on, some less some more. Now that's 30 degrees to high then 30 degrees to low from the set point. So this grill held the temperature very well. I smoked the ribs on the 225 degree setting and the temperature was in the high 40's to low 50's outside in the 6 hour smoke time. The ribs were very good and would pull away from the bone with little effort. They had a good smoke ring about 1/2 of the way through the rib meat. This is my first pellet grill and I have always used a conventional wood/charcoal smoker. You don't get the smoke on the pellet grill like on a conventional smoker. But the ribs did have a good smoke taste and I have been known to get to much smoke on my meat. So I am pleased with the 450A 2020 upgraded Z Grill. I'll cook a 5 pound prime rib roast on Christmas day, I think it will come out very good. My wife got me a great gift for Christmas.Update: Jan 30th: I have cooked a prime rib roast, baby back ribs and a brisket on the grill. All were in cold weather putting the meat on the grill at 30 degree F temps. All came out good and tasted good. Set the desired temp and let it go, very easy compared to a standard wood smoker. It does leave a smoke ring and the taste is very good. But it is not as good as cooking the old fashion way, but very good and convenient, simple. It's good enough and will probably get better as I learn to cook with it.

I am writing this review as a 2 way split. The first part for the grill itself, and the second for the company ZGrills.The grill seems to work well. I smoked a whole chicken as my first test, and after about 3 hours total, it came out very tasty. I thought the smoke flavor could have been a bit stronger, but I could have fixed that by running it on smoke mode an hour or so before I started the cook. The grill was reasonably easy to assemble, not hard to clean, and the operating instructions were very clear. All in all, I believe this machine will do a great job making my food for a long time.The company, ZGrills, however, was difficult to work with. My grill arrived with a large dent on the left front side of the core piece, and the lid had a flat space that left around a 1.5 inch gap between the bottom of the lid, and the front of the core. Immediately upon seeing this, I attempted to call the customer service number for the company. Nobody answered. It was within their operating hours, but only just barely, and on a Friday, so I chalked it up to everyone starting a slightly early weekend, and left a voicemail. I received a call back on Monday the next week (before their stated operating hours) with a nice lady who gave me instructions to send an email with pictures of what they needed to process the request. "Great!" I thought. We were on our way to getting it resolved. I send the email right away with all the pictures they requested, and listed out the issues I saw. My first response came only minutes after sending the email asking "Is the grill chamber damaged?" I mean, I just sent you the picture that it was, and listed it among the issues in my first email. So I try to call the customer service number again for clarification. Again, nobody answers. I try a couple more times, still no answer. Then I respond to the email stating yes, the core has issues, unless you don't consider that damage, and asked if I could get clarification. I get another email back, hours later this time (and once again outside their stated hours) stating they will send a replacement core and give me a tracking number once they have it. Okay, back in track. Two days later, I still haven't heard anything, so I email again asking if they've processed it yet?Them: Yes, here's your tracking number.Me: Great! And will the lid come with the same package (because I still haven't heard about it at this point)Them 3 hours later: According to the picture, the lid isn't damaged. (1.5 inches away from the face of the core isn't damaged apparently)Me: Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the lid is also damaged as it doesn't sit closed on the face. Here are additional pictures.*I try to call the phone again a few times, still no answer. Silence for 2 days. During this time, the replacement core arrives. I swap the lid over to the new core, still sits the same distance from the face.Me in another email: Please see these new pictures with the lid issue. As you can see, the lid obviously is damaged as well since it still sits 1.5 inches from the face.Them: We will arrange a new lid within 24 hours.*2 more days of silence*Me 11:00 am: Just checking, have you guys sent the lid?Them 8:30 pm: Here is your tracking number.Now, to their credit, I received the parts I needed, and now everything is working, but that entire process took two weeks from first phone call voicemail to last part needed received, with a lot of frustration besides.The last thing I will mention is the "damage" could not have happened during shipping. I can excuse someone not seeing the bend in the door, but I guarantee someone saw that big outward dent on the core, and packaged it up anyway. This is not thin metal, and would take more than a casual touch to cause it to bend so much, and in that place. Maybe I'm wrong. I attached the image below. You be the judge.

Excellent buy. I’m a beginner at smoking and was a little apprehensive based on some comments about difficulty in assembly and inaccurate temperature readings. First, assembly: it states about 2.5 hours. It took me 2.5 hours and I was 2 months out of shoulder replacement surgery and still managed with a useless arm and my off hand. Second, Temperature control: I’ve cooked salmon, tritip and a whole chicken. After the smoke cycle you set the temperature and it will jump up higher than the setting so I turn it down until it drops to the setting and turn it back up. In other words it takes it a few minutes to settle in but after that it is remarkable steady. All three cooks turned out great and I highly recommend this unit (and its price point).

