Masterbuilt Gravity Series 1050 Smoker Grill - Digital Charcoal Combo Grill...

I've been cooking with a Weber religiously for about 2 years now. The weber master touch kettle style is what introduced me to charcoal grilling. I cooked on it nearly every weekend for the 2 years I had it, rain or shine or snow it didn't matter. The flavor charcoal provides is incomparable. Looking back, fanning the flames with cardboard...buying a manual blower and wrecking it soon after and then upgrading to a DeWalt leaf blower. My neighbors would often wonder why I was using a leaf blower when it was snowing and cold outside. Little did they know...charcoal isn't an easy method of grilling. Smoking on that little Weber was an adventure everytime. While the weber boasted the ability to smoke and provide indirect heat as well as direct heat it just wasn't truly up to par with someone like me who was grilling every week despite the weather. I ended up warping that little weber because of the heavy usage. I sure did get my mileage out of it. But this review isn't about the weber, it's about this wonderful, amazing piece of technology that allows you to cheat! I had often heard that pellet grilling was like charcoal grilling but cheating. This charcoal grill is like grilling with charcoal but cheating with charcoal. It's so easy it's disgusting. I went a long time, many grills doing all this effort while this grill does everything EFFORTLESSLY. Key phrase is EFFORTLESSLY. Fire and forget isn't a more applicable term! I admit the assembly process is grueling. I admit I hate starting the flame in this grill compared to my weber but that is and was a SMALL price to pay. I just smoked a 16 lb brisket to absolute perfection over 22 hours. I did none of the work. The grill did everything. I was a little hesitant to allow the grill to work over the course of one night but when I woke up the next morning the thing still had fire and still had, albeit, a small amount of charcoal left...to think this charcoal grill went 8 hours without maintenance...it truly is disgusting for those of you charcoal purists who have worked painstakingly to maintain your heat, your supply and the placement of your flames. This grill is just profound. It's so hard to describe how amazing it truly is unless you've slaved, smoking with something like a weber. Smoking is such a fine art that requires such specific detail to temperature and truly only works well when done indirectly. This grill is such a marvel of engineering it not only burns indirectly but the manifold allows for SEARING. My god. It's unbelievable. If you're on the fence with the price tag but are a charcoal purist like me who is just tired of not getting that perfect smoke...this is a no brainer. If it lasts only a year, if it only lasts 6 months....I'd buy it again. I love this thing! Edit: been a year now and have grilled more on this in the first few months than I did in 2 years with my Weber in terms of hourly usage easy. The longest I ever used this grill was 26 HOURS. That was a good brisket. I've smoked a turkey for Thanksgiving and made 6 briskets on this thing. I've cooked pork butt and pulled it. I've made brisket and pulled that! I've made newyorks, t-bones, tomahawks, salmon, whole tilapia...this grill is beyond words. However! I've had some failures. It's sad but nothing lasts forever. My fan had failed but this is after 100's of hours if not 1,000. Also my proximity switch for the lid melted so I shorted the wires together and kept grilling. Still the best charcoal griller out there! Edit 09/2023 Wow have had this grill for 3 years and have easily spent more than 1k hours cooking on it. Definitely the best charcoal grill I could have asked for! When I talk to other grillmasters most use pellets but pellets does not infuse the taste of charcoal. Literally just made a 20 lb brisket over 24 hours on 9/16/23 and is easily my best. Fire and forget once you get this thing lit. Keep it fed and you don't have a thing to worry about. Used this thing nearly every weekend for the last three years and it keeps going! Only thing I have had to replace is the fan which I'm on my third and have a replacement just in case! Turkeys, Briskets, Pork Shoulders....plenty of space for accompaniments like corn, potatoes or anything you can imagine. I can't talk this grill up enough! If you struggle it's a skill issue and not the grill!

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 easier 2 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 10 4 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 10 6 Price. This is expensive. Hoping it was worth the cost. Still early. No score 7 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 10 8 We were warned about the smoke during burn in but this was not an issue for us. No score 9 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 10 9A (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.

