Weber Searwood Xl 600 Pellet Grill

Key Takeaway: I love the Weber Searwood XL 600 and I would highly recommend it for grilling, searing, smoking, flattop cooking, pizza making, and wok cooking. It's wonderful as an all-in-one outdoor cooking accessory. Temperature control is great but the high temperature and manual pellet feed control make a lot of cooking styles possible in one grill. Results have been excellent on a wide variety of cooks tried so far including burgers, meatloaf, veges, steaks, fried rice, and pizza. Background: I have grilled and smoked with charcoal, wood, gas, electric, and hardwood pellets on a variety of grills over the past 40 years. My favorites have been the Weber Performer and the Weber Smokey Mountain. I cook most of our meals on the grill. I have owned as many as 5 grills at one time but as I get older, I have been looking to simplify to one grill. My first attempt at this was with a Camp Chef Woodwind Pro Pellet Grill with an attached Sidekick propane searing top. It has generally been fast and easy to use with good results. But I don't like the separate searing that uses propane and temperature is limited and drops rapidly with an open lid. Also, long and slow cooks like brisket are OK but I miss my Smokey Mountain. I was tempted with the Weber SmokeFire when it first came out but I kept putting it off while I experimented with the Camp Chef. Fortunately I did because the Searwood is now here. In general, it fixes a lot of Camp Chef issues and now I feel like I can do everything with this one grill. Assembly: First of all, the Searwood comes in one of the most well thought out package designs that I have ever seen. Assembly is very easy with the way the packaging is designed. I put the grill together easily by myself even though Weber recommends some help. Searing: The first couple of cooks were basic 1/4 lb burgers. Using the regular cooking grate and cooking to temperature at 350F, the burgers came out great with even a little searing. Using the searing grate, they seared even better when using the manual 10 setting (around 600F) to sear and finishing at a more regular temperature of 350F. Big learning was that I still didn't want to take too long with the lid open because temperature can be lost. But at the manual 10 setting, I could still get 300-350F in the grill with a searing hot grate with the lid open. Steaks: So, for me, the true test for searing is steaks. I made T-bones twice trying some different conditions but essentially using the searing grate with the manual 10 setting varying how open I left the grill. I'm very happy with the searing and the flavor that it added to the steaks. Flattop: Grilled some veges a couple of different ways and I liked using temperature control at 325-425F and keeping the lid closed as much as possible. For smash burgers, I again used the manual 10 setting to get the flattop searing hot at 600F. They were probably over-cooked but we still liked them a lot. Smoking: I have not completely tested low and slow cooking briskets, butts, and ribs yet but I feel pretty good that it will be fine. The temperature control is great and everything comes out much smokier than the Camp Chef. I cooked a 3 lb meatloaf for 1 1/2 hours at 350F and it was the smokiest I have ever made on any grill with a nice 1/4 inch smoke ring. You can see the smoke and taste it so much more in all conditions compared to the Camp Chef. Wok: Using a wok inside is hot and really messy. Using the wok on the grill may not be quite as hot as some other methods but hotter than my stove and no mess. Using the Weber Crafted Wok, I made pulled pork stir fry and it was great. A hot wok makes a difference and again that can be obtained with the manual 10 setting (600F). Again, it helps to keep the lid closed as much as possible to keep the temperature high. Pizza: I have a Solo Pizza Pi Oven that makes great pizza. I tried pizza on the Searwood because I could get a higher temperature with the manual settings and using the flattop instead of a pizza stone (though you can get a stone as part of Weber Crafted). I start with the Pi Oven at around 750F on the stone and the Searwood flattop was of course 600F on the manual 10 setting. At 5 minutes, the Searwood was very close the the Pi pizza. At 7 minutes, the Searwood pizza was crispier, maybe a little burnt to some. Bottom line, the Searwood has to be one of the top pellet grills available. The manual pellet feed and high temperatures achieved set it apart. I would highly recommend the Searwood.

What a great grill! It's our first smoker and it has been such a fun experience and it smokes perfect. We just did a 18 lb brisket and it turned out fantastic. You can go low and slow or turn up the heat and sear your steaks. This grill is versatile. We also purchased the griddle and made smash burgers recently, they turned out great. We couldn't be happier with our purchase of this grill.