I originally purchased my Z-Grill 7002 in 2021. I had always used charcoal smokers or propane grills. Needless to say the charcoal grill is barely used unless I want to grill a steak and need a higher temperature. This smoker has handled more meat then a Kardashian. I fire my smoker up a few times a week at least. I have done everything from Turkeys for holidays, beer can chickens, racks and racks of ribs, It holds 4 pork butts pretty comfortably as well as you can see. I have never once been asked where is the smoke ring at because the meat comes out perfect, smokey, and moist every time. It has made me take smoking meats to a whole new level it got me interested in making videos to help others with recipes or helping them pick out the perfect smoker, which several times have been Z -Grills. Not only that but I can't keep the neighbors away because every weekend they smell the sweet smell of smoked swine for 16 hours at a time. I had to install a privacy fence just to keep them from coming over every time they saw me carrying in all this glorious meat inside to feed the family. Poor Robert had to have a restraining order placed on him because he kept jumping the fence in the middle of the night while sleeping thru the smoke. That's the wonderful thing about a pellet smoker, no all night babysitting and checking to make sure the temperature stays right. But with all that said, that's not even my favorite thing about this smoker.....The real reason I am writing this review is..... THE CUSTOMER SERVICE is top notch. At one point early on the fan went out on the smoker. I contacted customer support and they replaced it. Fast Forward to today May 25 2023 I had an issue with the motherboard losing power. I contacted them and spoke with the wonderful Kiesha at Z Grills and let her know my issue. She was so quick to help resolve the issue and got a new Hopper assembly to make sure that it wasn't a motherboard issue but just to replace the other electronics to be safe. I love that you can call their 1800 number and get a real customer support agent that is not only knowledge in the products they carry but also going above and beyond the two times I have had issues. To the team at Z Grill thanks for everything you do and making such great quality products at a fraction of the competitions price.

I received this grill a few days ago and Amazon assembled it in my garage free of charge which is a good thing, they sent two people to unpack and assemble, another good thing. But to my dismay one person did nothing while the other had to study the directions, not not a good thing.After several hours and a lot of head scratching he finished and the other worker sprung to life to put box and packing materials into the truck and then they left. I have been wanting a pellet grill for over a year now and heard good reviews about the Z grill on the web so that evening I decided to cook up some pork chops to get familiar with the grill.It doesn’t have a variable thermostat so it has some preset temperatures, 180,225,300,350, etc.Instructions said to start grill on smoke setting with the lid open until you see smoke and then close lid and turn knob to desired temperature so I set temperature to 350 and closed lid, the temp quickly exceeded 350 and when it got to 450 I opened lid to release heat and I turned it down to 225 and again temp surged to 450 and the same happened when turned down to 180 during this time there was no visible smoke. I then turned it to smoke setting thinking it would produce smoke while on that setting, it did produce smoke but only for a few minutes and again temp soared.We finished cooking chops on 350 with lid open but had no idea how long they cooked on any temperature, luckily they were good.I read manual many times, looked at trouble shooting videos online, talked to friends with pellet grills and tried everything but couldn’t get temp under control, sticker on grill said always start on the smoke setting and then close lid and select temp but I decided to try starting grill without starting on smoke, it did stop the run away temperature but the temperature settings were useless, 180 was 215, 225 varied from 220 to 297When turned to high the temperature actually went down to below 200, today Saturday, I decided to try to resolve this and called customer service, to my surprise customer service is closed on weekends (the days most grilling takes place) just surprised they couldn’t find a call center in all of India to take calls on weekends. I plan to call help line Monday to troubleshoot and hopefully resolve this issue, I’m fixing to find out how helpful they want to be and how they honor their warranty.To be fair I don’t know if the assembly tech from Amazon put it together correctly, judging by the way he was constantly referring to the directions I’m led to believe this was his first time.UpdateAfter no reply from Z grills for a week I contacted Amazon product help line, they were not able to tell me what needed to be fixed on my grill or how to fix it but they were very helpful in getting it picked up and hauled away for a return. Shortly after getting the pick up scheduled I received a call from a woman who said she was returning my call and I asked who she was she replied she’s with Zgrill, I told here I have already scheduled a return and told her the problem, she said she could have sent me new wires (that I would have to install myself ) and that would remedy the problem.In the end I really wanted to keep the grill, it looked like it was well constructed and was the perfect size but customer service was poor at best and they were in no hurry to help and the woman I talked to seemed to care less about helping or even trying to get me to keep it. She said as long as I find a grill I like she would be happy.

I’ve gone from a propane stack smoker to this and I understand the “easy bake oven” reference to pellet smokers. This thing is made very well of quality, thick metal. The only plastic on it are the wheels, which spin very well. The ceramic grates are easy to clean even after a 0-400 wing cook.She’s heavy out of the box and took me by myself about an hour to build, then a good 45 minutes to do the first burn off. After that I was cooking and very happy with this machine.It can easily fit two racks of ribs; three if you pop one on the top rack. 36 wings fit without crowding. If you want a smoker for 2 - 4 people, this will complete your patio. The included grill cover fits nicely and survived a hefty thunderstorm without lifting. Love this grill

Grill est arrivé à temps, facile à assembler et fonctionne parfaitement (garde bien sa température même à -15 C)

This grill has been amazing! only had it a week and have been using it almost daily. I love the smokiness to the food and the ease of cooking. It heats up quickly and accurately and the smells while it's in use are heavenly. I use Hickory pellets with it. Very happy with the purchase

It’s a really great smoker easy to use easy to assemble and easy to maneuver it keeps the temperature stable and it get to high temperature’s really fast (depending on the weather) the pellet consumption it not bad and overall a great smoker and I appreciate that it comes with a free cover

I have now had this grill/ smoker for two weeks. It was very easy to put together. The temp has been bang on compared to a thermometer to check it. So far I’m very impressed with it!

I wanted a pellet smoker to complement my gas grill. It works well and will do a family sized meal.