For the price, this grill delivers about what you should honestly expect and lives up to the members mark branding. Lower cost, almost as good, alternative to much pricier products. While not a factor in my assessment of this grill or the review rating, I will mention the shipping first as this would have been a large factor in my decision to purchase and was not communicated clearly. The promised delivery date will be wildly inaccurate. The website claims this item ships via "premium shipping". There is no such thing as premium shipping. This item ships via freight which means a third party picks up the item, delivers the item to a freight terminal, which in turn sends the item to the closest freight terminal to you, at which point a third party shipper will pick up the item and contact you to schedule a delivery (my options were M-F). You will need to be present for this delivery and the delivery window quoted in my case was 8am-8pm. All of this means, I did not receive the grill in the quoted 3 days. It took eight days, I had to schedule the delivery, and then plan to be home for a twelve-hour window. Also, while I'm experienced with backyard grilling in many forms, this is my first pellet grill. While many of the things I'll point out are almost certainly design flaws and production quality issues, I don't have another pellet grill to compare this to so some of these issues may well be issues among pellet grills in general. I do however have a pellet stove, so the concept is not entirely new to me. To the grill! I have to say this grill was impressively packaged, the entire grill was packed neatly inside of a box with plenty of padding. Assembly took me about an hour and was simple and straightforward. The parts are well packaged, the instructions detailed, and everything seemed to fit well. I would suggest having two people to put it together. I put it together myself without too much trouble but having a second person to hold the legs would have been very helpful. I had to very carefully hold each leg with one hand while inserting a screw and attaching a nut with the other. Upon final inspection, this grill is heavy and feels sturdy. The vent cover that screws into the smoke stack was bent, but I assume this to be a normal occurrence as it's fairly flimsy and has zero impact on the function of the grill so I pressed on. The folding shelf in the front was a bit warped, placing hand pressure on it flattened it out but lifting my hand caused the tray surface to bounce upward to its original rounded shape. This creates a bit of a trampoline/catapult effect, place three bottles of BBQ sauce on the shelf and they sit flat, lift one up and the other two go flying, so the shelf is now mostly decorative...again...not particularly important for the grilling and smoking I hoped to accomplish so I pressed on. Once I had it together, I followed the startup instructions and the fun began. When lighting this grill, you simply turn the knob to "smoke" and the ignition begins to heat up while the auger begins pushing pellets into the burn pot. Understanding this process is critical. The grill is turned on, the ignition heats up, pellets are pushed into the burn pot....this is where a fire will hopefully begin to burn and the temperature of the grill will start to climb. This grill is a bit quirky with the startup, you must watch very carefully, as two out of three times the pellets do not light. The ignition runs for ~5 minutes according to the manual. However, the auger will continue to push pellets into the burn pot whether the fire is lit or not. In my experience, if you're watching carefully and you see the ignition has stopped prematurely, you can simply turn the grill off and on again to start the ignition. If not, then the pot will have filled with pellets. You DO NOT want to light a burn pot full of pellets as this will cause a large fire and the temperature of your grill will increase beyond the intended range, risking a fire into the auger and hopper as well as possibly damaging parts of the grill. Unfortunately, if your grill doesn't light, you'll need to turn it off, remove the warming rack, remove the grates, remove the grease pan, remove the heat baffle, and then manually remove all of the pellets from the burn pot, clean any charred pellets or ashes out, and then install the heat baffle, and then the grease pan, and then the grates, and then the warming rack. This can make lighting the grill a very time consuming and unpleasant process if you're not successful on the first try. Similarly, once the grill is lit, if the fire goes out, you'll have to remove the food, let the grill cool, remove all of the above parts, clean out the pot again, and then proceed with the ignition process. This happened to me once while smoking a rather large boston butt. About eleven hours into the smoking, despite a nearly full hopper, the fire simply went out. It's worth noting that this could have been a bigger problem had I not been closely watching the smoker. I noticed the temperature drop about five degrees and then another five and then another five. Had I not been paying attention this auger would have continued to push pellets. During my first use I decided to grill a pair of ribeye steaks. The steaks were phenomenal. This grill can produce some amazing food when it's working properly. It was during this first use that the grease tray warped in the middle. Normally grease would flow right to left down into a grease spout and out to the grease bucket. Due to the rounding in the middle of the tray, grease now flows left and right causing some grease to drip into the bottom of the grill instead of out as intended. I wouldn't have noticed this issue were it not for a small pool of grease on my deck. In addition to this grease tray warping, it turns out the body of the grill was not completely sealed, if grease is dripping out then certainly cold air is flowing in. Speaking of air, the fan, while generating a fair amount of noise doesn't seem to blow enough air. Multiple times smoke and potentially a fire has managed to float back through the auger and out the hopper. Both times I noticed the issue in time and had to do the whole shut off and empty the inside of the grill process. This issue seems to occur most often when going from a higher temp to a lower one. You almost need to shut off the grill in order to go from grilling to smoking. Last, a minor issue with the hopper, the instructions state that the hopper should be emptied during periods of non-use or in high humidity environments, but there's a safety grate across the top which prevents you emptying the hopper short of turning the grill upside down. TLDR: Buy a slightly better grill for a few hundred more or stick with propane. The body of the grill was not airtight, the ignition sequence frequently fails, metal parts have warped causing other issues, and the pellets inside the hopper are virtually inaccessible.

