The Camp Chef Woodwind Professional 24 checks all of the containers for what we would like in a pellet grill: It’s simple to make use of, gives a number of helpful options that allow you to dial in your cook dinner, is Wi-Fi–related so you may hold tabs in your brisket from the consolation of your sofa, and, most of all, it makes scrumptious barbecue — the perfect we’ve ever made at dwelling.
It prices greater than different grills we examined, however you get extra options and extra management in your cash. The one actual downsides are a sophisticated meeting course of and a barely barebones app, however these are a small worth to pay for every thing this smoker does effectively.
It makes deliciously smoky barbecue. The meals that got here out of the Woodwind Professional 24 was our tasting panel’s clear favourite in three of our 4 cooking checks, and it was an in depth second within the fourth. This grill persistently produced the smokiest outcomes, with out veering into acrid or ashy territory.
It additionally created essentially the most photogenic barbecue — a darkish bark and thick smoke ring on the pulled pork shoulder, lovely mahogany hen drumsticks, and shiny pink-orange salmon. And meat tended to be juicier after cooking on the Camp Chef in contrast with what we bought from our different contenders. The pores and skin on the hen even got here out crispier.
This grill held essentially the most secure temperatures of any we examined. This was very true at decrease temperatures, the place most of your low-and-slow smoking will occur. It carried out extraordinarily effectively within the biscuit take a look at, too, with evenly cooked biscuits all through. Solely the right-rear biscuit was barely much less browned than the remainder.
The management panel is straightforward to make use of. The Woodwind Professional 24 has a big, full-color management display that’s pushed by a rotary dial. You utilize the dial to pick out the menu you need, or to regulate temperature and different settings, then press it in to verify your choice. The menu itself is simple and straightforward to know, with out too many distractions. The display is protected by a flip-up cowl, too.
It’s the one grill we examined that offers you management over how a lot smoke it produces. The place most different grills merely let you choose a cooking temperature, the Woodwind Professional 24 goes deeper with a smoke setting that adjusts the grill’s auger and fan algorithm to provide roughly smoke — on a 1-to-10 scale — to higher fit your preferences.
It actually works, too: Our outcomes at a setting of 8 have been noticeably smokier than what we bought at 1. The draw back to a better smoke quantity is that you just get bigger swings in temperature, however over an extended cook dinner, these largely even out, and we didn’t discover any damaging results on our barbecue.
Its chilly smoke performance is one-of-a-kind. When you can chilly smoke on any pellet grill by including a smoke field of your individual, the Woodwind Professional 24 is the one pellet grill we’ve come throughout that comes with one inbuilt (video), and its design is fairly ingenious.
It slides in straight above the firebox, and a butterfly valve on the entrance of the grill permits you to use the flame from the pellets to get your wooden chunks going. The Woodwind Professional 24 additionally has a novel fan-only setting (with a 5 pace settings), so that after the wooden is smoldering, you may shut the valve, flip off the auger, and let the fan flow into smoke and feed the pellets oxygen. (Alternatively, you may merely use a torch to get the wooden going and keep away from going by the method of lighting the pellets within the firebox.)
We used this function to chilly smoke a deli-sized chunk of cheddar cheese, and whereas we overdid it a bit (hey, reduce us some slack, it was our first strive), the outcomes have aged effectively after a pair months within the fridge.
It has a number of different considerate options. This grill comes with an insulated, gasketed door for improved temperature management and likewise makes use of a downdraft design, with out a chimney. In concept, once you pair it with an excellent convection fan, the smoke circulates extra successfully across the meals you’re cooking — a trait mirrored within the deliciously smoky meat we bought from this grill.
Along with a well-designed pellet dump door (useful once you need to change from hickory to apple pellets, as an example), this grill additionally has an ash dump valve. This makes it a lot simpler to take away the majority of the ash out of your grill after every cook dinner, although you’ll nonetheless need to use a store vac to provide it an intensive cleansing every now and then.
The pellet hopper can maintain 22 kilos of pellets, and its lid is held down by magnets which might be robust sufficient to withstand wind and informal bumps, however not robust sufficient to make it a ache to open.
And sure, like many different pellet grills, this one comes with a built-in bottle opener so that you’ll by no means be with out a chilly beer (or soda) whereas grilling.
