This is perfectly acceptable, and you cannot expect any better with a live charcoal fire. This will not negatively affect your cook and is certainly above average stability for a charcoal smoker and grill. Place one or two firelighters in the purpose-made slot in the charcoal grate above the ash bin and light it. Simply turn the dial to maximum, and the digital onboard fan will ensure you get searing temperatures in the cook chamber. It will go as far as pushing flames into the cooking chamber. But it’s not just hot in one area like a pellet cooker would be; we are talking searing across the whole surface, even temperatures all over every time!

Make sure the ash bin door and hopper lid are closed and latched. They have kill switches on them, so if opened, the fan stops. This is a safety feature and helps prevent temperatures from running away. The Masterbuilt Gravity Series 800 is a mid-sized charcoal grill that has a cooking area of 800 square inches. It is made with heavy-duty stainless steel and has a porcelain-coated cast-iron cooking grate. The grill also features a built-in temperature gauge and adjustable air dampers for precise temperature control. The optimal searing temperatures for burgers, steaks, chops, and the like, are between 450 °F to 500 °F, so this grill has performance to spare.

Unmatched Versatility: From slow-smoked ribs to seared steaks, this smoker-grill offers the ultimate versatility, allowing you to experiment with various cooking techniques and flavors. All in all, putting the Masterbuilt 1050 together took me about 2.5 hours! Admittedly, I was alone, and perhaps some help would have sped this up, but also, not all went swimmingly. Our longest burning briquette is the heat bead, these have lots of stamina but can be hard to light, so we recommend you add some charcoal to them. Will the Masterbuilt Gravity Series give me a good smoke profile? The one aggravation that I had with this cooker is the hopper base tray, the tray that holds up all the charcoal. All models come equipped with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; this enables you to link them to your smartphone and monitor your cooks remotely. Each model of gravity series comes with an internal thermostat in the cooker to monitor the temperatures along with a meat probe for one piece of meat; you can expand your cooker with up to 4 meat probes total.

This is annoying if you want to do a reverse sear where you will initially aim for say 110°F, and then you want to increase the heat and aim for 135°F. The side tray looks like it is riveted on. That is a little concerning – as, if you pulled very hard, it might break off. I’d say there are about the same amount of assembly steps with this model as there are with any large gas barbecue with a side burner. However, the vast of majority of the steps, including the electrical parts, are easy to carry out, except for one – fitting a single fascia panel on the lower part of the hopper. Be patient with this particular step because it involves some twisting and bending – and a lot of swearing.After almost finishing the build, I found that the guides for the air intake slides were out of alignment or that the slides would simply not go in. To fix this, I had to slightly disassemble things, do some minor filing, and re-assemble. A pain, to be sure! Temperature range capability– Most pellet smokers can’t get close to 700°F so this grill has an advantage when it comes to searing.