Assembly was easy enough. My wife and I managed to complete it in about 45 minutes without a fight! Regarding the pellet screen, after assembly I found it difficult to remove pellets. I partially removed the hopper assembly and removed the screen. I substituted pop rivets for the screws before replacing the screen so that it rests on the rivet stems and I can get to the pellets with a scoop or a shop vac. We've enjoyed great ribs, pork tenderloin and poultry. I'd recommend this as a economical substitute to higher priced smokers.

I love to cook outdoors. I have a BBQ and a smoker. I've been looking and investigating pellet gills for quite some time. The price always scared me away, most are grossly overpriced. $450 - $700. I saw this one 2 weeks ago at Sams only in boxes, none on display for $300. I did some research and found out it is made by Embers Grills. Everything looked fine and I bought one yesterday. I assembled it last night. I was really impressed by the quality and gauge of the metals used in this grill. There was not one component I thought was flimsy or too thin. The drip pan is substantial and even has reinforcement. Today I bought some pellets and a seasoned tri tip steak I have purchased from a local store many times. I cured the grill when I got home from work and later cooked the tri tip.225 deg for ~ 1 hr 45 min. YUM! I've BBQ'd this item many times before and it was completely different coming from the pellet grill. Grill temperatures were very stable after reaching set temps or when changing temps. It also has 4 different smoke settings. The most impressive engineering of this grill was how they got it all to fit into the tub when disassembled. It is packed so interlockingly (?) that I had to really work to get the first part out.. Highly impressed with my first use and hope it lasts.

The grill is built well. However, the temperature control panel tends to keep me on my feet. I will set the temp to 275 for instance, and the grill always cooks 25 degrees hotter at (300). If I don't monitor the grill often I will occasionally find that the hot rod that heats the pellets has turned off during my cook. Pellets still feeding into the fire box and overflowing. I then have to remove all the food, clean out the pellets and re-start the grill. NO BUENO! Now the good news! Once I showed Trail Embers (the grill manufacturer) my receipt of purchase they have been helpful with sending replacement parts and have shown me good customer service. I have left them messages when all representatives were busy and they returned my calls.

Bought last week as my Sams only had the one left at reduced price. Easily assembled and tight, great fit and pleased with the construction. I smiled squirrel and chicken wings and the temps were accurate and the system worked perfect. Going to smoke a brisket tomorrow. I have friends with More expensive pellet smokers but I think I made a great decision. Follow the instructions, heat it up slow and you will be happy.

I bought this about a month ago and have used it 4 times. I Read the instructions but initially had trouble but it was due to a faulty outlet. After reading the trouble shooting page, I got it to work. I have smoked ribs, a whole chicken, pork chops and sausage and I can literally set it and forget it. The food turned out perfect. The ribs were so good my folks were biting their fingers from eating so fast. I don't know why I didn't buy a pellet grill sooner. If you have problems read the troubleshooting page. I'm cooking ribs again this weekend. Whatever you do. Do not let it run out of pellets during a smoking session. That is a real pain inthe but. Check the hopper and fill each time you use it.

I bought this for my husbands birthday 3/29 and he loves it. He has used it every night for the last week. Love it!

this is a great smoker! I've used it several times now and am still learning, but has done a great job on sausage, ribs, wings and burgers!

My husband, two brothers, and my husband's friend purchase one. They are all pleased with their smoker!

Bought for Fathers Day - haven't stopped using it. Easy to clean. Heavy duty! We added a Bluetooth thermometer.