It comes with a number of probes and loads of cooking space. The Woodwind Professional 24 comes with 4 meat probes (essentially the most of any grill we’ve examined) and has 4 jacks so you should use all of them concurrently. That’s vital, as a result of this grill additionally has a ton of cooking area, regardless of its compact design.
Between its two racks, it has a mixed 811 sq. inches. That’s barely lower than the Traeger Woodridge’s 860 sq. inches, and fairly a bit lower than the Pit Boss Navigator 1300’s 1,329 sq. inches.
Nonetheless, the Woodwind Professional 24’s cooking surfaces are extra handy to make use of than the Pit Boss Navigator’s, with extra space between ranges, and it nonetheless gives loads of cooking space for many households’ day-to-day wants.
The highest rack on the Woodridge Professional 24 slides right into a slot, protecting it securely in place. And it’s truly two half-size racks, so you may select to make use of one or each relying on how a lot stuff you must cook dinner.
If you happen to just like the sound of this grill however know that you just want extra space, the Woodridge Professional 36 is functionally an identical however gives 1,236 sq. inches of cooking space.
Its app works effectively sufficient, however it’s lacking some options. The Camp Chef Join app (iOS, Android) isn’t going to blow you away with its appears or options, however it’s a wonderfully purposeful method to monitor your cook dinner from the consolation of your sofa.
Along with setting and monitoring your grill’s temperature, smoke setting, and fan pace, it has readouts for every of the 4 probes, plus an in depth cook dinner historical past with temperature graphs and elective notes (so you may keep in mind what you probably did and hopefully replicate it). You may as well set timers in your cooks.
In contrast to the apps from Traeger and Pit Boss, the Camp Chef app doesn’t attempt to promote you extra merchandise, and it doesn’t comprise a library of recipes. And in contrast to the Inexperienced Mountain Grills app, it doesn’t mean you can calibrate your meat probes or the probe in the principle physique of the smoker.
It’s a ache to assemble. The Woodwind Professional 24 had the longest meeting of any grill we’ve examined: a grueling 2 hours 10 minutes. As with the opposite grills we examined, we assembled this one with only one individual, quite than the 2 advisable, and this can be a case the place an additional set of arms actually would have helped.
This grill is available in a number of containers. It makes use of a variety of bolts, nuts, and instruments, and sadly the printed directions didn’t correspond precisely to what was within the containers. We bought it collectively in the long run, however the course of was irritating.
You should purchase quite a lot of helpful equipment. This grill comes with a metallic aspect shelf, however if you happen to choose, you should buy a 30,000 Btu Sidekick propane burner to place as an alternative. It is available in a package with both a Blackstone-style flat high or a cast-iron searing grate, and you’ll add a pizza oven if you happen to like. You may as well get different extras, comparable to an insulated blanket for cooking or an all-weather cowl, plus much more.
It comes with a beneficiant guarantee. The Woodwind Professional 24 is roofed by a six-year guarantee on rust, a three-year guarantee towards materials and manufacturing defects for the principle grill physique elements, and a one-year guarantee on the identical for every thing else.
Flaws however not dealbreakers
- Our take a look at unit arrived broken. Once we unpacked our Woodwind Professional 24, considered one of its 4 leg mounts was bent regardless of some significantly spectacular packaging. That didn’t assist with its already grueling meeting course of. However we have been in a position to set up the leg anyway, minus one bolt, and it has confirmed to be completely secure even on three and a half legs. We reached out to Camp Chef to allow them to know, and so they instantly supplied to ship a substitute grill physique. We declined, in an effort to keep away from waste, however it’s good to know that the corporate stands behind its product.
- The grill sits on tiny casters which might be arduous to maneuver throughout uneven surfaces. Whereas the opposite grills we examined had not less than two bigger wheels, the Woodwind Professional 24 makes use of 4 small casters. On a clean floor, like concrete, that’s completely superb (and it’s good to have the ability to lock all 4 wheels). But when you must transfer your grill throughout gravel, grass, or different less-than-perfectly-flat terrain, you’re going to want some muscle (and assist) to get it performed.
- It lacks a entrance shelf. Whereas the grill comes with a aspect shelf, and the pellet hopper lid on the opposite aspect can be utilized as a small secondary shelf, it doesn’t have a entrance shelf and there’s no possibility so as to add one. That is one thing the Inexperienced Mountain Grills Ledge Prime 2.0 consists of that we’d like to see on a future model of the Woodwind Professional 24.
