Masterbuilt Gravity Series 560 Digital Charcoal Grill + Smoker - MB20040220

This was the first smoker I've ever bought. I wanted to Buy a smoker that would be efficient and easy to use after I got my smoker. I found that it was not only easy to use. It produced great tasting food so if you're interested in buying a very simple smoker that does an excellent job on all kinds of meats, I would buy this smoker

I got this smoker as a Christmas present almost 2 years ago. I absolutely love this unit. From cooking breakfast on the griddle to smoking meats for hours, this smoker has never let me down. It is very easy to use, and the functions and design was well thought out. Everyone who comes over and sees it falls in love with it and wants to get their own! Best one I have ever owned and I plan to use it for years to come!

I'll preface this review by saying the most important part for you to read if you are considering a Gravity Series grill is the section below on durability and safety. BACKGROUND: I honestly thought this grill had it all. The ability to control a cook like a pellet grill while utilizing lump charcoal was VERY appealing. I previously owned a ceramic grill (the green kind) for 7+ years and reached a point where I was looking for something more convenient, yet provided the flexibility to cook anything from a smoked brisket to a steak seared at 700 degrees. The Masterbuilt Gravity 900 Series checked those boxes, so in March 2024 I decided to pick one up. ASSEMBLY AND PROTECTION: Putting the grill together required some patience but I remember thinking it looked and felt rock solid once assembled. My first accessory purchase to protect the grill from the elements (despite being located on our east-facing back porch - our house protected it from the majority of the elements) was a Masterbuilt cover specifically made to protect this model. The cover seemed to do a good job, but I have a feeling it would fail in the very near future. I've posted a photo that shows how quickly the cover has faded even though the grill only gets between 4-5 hours of sunlight on the longest summer days in Indiana. THE APP: One of the additional features that was very appealing when considering this grill was the ability to control cooks from my phone. Connecting the grill to my wifi network, and subsequently my phone, was a disaster. After numerous failed attempts to connect to my mesh Wi-Fi system, I decided to create a guest network that only utilized a 2.4 GHz wifi spectrum to see if that would help with connectivity. FINALLY! I'm not sure what the initial issue was since my primary network covers both the 5.0 GHz and 2.4 GHz spectrums but for whatever reason the guest network did the trick. The app informed me that a firmware update was available, so I went ahead and updated to the latest version. My first time using the app for a cook was excellent. I smoked a spatchcock chicken on a colder Indiana day in mid/late March when the temperatures hovered around 45-50 degrees and the app worked flawlessly. I did not use the included temperature probe for this cook. Instead, I used a Meater+ thermometer, which showed the cooking chamber temperature held steady despite a fairly breezy Indiana day. I did use the included temperature probe on the following cook and it worked great as well. However, this was the only successful experience I had with the app. The next time I tried using the app for a cook it would not connect to the grill. I followed the recommended connection procedures as detailed in the instructions and after numerous failed attempts I decided to remove the grill from within the app and go through the pairing procedure again (power off the grill, power on the grill, hit the connect button on the grill, and add the grill within the app). After three to four more cooks that required me to go through the same process, I decided to reach out to customer support for assistance troubleshooting. That process required submitting a contact request online and then waiting for a representative to call me back (which was inconvenient because the first two times I received a call was during work hours when I was not at home). I finally connected with a support representative who was extremely friendly and walked me through many of the procedures I already attempted. Our call lasted an hour - an hour and a half and included all of the painstakingly simple tasks I had already performed but I just wanted to get this thing working correctly. After many failed attempts, I decided I would simply go through the removal and re-pairing procedure for all cooks going forward or wouldn't use the app at all. Not a huge deal but certainly an inconvenience because the app usage was appealing. As an aside, my call with customer support also served as an opportunity to share that the grill's mechanical thermometer on the hood never read correctly. I believe it was never calibrated because no matter how hot my cook was (I had tried a few cooks that required searing at 650 degrees - 700 degrees) the thermometer never read above "grill." Not a big deal because my version of the mechanical thermometer did not display temperature readings making it essentially useless. Plus, I always used the digital gauge and/or Meater+ probe for readings. I believe Masterbuilt has upgraded this gauge to now show actual temperatures. DURABILITY AND SAFETY: This is where things get interesting… As mentioned above, I purchased this grill from Costco on March 17, 2024. The grill was protected from the elements via a Masterbuilt cover made specifically for this grill as well as being shielded by our home. My best guess on the total number of cooks up until my very last cook (August 31, 2024) is somewhere between 30-40 times. The vast majority of these were 8-14 hour smokes at 200-300 degrees always using Jealous Devil Lump Charcoal and chunks of preferred cuts (post oak, cherry, apple, etc.) at 4 inch increments within the hopper for specific meats. I probably reached 600-700 degrees a total of 5-7 times because I still prefer to sear on my classic Weber grill I've owned for over two decades. I may not grill as often as others but I do enjoy it and I am meticulous about keeping things clean. The cooking chamber was always cleaned following a cook and the hopper was emptied/vacuumed before each new cook. I also set custom reminders for each cook to ensure both the Heat Intake and Air Intake slides were but back in place to protect the grill. For my very last cook on August 31, 2024, I smoked two whole chickens because we were hosting 8-10 guests at our home that evening. The cook was great (as usual) and the chickens turned out perfect. I spent the next morning cleaning out the hopper because I was planning to use the grill again the evening of September 1, 2024. When I opened the door to the ash bin I was immediately hit with a strong sulfur-like smell, which threw me for a loop because the cooking chamber was cleaned following the cook the day before. I then opened the hopper lid and noticed the chamber was coated with a white/yellow layer of soot I hadn't noticed before. I proceeded to dump all of the remaining bits and pieces from the hopper chamber and took another look inside. WHAT I FOUND SHOCKED ME!!! Upon further inspection, I noticed that all of the steel walls (I believe they're steel) towards the bottom of the chamber had been compromised. I gently used a prodding tool to confirm my limited field of view from above and noticed that each time I touched an area that appeared to have a hole it caused a powdery yellow substance to fall to the ash bin below. As it turns out, this powder was causing the sulfur stench and it was STRONG! I then took my phone out and started inspecting the hopper more thoroughly and couldn't believe what I was seeing. How in the world could a grill less than 6 months look so terrible?!?! Then the questions about safety/concerns started racing through my head: - WHAT IF THE COALS HAD BURNED THROUGH THIS LAYER AND SOMEHOW SPILLED OVER TO MY DECK? - WHAT IS THIS SUBSTANCE? IS IT TOXIC? - HOW LONG HAVE THESE HOLES EXISTED? - WAS MY FAMILY CONSUMING FOOD TAINTED BY THIS SUBSTANCE? The last question is the most concerning because there's no doubt that any food cooked on the grill would have been contaminated. Again, this is a fine powder substance that would have been transferred from the hopper to the cooking chamber via the fan operation. I sent a note to Masterbuilt a few days ago demanding some answers. I am yet to hear from them but my recommendation to anyone considering these grills is this: STAY AWAY!!! This is a dangerous product (and I'm saying that prior to learning what the powder substance my family and I have been consuming).

