In May, I got this pellet cooker from the folks at
Grilla Grills as a "thank you" from them for cooking on their BBQ team at Memphis in May.
I could have chosen to have one of their new and extra big Kong kamado grills but I ultimately chose the Grilla because
- I already have umpteen kamado grills and
- I had used this Grilla at the event and was seriously impressed with it.
If you follow my social media accounts (
Instagram,
Twitter,
Facebook), you've seen that we have used this cooker a lot over the Summer. We even started taking it to our BBQ competitions. It has gotten a lot of attention and people have been asking me about it often, so I thought I'd do a full review post on it.
Disclosure
First, I want to clarify my relationship with Grilla. One of my friends assumed that I was working for them because we've been using it so much, but I'm not. I don't get a check from them, I don't get commission on sales, and they aren't paying me to cook on their equipment. I took a week of vacation to cook on their team and they gave me this cooker in return - that's all there is to it. So when you have seen me using this cooker, it's because I wanted to use it.
What's A Pellet Cooker?
For the uninitiated, a pellet cooker is a type of smoker that burns pellets of compressed wood for heat and smoke. You can get different "flavors" of wood pellets, such as; hickory, pecan, oak, cherry, blends, or just about any kind you want. They are about as easy of a cooker that you can get.
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An auger (think big screw) pushes the wood pellets out of the black tube into the metal cup. Once the pellets are ignited, all of the heat is coming from the burning wood. A computer monitors the heat, knows your target temp, and adds more pellets as needed to keep the temp at your set point. |
Features
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| The first feature you notice right out of the box? Ease of assembly. The top picture shows it uncrated. You just stand it up right, take out the packaging, and attach the two shelves (6 screws). That's it. You're ready to let the smoke roll. |
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| The next thing is the stylish design - how cool does this thing look? But beauty is more than skin deep. The shape has function. The Grilla has a fan that blows air into the "waist" (skinny part) and that starts a swirling convection current - a vortex of smoke. Why is that important? |
Convection Cooking
In
Franklin Barbecue, Aaron Franklin says that the most crucial element in selecting a smoker is airflow because that determines how well the smoker does it's job (48). He repeatedly keys in on the importance on air flow. In a recent BBQ class at Dead End BBQ in Knoxville, Christopher Prieto of Prime BBQ said that the aerodynamic of flow over and around meat in the cooker is extremely important. Kenji Lopez-Alt explains in
The Food Lab that moving air cooks faster and more evenly because moving air is constantly replenishing the energy around the colder food whereas still air cools quickly around the relatively colder food (31). So long story short, moving smoke is better smoke.
Another very cool design feature is the "Keep Heat Swing" lid. When you open a typical grill lid up, you are letting all of the heat out and then have to re-establish equilibrium. With this lid, you can open it just a sliver to check things, spritz your meat, etc. Plus, unlike some smokers, you don't have to worry about finding somewhere to put the lid when working in the cooker.
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| The Grilla has 488 square inches of cooking space and heavy duty, 1/4" stainless steel grill grates. |
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| The control panel of the Grilla is intuitive - power button, temp up and down. |
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| Cool touch lid handle. |
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| The large back wheels make it easy to move the Grilla around and this pedal retracts the front wheel, serving as a brake of sorts. |
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| The face-plate isn't just cool looking. It lets you see that your pellets are burning and doing their job. |
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| Instead of having to put a drip pan on the heat deflector, the designer had what I think is a brilliant idea. The deflector plate angles slightly towards the back and then channels out of the cooker where you see here. Then you just put a can in this holder to catch the grease and other drippings. |
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| The Grilla has a large pellet hopper that holds 20 pounds of pellets, allowing for long cooks. |
Some other features include
- Heavy duty powder coat finish
- Thick gauge metal construction
- Stainless steel shelves
- Easy 1 touch start up
Performance
We have used this cooker all Summer long and it has continued to impress me.