Well, from the features on the manufacturer website and various reseller listings, I had very high hopes for this BBQ. I replaced a 10-15 year old, very reliable CharBroil grill with this, only because I finally burned through the briquette/charcoal tray. Yes, I barbecue and smoke meats that much, pretty much year-round, because I live in CA. We set it up on Saturday on Memorial Day weekend, a great time to start with a new grill since I grilled three meals this weekend. Let's start with pro's and con's: Pro's: 1. Everything functions exactly as advertised. 2. Makes low/slow cooks/smokes very easy, like pulled pork, brisket, etc. 3. The time to bring the grill up to cooking temperature takes about 1/3 to 1/2 the time of a normal charcoal grill. 4. Everything is heavy duty and very well constructed. 5. From the first 5-6 times operating it, it appears to be more efficient, using about 1/3 to 1/2 the charcoal I would use in a traditional grill for a similar cook. 6. The app works well as long as you stay in it for constant monitoring Con's: 1. Assembly documentation was repeatedly incorrect, in some cases completely missing information. 2. Operation of the grill using the startup instructions in the documentation was missing half of what I needed to know just to learn how to operate it. 3. The app will get disconnected from the grill if you leave it for more than 5 seconds, forcing you to go back a screen and re-pick the grill, sometimes twice. 4. For an expensive grill like this, it's surprising that it doesn't come with one $9 box of fire-starters just so you can get up and running. So, this grill is amazing. Compared to standard charcoal grills I've been using for over 30 years, this grill represents a quantum leap forward for stuff we specifically must use charcoal grills for. The way the hopper works is ingenious and completely eliminates about 25% of the work in using a standard charcoal grill, without losing ability to smoke and generally control how you're cooking, and at the same time making the use of that charcoal noticeably more efficient. The days of my walking into my house with black hands/arms after adding charcoal for cooking or otherwise moving it around are behind me. Just pour a bag or two into the hopper and you're done. I've found no downside to the functionality of this grill. I cooked/smoked pork spare ribs and country-style pork ribs, plus beef ribs, and the 3-6 hours required for each was an absolute breeze. Just open the app, connect, and leave the app open as you keep an eye on it. You can essentially set the temperature and time then forget it, but you can monitor it the whole way without going out to the grill, especially using the temperature probe(s). The temperature control is a God-send for touchy, long cooks/smokes like brisket. Once I learned how to operate it properly, with the Masterbuilt fire-starter, it took 10-20 minutes to get it up to any temperature, from 250 to 700. That is very nice for when you want a quick, proper BBQ during the week. With greater control over charcoal burning, it seemed to use noticeably less charcoal after each cook, mainly because it eliminates the waste at the end when you're done. My sons and I assemble and disassemble computers, servers, and laptops every day in my business. So, we're not rookies at putting stuff together. It took both of my sons over 3 hours to assemble this grill using the instructions that came with it, apparently because it had numerous vague and even incorrect instructions. Corrected and with more specific instructions, it probably would have taken half the time. Then, reading the part that explains how to start it the first time, I found numerous vague instructions and outright missing information. You shouldn't have to look up several YouTube reviews to understand how to operate any $800 device. Also, I read several reviews talking about rust, and I had to find a YouTube review to understand that I should season the inside of this grill like an iron pan to avoid rust -- should be added to the manual. In fact, needing two burn-ins, one to burn away manufacturing chemicals and one to seal the inner metal, should be in an overview at the beginning of the manual. I was hoping to have our first cook that day, but assembling the grill, learning how to operate it, then two burn-ins took about 7 hours. Don't expect to actually use this grill the first day, unless you start early in the morning. The app today does not work as badly as some reviewers have stated. The only problem I had was with it needing me to manually reconnect it if I left it for more than 10 seconds. Just a few seconds and it continues to work fine, but if you go to read email or something else often, you'll be reconnecting repeatedly. After everything was set up and I learned everything, being able to sit down all afternoon as I monitor smoking or cooking something on this grill is really amazing. After you get through all the little problems in the beginning, this grill is worth every penny, and realistically as good or better than grills that sell for twice as much money. Updates after 3 years: The app now works flawlessly. The power button on the front cracked and now I push a pin, but it still works. The ash door sensor stopped working reliably, causing the grill to often not function, as if I had the door open. I fixed it by sticking a matchbook between the door and the push-button sensor. It's probably worked fine like that for 2 of the 3 years. The seals around the charcoal feed stopped fully blocking smoke and heat from escaping, making it impossible to get above 150-200 degrees, or very, very slow. I fixed it by folding Clorox wipes around the door where the seals were, and that's worked for well over a year. Replacement sticker-foam would probably also work. Other than these minor failures, still very, very happy with this. There are occasions that it doesn't fully work because I don't need a smoker, or I only need a barbecue for 30-45 minutes and it's a lot of work to get it going for that short period of time, but the other 95% of the time it's great.

