Use the filters below to refine your search. Most other gravity-feed charcoal smokers are not intended for higher “hot & fast” grilling temperatures, so they do not suffer from this firebox issue. A one-of-a-kind machine, the Gravity Series marries the ease of thermostatic control (as in your home oven or pellet smoker) with the smoky flavor you expect from cooking with charcoal or wood chunks or logs. Lump charcoal, in addition to being lighter in a given volume, produces much less ash than briquets (learn more about charcoal and the differences between types here). The built-in fan, thermostatic controller, and gravity-fed charcoal make Gravity Series a plug and play charcoal grill and smoker. No spam. Even though many love cast iron grill grates, we’d prefer to see the much more user-friendly stainless steel rod grates. However, we were receiving reports from our readers that this warping metal would deteriorate and actually flake away, exposing the white-colored insulation layer underneath. We haven’t seen anything quite like the Gravity Series, and we want to love it despite its flaws! To test for hot spots, I ran our bread test for 7 minutes with the cooker set at 350°F. For more about our privacy promise, code of ethics, terms of service, and how we operate to insure you unbiased info, click here. Be sure to reload before the lit charcoal runs completely out or you will have to restart the fire! The Gravity Series features a sealed, gravity fed charcoal hopper on the right side of the unit. We usually grant permission and don't charge a fee. You adjust the temperature anywhere from 150° to 700°F by pushing in the left thermometer symbol button then twisting a separate knob. The Masterbuilt Gravity 560 is a great blend of convenience and function at a price that’s hard to ignore. Here’s the result of a 12-hour beef brisket flat, smoked at 225°F according to the general instructions in our Beef Brisket article. When the email hit my inbox the other morning I knew I wanted to do a Masterbuilt Gravity Series Grill Review. Subscribe To Our Free Email Newsletter, Smoke Signals to keep up with our new articles, new recipes, new product reviews. In fact, the hinged lid with a handle on the front, spins in a rotary motion 180 degrees. This may not be the cooker you’ll pass on to your grandchildren, but you’ll make BBQ that will make your neighbors and workmates jealous with minimal effort and less expense than many other more complicated options out there. This was after I had used it a few times and there was some buildup inside. Can’t wait to try it out. There aren’t many grills that we can compare this to without moving into professional models designed for the competition circuit, and we love that there’s a gravity feed grill available for the rest of us. These two wires can then be connected together to complete the circuit, or in my case I found it easy enough to slide the protective boot from one wire back and insert the other wire under it so both remain connected together, effectively bypassing the switch, as shown in this picture. As you can see in the photo, the center of the grill runs slightly hotter, but not by much. Unlike other charcoal smokers, the digital control panel is in charge of temperature control. On the left side of the cooker above the digital control panel is a convenient 14 x 15 inch side shelf with 3 pegs to hook your tongs, scraper, or the air & heat intake slides during grill use. For method 1, Masterbuilt recommends adding one fist-sized chunk among every 4 pounds of charcoal, and the manual states “never use more than 1.5 lbs of wood chunks throughout the hopper”. Wearing heat-resistant gloves, I had no trouble reloading the hopper in all of my cooks.