Camp Chef PGVXXLC Wi-Fi Pellet Smoker, Black

So I've owned this thing for about 6 months now--wanted to wait to review it until I put it through it's paces. And I've really given it a work out over the last few months. Brisket, Ribs, Pork butt, Homemade Bologna, Sausage, Homemade Hot Dogs, Chicken, Homemade lunch meat (Chicken, Turkey, Roast Beef), Turkey, Homemade bacon and Summer Sausage. This thing can really do it all. One of my main reasons for buying it was it's ability to do cold smoke--ironically the one thing I haven't got around too yet. But it has worked well for everything I've done so far. It has a lot of room and is easy to clean. I recently had a problem with it misbehaving and support was responsive and helped me resolve the issue. My only complaints are:A. I wish it was a bit taller. It comes with seven racks but the only way you'll be cooking on all seven is if your doing something pretty small. Baby backs are too tall to fit and spare ribs will fit but if you wrap in aluminum foil just that extra layer will make it too tall. Had to make all of my sausages just a bit shorter than I really wanted. CAMP CHEF: add another 6 inches to the height--then you can really cook a bunch of ribs and take advantage of the hooks.B. The cover over the fire pot is a PIA to pull in and out. When you clean it you slide out this small flat steel piece that is connected to a rod. This lets the ash from the firepot empty into the attached pan. The problem is that the fit is so tight it's difficult to both pull out and put back in. There needs to be some sort of rail and stop system to make this easier.C. I wish it had 2 more ports for temp probes.None of these things are show stoppers just things that I wish were a bit better. Also I advise having a small dedicated shop vac for clean up. I can usually complete a clean up after a smoke in about 15 minutes. My Weber SmokeFire (which I also love) takes much longer to clean up and has seen much less action since I added this smoker to the line up.I can't say whether the smoke box and would chunks (necessary for cold smokes) have added anything to the smoke flavor. I probably would have to do side by side comparison to see if there is any difference.Assembly is a little fiddley but me and my wife assembled it in about 90 minutes and I do not consider myself very handy. The smoke box is the trickiest part and getting the screws to face the right direction so it slides in and out easily.The software is great and works really well.After hundreds of hours of smoking I can confidently say this is a really great smoker in it's price category. I would not hesitate to buy it again.

The media could not be loaded. I got this smoker to replace an electric smoker with no prior experience with pellet smokers. It took about 2.5 hours to put it together myself. The smoke box where you can add charcoal or wood chunks is an absolute game changer and the only reason I chose this smoker over numerous other well known competitors. I can say this smoker definitely delivers on smoky flavor and I wouldn’t trust a normal pellet smoker to put off enough smoke for my tastes. I’ve used it about a dozen times and the app makes cooking a breeze. The space is absolutely enormous, and cleaning is a breeze with the ash dump. As recommended, I do vacuum out the bottom every 40 hours or so (sometimes more). Even vacuuming out the bottom is a breeze as there aren’t many parts below the drip tray.5/5 for smokers, simply cause of the app plus the smoke box. I wouldn’t look anywhere else if you enjoy a deep smoky flavor.

Great features like the smoke box, and the pot cleanout are favorites for me. I do 5 pound or 10 pound sausage batches and I had no problem hanging 10 pounds of ring bologna, it was almost maxed out with that for vertical hanging, so I will probably not try a batch over 10lbs.. unless I decide to use racks. The app is not working good for me it locks up and and I have to re-start it all the time, when it works its a great feature to change the temp up, or down, other than temp control, the app is lacking fun features, and I hope an update will fix my problems one day. It would be nice if it had more insulation but that comes with a higher price point, I thought I'd mention it as may be pellet costly if you want to use this smoker in colder weather. The display is "OK", when I watched videos for the Windwood Pro pellet grill the controller display is much nicer, I'm not sure why the XXL got a downgrade there but the controller works great. I did one cook in very windy weather and it did not flame out. The temp holds fairly steady with little temp swing which is common for a PID type controller. You can really kick up the smoke with the smoke box which is awesome!

On the burn in the smoker thermometer, RTD, would not read over 149. The smoker felt super hot. Went and got my Thermoworks Smoke and put it in the smoker and it almost immediately hit 500 degrees and I noticed under the drip tray the fire was out of control. I started the shutdown, which when you have an out-of-control fire, waiting 20 minutes for the shutdown was dangerous.Since this was a weekend, there was no support. I troubleshot it and found it may be the RTD so to be proactive I ordered it off their website and sent them an email to have them expedite. Got the new RTD this week on 12/22/2023. Used their YouTube video to replace it. Fired it back up and the same thing. Out-of-control fire within 20 minutes. This time I started shutdown after it reached 400, again using my Thermoworks smoke to watch temp.I'm deeply disappointed. This was for some big cooks for Christmas and New Year's for my Grandson's 1 year bday party. All running and trying to figure out a plan B.I'm guessing my problem now is going to require a new controller. According to the website they are out of stock. I wonder why. So I would like to return this product. I don't want this $900 problem.