Im rather shocked at how many poor reviews this has received. Many of the comments on this grill had me considering NOT buying it but decided to anyway as one of the few charcoal self feeding smokers out there. I decided to pull the trigger when I read a pit-master’s review and realized that 99% of these complaints comes down to self inflicted user error during assembly. Now to be fair, the time it took to assemble this was probably around 2-3 hours in total. My first thought was definitely “darn I really should have paid for a professional to do this”. However I made sure to tighten every bolt and nut and that it was seated properly before moving to the next step. My only “gripe” is the analog temp gauge doesn’t seem to be accurate to the digital setting but truthfully I have had no issues with the temperatures I set and maintain. My 3rd party temp probes do report out an ambient temp but that is also hard to use as a gauge given that the moisture coming off the meat will generally have it colder than the grill cavity. With that said, everything I have made from brisket to pulled pork, and the daily burger/steak have been huge hits. The meat is well smoked whether I do the wood chunks in the hopper or in the ash bin methods. Ive had people saying it’s some of the best bbq they have had. Do i wish i had the xl instead of the 1050? Yes it definitely feels tight when I am making larger pieces of meat like the 22lb turkey i spatchcocked. But it is still plenty big to get the job done. Just wish the middle and upper racks were bigger. Despite this being a “set and forget” smoker, you still have to layer the hopper with wood/coal, and have somewhat of a fire management understanding at a very beginner friendly level. This has been a great “introduction to smoking” daily grill for family meals and has me itching to dive deeper into the true offsets with real fire management for those lazy weekends I can spend tending a fire. So bottom line, if you build it right or pay for professional install, it works great. It’s hard to believe this is a smoker under 1000 that provides competition level flavor that pellet grills cant compare.

First off... I've been smoking for about 40 years on just about every kind of smoker you can imagine. I saw the reviews and videos of the Gravity Series and ordered the 1050. Assembled it today and did the seasoning. Truthfully, I have been in awe all evening after what I saw during the seasoning. For smoking "Low and Slow" temp management has always been a struggle. Bouncing back and forth between "Too Hot" and "Too Cold" is the norm. Even on a pellet grill with PID it still sometimes was a struggle. Today I lit of the Gravity series to do the seasoning and set it for 250° and it shot to about 325° (Rookie Mistake... Didn't remove the slides). It quickly settled back to 250° and my Tappecue (Clipped under the warming rack center) read 256°. I watched for an hour as this thing bounced between 253° and 259° (Tappecue). This thing was rock solid on temp control. Then bumped to 400° and it too about 4 minutes to top off at 410° then back down to 403° and held for 30 minutes. Again Amazing temp control. Then shut down and put back the slides and the charcoal went out without wasting any. Greased it up and relit it. set for 350°. It took about 4 minutes to get there and then for 30 minutes I watched it vary by +/-3°. The assembly wasn't too hard (even one handed because of a torn rotator cuff) and took me about 4 hours (again... One handed). They even gave an extra set of screws/bolts incase you dropped one (which I did). Startup was simple and again Temp Control was nothing less than Amazing. How they can do that with a charcoal grill/smoker is awesome. Time to sell my pellet grill/smoker and never look back. The graph shows temp changes at 250° then bumped to 400° Would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for anyone in the market and if you're thinking about a pellet grill.... STOP and take a look at this! You won't be sorry.