5 users found this review helpful

I had my Masterbuilt 1050 for about two years and it is by far the best grill/smoker I have ever owned. I've had several Weber charcoal grills and a Louisiana pellet grill and replaced both of them for the Masterbuilt 1050. The MB 1050 gives me the best of two grill/smoker into one. If anyone has not experienced cooking on a MB they are missing out on the best testing food from a grill/smoker that is on the market today.

When I first bought my MB 560, I tried starting it with other fire starters thinking it wouldn't matter. A fire starter is a fire starter is a fire starter. After 3 smoking sessions, bought the MB fire starters and will never go back.

I bought this more than 1,year ago and they still work like a charm

I have had this grill/ smoker for 4 months and it has not disappointed me. The only down side is the poor quality power chord that I have had to replace.

The best, versatile, and easiest smoker to use. I love it. I can start smoking with all confidence; knowing, I can leave it to do all the work.

This might be the best smoker/grill ever. From day one it has been incredible to use. I have grilled burgers and steaks and as good as that is, the thing I use it the most for...and love the most about it.....is the smoker. I have smoked turkeys and chickens and made my own recipe with a pork roast that I stuffed with cream cheese, broccoli rabe and tomatoes. Smoking it was the perfect way to do it and it tasted delicious. It is now one of my favorite meals. I love using this smoker to experiment with my cooking and because of the technology involved, with the temperature monitor and the blue tooth, everything i have done has come out perfect every time. The Gravity Series 800 Smoker is easy to use, especially if you are a beginner. You will always cook like a pro with it! I love this smoker! My only complaint is that I don't use it enough!

After some pretty extensive research I decided on the masterbut 800 + griddle. At the time, there was nothing else like it on the market and it ticked my two main boxes. 1. Charcoal as a fuel. 2. No more single use "appliances". I have 50+ pork butts, hundreds of racks of ribs, and u countable amounts of burgers, dogs, chicken etc. Ive done tri-tips, brisket, whole beef shanks, pies, poppers, whole chickens, and a few spatchcocked turkeys. There are only three things I would change about this grill and they are so minimal that (in my opinion) the average user/owner would probably not even notice. The first is the quality of the manifold. I expected it to wear out die to being used several times a week for the last three years, but it has almost desintegrated. It is not that expensive to replace, but making it from stainless steel to begin with would have been optimal. I will need to replace it before next spring. The second is the spring loaded switches on each of the doors. They are easy enough and cheap enough to replace when needed, but they could probably be a bit less vulnerable to the heat. (I suspect this makes the spring fail after a while, similar to a hot spring that collapsed when a short is detected). Over time, they do not register being depressed, which can impact the automatic fan control. The last is the insulation. I live in the northeast and i fabricated my own insulation blanket so i could smoke year round. Of masterbut made a lot to insulated the smoker i would buy it immediately. Granted, this is a minimal concern since not many folks are looking at 14-16 hr cooks in the dead of a Massachusetts winter. Overall this is a 4.8/5 purchase and i regret nothing about my decision. I dont use the griddle very often, but the times I have used it, it has not let me down, and there is not a single spot of rust on the cast-iron, which I find extremely impressive. At this price point, there is not much out there that can do what this unit does.