Camp Chef 36 in. WiFi Woodwind Pellet Grill & Smoker with Sear Box (PGSEAR) - WiFi & Bluetooth Connectivity

This is my first pellet smoker. I have the Camp Chef Woodwind Wifi 36". I paid $1200 for the Woodwind and the Sear box attachment. I have been using a stick burner for years and years. I wanted a pellet smoker because it would save time in getting the fire ready to smoke. Got it set up in December 2020.What I like.1) I like that the lid is a nice tight seal. That is a big deal for proper airflow to not have a leaky smoker.2) I love that it gets up to temp without me having to do a lot of work.3) I love that it is a huge cook chamber and I can do multiple racks of ribs without having to use a rib rack. Rib Racks suck because they end up making the bones bow out during a cook on spare ribs and it makes them harder to deal with.4) Cleanup is easy. Grease filters to the drip pan like it is supposed to and the ash cleanout is easy to use. Pro tip... wrap the main heat deflector shield in foil for easier cleanup over time. just let the drippings go there so you just have to change foil to clean it up.5) I love that it has an easy pellet dump so you can change out pellets easy without having to scoop them out.6) I saw some complaints about the thickness of the metal online but I used it in 30 degree temperatures and didn't have any trouble controlling the temperature. I would not worry about it. Not sure how many of you want to sit outside in colder temps than that but that was my take on it.7) Sear box is awesome. I have nothing in the kitchen or on any other grill that can come close to 900 degrees. I have a temperature gun and have clocked it at 850 degrees at the highest. I can't get it to 900 degrees. Will try again in the summer. The metal layer underneath the main grill grate actually glows bright orange it is so hot. This is the piece that gives you an over the top amazing steak. I smoke Prime grade ribeyes at low temp 200 - 225 degrees for about 2 hours until internal temp gets to 125 degrees. Then take them inside to rest for 5-10 minutes while the sear box heats up. That step for a rest is key to lower the temp a bit and let juices settle before putting on high heat. I do 30 seconds x 2 on each side for diamond grill marks for a total of 2 minutes. Steak temp is 133% internal when I take it off and ends up at 135 degrees medium rare when I am done. Better than any $100 steakhouse steak. The sear box is important.Stuff that they should improve upon.1) It doesn't put out a lot of smoke. I am not sure how other pellet smokers do but compared to my normal smoker where I manage the fire the smoke is almost non existent. I can't get as much smoke as I would like into the meat before the internal temps hit 140 degrees and stop accepting smoke on the inside of the meat. I have tried smoke levels ranging from 1 to 10 and can't tell a difference. I just leave at it 10 and hope for the best. I noticed that if I put food on the top rack and put a water drip pan on the bottom rack that it seems to help with more smoke. All I can guess here is that if your cook chamber is not full of stuff that their is less empty volume so there is less wasted space for the smoke to be in. There is not enough smoke output for the 36 inch version. I bet the 24 inch version would do better in hindsight. I probably didn't need the 36 inch but the price difference was small enough I wanted to be prepared for a larger cook. It never occurred to me that there could be drawbacks on stuff like smoke output.2) Assembly instructions. There are a few areas where the instructions could be improved upon. The biggest one is connecting the pellet box and controller unit to the main smoker chamber. They sent 4 bolts but there are only holes for 2. I did not miss anything. There was not another pair of holes on the smoker chamber or the pellet box up top for another pair of bolts. I wonder if these instructions are meant for multiple units. There needs to be a top anchor because only connecting the 2 units together near the bottom makes it flimsy when I drag it in and out of the garage.3) Connecting to the app was incredibly difficult. I spent hours on it. Camp Chef gets an "F" for not updating the software themselves BEFORE they ship it. The original software it ships with has such bad wifi and bluetooth that you really need to drag it into your garage to connect to the Bluetooth on your phone and the home wifi. You have to have BOTH connected before you can start the mind numbing process of long multiple updates that fail constantly (because of dropped connections) to get on the latest version. Camp Chef acknowledged this was a massive complaint and that they needed to improve it. They did improve it but they really screwed up not updating units before they ship because of how bad it is out of the box. Now that it has better wifi it needs better bluetooth. I can't go inside more than 20 feet from the smoker without the bluetooth dropping. The unit has to be within 30 feet of WiFi to work. I had to buy another $80 WiFi adapter to put by the window in order to fix it so I can use the app anywhere in my house.4) The standard unit comes with a side shelf. You can't use it if you add the sear box or the other additional burner. The standard unit should come with the front shelf instead of that being an extra $100. I bought it and I love it but before I had it I felt like if we pay $250 for a sear box we should not lose a shelf. They should include the front shelf and make people pay extra for a side shelf or other attachment.Overall... I really like the smoker but am bummed at the low smoke output and App connectivity. I wish I would have got the 24 inch because that should reduce the empty space and provide better smoke output. It is worth the price. It really is a fantastic value for the price. They have every single bell and whistle on this thing. I hope this review helps.6/2/21 update - a $15 smoke tube and $15 creme brûlée torch to light the pellets in a smoke tube add a lot more smoke and make food taste a lot more like it has enough smoke. Still no comparison to burning wood chunks or splits for smoke flavor but it’s a big improvement.