Im kinda disappointed in this smoker/grill. I was super excited to smoke a brisket on Christmas, but alas it would never come to fruition. It took over 3 weeks and i was about to cancel my order when it showed up on a semi truck. I had to figure out how to get it into my garage and then i had to put it together. After i put it together its massive, and comes on a pallet, about 5 days before Christmas and i wanted to cook a steak to celebrate, the internal thermometer was not working which basically bricked the whole thing i could not regulate temps and the fan would not work. Obviously this was right before Christmas so i called amazon to send me another internal thermometer and of course it would not be here until after Christmas. After replacing the thermometer, it cooked wonderfullyIts durable iv smoked 2 briskets and some chicken prior to the motherboard failure and it was plug and play, and i was really enjoying it thinking that nothing else could go wrong. until the motherboard decided that it no longer wanted to work with the meat probes. So now i can not monitor the meat temperature. While it still cooks i would recommend getting a hand held meat probes incase of the motherboard failure. Im waiting on a replacement for that now. That i had to pay out of pocket for because amazon gave me a 5% refund to pay for the probe that i didn’t authorize. If i have any take aways, its a great product until it isn’t, especially if your internal thermometer breaks then you have a lawn ornament until you get a new one.

We had a hail storm and the husband’s grill didn’t make it. RIP old grill 😞. I had found this brand mentioned on a YouTube video, on a channel my husband hates, but after yelling at him to shut it and just watch the one part about the grill he pouted his way through the 4 minute tidbit then was excited about the Masterbuilt products. My daughter wanted to get him a grill for Father’s Day so they did their research and went for this one. When it arrived, the wonderful women that delivered it slid it right from the truck into our truck bed and we drove it straight to our back yard. It’s a heavy box, definitely a 2 person job, not wimpy people mind you. This is not a thing you can lift with a 4 year old, grab your spouse or a buddy. An appliance dolly will be your friend here due to the size & weight of the box. It took my husband about 6 hours to set it up. He laid out all the parts to verify he had everything, problem was some of the parts came preassembled. The manual didn’t reflect that, so he wasted a lot of time just looking for parts to find out in the end they were already assembled. Tidbits of information: - Definitely have a good amount of flat, clean work space. 9’x12’ is good. - Make sure the grill’s location is level, as it affects the heating distribution. - Don’t be the sun’s enemy, being a ginger under the sun for 6 hours wasn’t cool. Definitely put on sun screen! Guess what my husband didn’t do. Yeah… - Have a helper with patience, yeah, that was not me, lol. - Try to do assembly with neighbors away, they tend to come over to talk and drag out the assembly process with stories of barbecues gone by (he thinks this may have taken up an hour with repeat interruptions.) - Make sure your wife gets you the cover, too. It’s worth it! - This plugs in, make sure your setup is sort of near a plug BUT at least 10’ front any combustible structure/material. No barbecue is worth burning down a house! Have a fire extinguisher/hose near you just in case! (Yes I’m a worry wort!) - It says to season the grill, don’t skip that part! You learn how to use it without wasting food, plus that whole burn off shipping yuck. - First meal was with cheap cuts just to try it, they turned out amazing, work your way up to a brisket! Other than that, only one complaint from me (the wife), I noticed juices leaking from the front right side dripping on the lower flat of the stand. Hubby doesn’t mind BUT I told him to get a disposable lasagna pan to keep the grill clean. The catch pan for drippings needs to be larger or have more overlap to catch it all. It’s been worth every penny so far. Remember, getting a grill for him is really a gift for yourself as he will want to cook dinner…and lunch…and breakfast…and snacks…on the grill…all the time! It’s a win win!

El ahumador muy bien muy estable pero la recolección de grasa gotea y mancha toda la parte de abajo esperaba más para un asador de este precio y de esta calidad deja mucho que desear estas fallas Nose si me darán solución

Great BBQ/smoker. So easy to use. Great smoke flavor.

Al parecer esta completo pero tiene dos golpes en la tapa y se ve de frente y de arriba, se ve desalineado totalmente. Puede perder hermetismo y salida de humo no deseada.

This smoker is works fairly well, for a long cook the ash grate needs to be cleared, but it's easy enough to do.

This thing worked for all of 8 hours. I contacted Amazon to return it and was told they would have a shipping company contact me. This was over 3 months ago and still nothing. Waste of money and they won’t take it back.