After a long history of charcoal grilling/smoking on a Weber kettle, I was in the market for a pellet grill, mostly to not have to worry about vent settings to dial in the correct temperature and a couple times the snake method failed me on a brisket. Sometimes it's nice to not have to fire up a chimney when I can just push a couple of buttons and come back at the correct temperature.
After much research on Youtube and reddit, I settled on what seems to be the r/pelletgrill favorite, the Weber Searwood, I got the XL version.
For smoking, it works great. I put the brisket on the top rack, water pan below, a smoke tube and sometimes some wood chips, and it can go low and slow overnight, wrap it in the morning, rest, and perfect for afternoon guests. Same for ribs. For this type of cooking I have no complaints – great temperature stability, rapid initial heating time, the app works well, easy clean up.
I then wanted to experiment with the "Sear" part of the Searwood. Hey, it's in the name. I had a built in gas grill at my last place which was extremely powerful (in the hot spots) and my kettle can get crazy hot as well so I've enjoyed a good char/sear on foods.
My first test was smash burgers, so I needed a griddle type situation. I didn't get the expensive Weber one but I did get a 17.5 x 12" one on Amazon (QuliMetal). Let it preheat up in there til 600. Temp probe on the griddle read 520-550 in different parts. Smash burgers (4 patties) went well, likely because of the heat retention of the cast iron. The buns toasted up quickly.
Chicken thighs – I did the 0-400 method on the stock grates. Meat was tasty but very no char. Exactly like I took it out of the oven.
Second time – smoke boost + smoke tube for 30 mins then up to 500 until 175-180 ish. Positioned them all over the flavorizer bars to hopefully get some of those juices/fat rendering to vaporize. MUCH better. Actually tasted like it came from a grill. I was satisfied with that.
I took it to the next level and tried some marinated Korean BBQ short ribs. Here I was very disappointed. First time I preheated up til 600, waited about 5 extra minutes and threw them on. At first got a good sizzle but petered out. Switched to manual mode at 10. I closed the lid too hoping to get some more. For how thin they are I couldn't leave them on forever and I flipped them and there were some fairly sorry sear marks. Meat was cooked and tasty, but I've had better sear/char from an electric grill at a low end Korean BBQ restaurant.
Now up to today – I tried to see if it was the stock grates that were the problem. The QuliMetal came as a combo – 12" of griddle and 12" of cast iron grates. I put both on and heated up to 600 and left an additional 5-10 mins to heat the grates. Temp gun read high 500s. So they're accurate on temperature. Same short ribs. This time, slightly better sizzle. But the heat capacity of the cast iron is not enough to cook them through. And the heat from manual mode 10 is not enough to keep it sizzling.
At the same time I wanted to try the griddle on manual mode, as they advertise. I had some thinly sliced beef and I wanted to try a little Mongolian style stir fry with some veggies. Same story, good sizzle at first, but as soon as some juices ran out of the meat and veggies the liquid overpowered the initial heat capacity of the griddle and soon only the edges were bubbling. At that point, I was just simmering a stew on a very expensive weak griddle.
The Searwood is an excellent pellet smoker but it cannot sear more then a thin smashburger on a highly preheated cast iron skillet. Like the recent post where they were bragging about the sear and top comments were "Is the sear in the room with us now?" 😂
This was a sizable purchase for me. Am I asking too much of a pellet grill named Searwood?
I saw some videos of people taking the heat deflector off a Traeger and smoking over the firebox and Reddit warned them of a grease fire or destroying their grill. My idea to get some real searing power is like those other grill's sear zone where they open a little window in the deflector to expose the fire box – take the flavorizer bar off and only grill on the sides. The XL has decent space on both sides.
The Searwood was designed to avoid all the grease fire risk from the SmokeFire, which I never tried. There is a massive diffuser above the firebox which glows red at the higher settings and blasts heat out both sides. Then this heats up the flavorizer bar which is also a massive heat shield/deflector, and thats why the grill is hotter at the sides. My temp gun was on the flavorizer bar was close to the temperature on the screen so that's all accurate. Then it's just an oven radiating heat upward toward the prober in the back center.
So leave the heavy duty firebox deflector on top and take off the flavorizer bar to blast high heat from the sides for real "DirectFlame" instead of a few embers up the sides of the flavorizer. Due to the design, the firebox is almost completely protected from grease, except for the very edges where it extends out farther than the top. If you put the food only where the red arrows go, grease should mostly just drip down the sides into the grease catch.
I think with this set up I could potentially actually grill/sear on this. I would probably start at like a 5 on manual mode because 10 is pretty intense, just not where the food is. 10 is a joke on anything at grate level with the lid open.
What do you guys think?
by CheesecakeMaximum126