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| This smoker cooks pork butts like a champ. This time we were cooking an Albukirky's Green Chile pork butt to use for tacos, enchiladas, etc and a typical pork butt for BBQ. It could handle 3 pork butts as is or 4 if I use a raised rack. |
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| To test the steadiness of the heat, I hooked up my Flame Boss to monitor the temperature. The blower wasn't hooked up, I was just graphing the cooking temperature and internal meat temperature. The red line shows the cooking temperature which is steady. |
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| Green chile pork with cilantro lime slaw is one of our favorite ways to smoke pork butts. |
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| Several times this Summer, we fire roasted batches of bone in chicken breast to use for multi-purpose things like chicken salad, pastas, burritos, and casseroles. |
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| We smoked a few whole chickens on the Grilla, as well. |
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| Whole chickens are great for making pulled chicken sandwiches. |
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| The Grilla is a brisket cooking beast. I get great color, balanced smoke flavor, and deep smoke rings. Another kick butt Egger friend of mine has a pellet cooker and he says his cooks amazing briskets too. At our last contest, we cooked a brisket on a kamado and one on the Grilla. We ended up using the Grilla one based on results and got a top 10 call. My favorite brisket would still be one that was on the Warthog (my ugly trailer pit) for 2 1/2 hours and then finished overnight on a kamado. |
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| A Certified Angus Beef brisket point that we cooked on the Grilla. Man.....that bark. I love smoked brisket points. |
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| Slicing the brisket point to cut into burnt ends. A perfect burnt end might just be the best single bite for beef. The deep rich flavor, tender bite, and the bark just makes it the pinnacle of BBQ for me. |
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| The deep rich flavor, tender bite, and the bark just makes it the pinnacle of BBQ for me. We sauce them for competitions but at home, I like having them without any sauce. I like the smoke, salt, pepper and beef flavor to stand on their own. But sauced are still freaking awesome too. |
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| I get okay smoke rings on my kamado grills but everything has to be just right (cold meat, moist surface, moist cooker air, and good clean smoke). I almost don't have try with the Grilla, I always get these deep smoke rings. I'm thinking of how convection currents keep hitting the meat with fresh hot moving air, so that means it's getting more smoke at the same time. That has me thinking a lot about the difference between natural air draw and forced air currents, such as a Flame Boss on a kamado. |
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| Bend test....yep, that's tender. |
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| One weak spot for the Grilla, and any pellet cooker I have seen in action, is high temp grilling. They rock for smoking, fire roasting, and baking but their upper limit seems to be air temps of around 450f. Air temps of 450-500f doesn't equal direct grilling temps of 500f. I found the best way to mimic grilling was to take out the grate and place GrillGrates directly on the heat deflecter. |
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| Doing this gives decent grill marks and then I can finish roasting to my desired internal temperature. |
Another area where charcoal grills have the edge is that the pellet cookers electric power. If the power fails, your cooker is dead. I haven't had this happen to us at all but I could see it being an issue at contest events where electric supply isn't the best sometimes.
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| A pair of pork spare ribs on the Grilla. I'm using a 18" raised grate from one of my kamado grills here. |
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| How does the Grilla do for ribs? Money! |
Final Thoughts
We have put the Grilla pellet cooker through heavy use for the whole Summer. We have used it and our BGE Mini-Max more than any of our other grills this year, so this review covers a thorough testing period. After all of that use, I can say we love this cooker.
The Grilla pellet cooker is a solid performer for smoking, fire roasting, and any indirect cooking up to 450f. The Grilla gives you steady temps and swirling sweet smoke. It delivers a balanced smoke flavor, mahogany color, and those classic deep smoke rings that you associate with pit smoked BBQ. It is an ideal cooker for someone already has a basic grill but wants to get into barbecuing and fire roasting. Or like me, if you already have 16 grills but want to try your first pellet cooker, the Grilla is the one for you.
TL;DR
Product:
Grilla wood pellet grill
Price Point: $799 including delivery to your door.
Design: 5/5
Performance: 4.5/5
Value: 5/5
Overall: 4.83 / 5