Every feature you ever wanted

The grill smokes well enough and it was easy to put together. I love the propane side burner feature. However, I have never been able to get the wifi to work properly except for the first time when I literally had to bring the grill inside the house and put it right next to the wifi router to get it to work. Since then, the grill is outside where I know there is a good strong signal but it will not work. The bluetooth is rather spotty also. Wifi has been utterly useless for me.

It maintains and controls the temperature great! It’s a well built grill too! I love the sear box too!

The best BBQ I have ever owned

Very disappointed with this, would not recommend or purchase again.Within 3 weeks of using, the metal frame had buckled out from regular cooking heat and the grill grates no longer fit -they would fall into the grill it had expanded so much (3/4 inch out). Had some custom grates made to refit.Then all the paint started peeling off the outside and the frame started rusting immediately (see picture).They say you can cook over direct heat but that’s disingenuous -there is only a tiny area of the grill that is exposed to open flame in that setting. Unless you are cooking 1 steak or 2 burgers, the direct flame is absolutely useless!The pellet hopper auger is located in such a way that you can have a 20-pound bag of pellets in there and the grill will run out and go cold in mid-smoke because the auger pulls from one side so the pellets don’t feed evenly. You have to check every hour or so and manually push pellets over the auger feed.Smokes well enough, just don’t use it on high heat or expect to grill effectively over open flame.Overall, it feels cheap for the money, poorly built, bad paint, long shipping time. Buy a brand with better quality. This is the worst grill I’ve ever owned and I cook on a grill 2 days a week, 8-9 months of the year, for 20 years.

I bought the Camp Chef 36" with the Sear Box. The sear box didn't light and the computer on the pellet grill failed on the 2nd smoke. Can't get a response from seller. Absolutely DO NOT BUY!Update. I contacted customer service and they asked me to illegally disconect (grounding) wire. NEC viloation. Below is their response:If this does not work, then next would be to check to make sure all your connections are tight. To do this, you would drop the bottom panel of the hopper. I have attached a PDF that will help you with this. When the bottom panel is off, there will be a cluster of wires to the side. Cut the zip tie to free them. The connection to check would be the clasps that has no letter on it and has black and white wires going from it. (This step is for those that have a Woodwind WiFi controller) If this does not work, then disconnect the grounding wire coming from the controller. It will be a single green wire. Once disconnected, try turning it on. (Make sure the grounding from the electrical cord is tightened back into place.) If it turns on, you can use your smoker just fine. We added this grounding wire to add extra protection, where this controller has more to it than our older controllers. This being said, we have done countless hours of testing, and found it is not needed. However, it can sometimes short out the controller. Your controller will still be grounded with the ground wire coming from the electrical cord.If that still does not work, we need to find out if it is the internal thermometer. This connection will be a smaller connection then the power connection and will have 2 white\tan wires going to it. Once unplugged try turning on the controller. If it turns on, then you would need a new internal thermometer. If it does not, then you would need a new controller.Sorry, if it sounds easy enough, but not for a $1,400 smoker used twice. In my opinion, they can take their smoker back and either give me new working one or a full refund. We'll see.