Camp Chef Woodwind Pro 24-Inch Pellet Grill - PG24WWSB

First time buying a Pellet Smoker and I am beyond impressed! I was on the fence about pellet smokers due to the smoke issue. But this solves that equation. First cook I threw on some St Louis Style Ribs at 225 and pecan wood chunks and came out delicious! The smoke flavor is just right, not bitter or pungent like I was getting on my charcoal Weber. The smoke box took a little while to figure out, just ensure you open the valve during start up and it blasts the wood chunks. Def felt like it adds something extra to the flavor. Good product!

I just got my Woodwing Pro 24 w/the Sidekick a couple weeks ago and wanted to wait until I'd tested it out to give a review. WOW! This thing is all I hoped for an more. It's simple to use and so far everything I've cooked - whole chickens, a whole brisket, and steaks - came out fantastic. The Sidekick attachment is a game changer - having the great smoke flavor from the pellet grill AND being able to reverse sear a steak is amazing.

What a great smoker, the only issue I have was the front shelf I ordered will not fit the Woodwind Pro , the smoke box and butterfly handle are in the way. The controls are easy to adjust as well as the iphone app. I have done a brisket which was fantastic as well as some smoked trout. Looking forward to trying the cold smoke feature next.

This is a great leap in pellet smoker technology. The flavor you can get out of this smoker is incredible, but there are some things that could be better. 1) The packaging needs to be better. The boxes inside the grill were loose and caused dings all over the smoker. I emailed camp chef and they're very slow to respond. It's hard to get pictures of the marks, but in person you can clearly see that it's beaten up. 2) There's not enough info on lighting the wood chunks. They make it sound like you put it in for a few minutes and you're all set. I've had some chunks take 20-30 minutes to get smoking consistently. This is a process that you're going to have to learn and I think it depends on the wood. Sometimes I'll help them get pre-started with a torch. Camp Chef needs to give more guidance on starting the chunks and getting them smoking just right. Once you get them going, the rest is a breeze (which you can't say for an offset). 3) Cold smoking is not fun. It's basically a fan with 5 levels and your wood chunks. Plan on a lot of experimentation. You'll be sitting there watching the smoker the entire time. I suggest doing it only when it's below 55 degrees outside. Even at 57 degrees, I struggled. With the fan on 1, it was hard to stay below 90 degrees. If the chunks were lit any less, there was no smoke. Also, I don't think the thermometer was designed to be very accurate at this level because it would jump at random in between a 10 degree variance every other second.

Completed 3 cooks and so far has outperformed my original Woodwind 24. Controller is buggy with less control and probe temps jump all around. A little heavier stainless would have been nice as well as the hopper bounces around on the flimsy stainless body on the left side.

Bought the Woodwind Pro 24 about a week ago. The assembly was easy with the instructions. All the hardware is bagged individually by assembly numbers. First time use was some baby back ribs and a Boston butt for pulled pork. Both came out tender with a great flavor.

1 user found this review helpful

This is my third camp chef grill ( gave the other two to my kids for housewarming gifts so I could buy the latest new one!). This is by far the best. I have used both smokers and propane. The full propane actually got the grill up to 900 degrees although it was 96 outside! I really like this grill and have. Recommended it to several friends. There are a few negatives. It is really really heavy. It got dumped outside my garage and it took me almost an hour to get it inside (had to unpack and move in pieces. My son helped me get the legs on and then I moved it through the house to the back deck. The instructions are not as good as I expected. For example they do not tell you to remove some screws from grill before assembling the gas burners. The operating instructions don't clearly explain how to use the combined unit. For example when using the propane, you can turn on the electronic control, rotate the knob and then you can see the grill temp. Found that by accident. My only other complaint is the knobs. I would have preferred a more precise setting to properly set multiple knobs to the same setting. Small gripes. Overall I gave it the full five stars!

my wife and i could not agree on a new grill after our old one died. she wisely reminded me that we do a ton of gotta make it fast for the kids meals and quick summer dinners. my inner wanna be chef side really wanted to experiment with a smoker and have the opportunity to really bring our grilling up a notch and have the chance to make awesome meals when we have time. i was fantasizing about a all in one and all the sudden the Apex came on the market. I am a sucker for new tech and product launches but i have been bitten many times before by jumping in fast ( thanks Black Diamond) that said this was just to appealing and problem solving to pass it up. This grill is heavy and mostly well built although i question the the side burner attachment method and long term . that said i was able to get it all together myself and up and running in a few hours. a helper would have been handy. It's a real Looker! fantastic on the patio. this is my first smoker so many hours of trials and learning are just beginning . that said the build was realitively painless. the set up physically and digitally went great . and our first BIG dinner meal was a huge success. the combo of the gas and the smoker was well used and the food came out exceedingly well. we smoked about 20 lbs of brined chicken drums and thighs while simultaneously flat grilling some quick burgers and dogs for the kids. the heat control and smoke options were amazingly easy on both the grill and app. even my ex restaurant chef friend was impressed. cant wait to do more and if all keeps up as seamless as it started there wont be enough stars for us to rate this as.

2 users found this review helpful

I wanted to wait until I had more than a few hours of live smoking on the APEX to give it a fair and honest assessment. In short I absolutely love this machine, in long I absolutely love this machine. I have about 100 hours I'm guessing on it in 1 short week. I've smoked Shoulders, Butts, Burgers, Hot Dogs, Picanha, Chicken Wings, and some Pork Chops. I smoke a ton of Pork Butts so this was my biggest comparison to all my hours on the DLX and Woodwinds. The butts had noticeably more color and flavor. I was really impressed with how even the chamber is also. I would always have to rotate butts in my Woodwind to make sure they smoked evenly but this thing smokes evenly. It operates much quieter and uses less pellets. Unboxing this thing and assembling it you will notice right away that this thing is a tank. You're gonna need at least 1 other person to help you assemble it. It's very well built. I also like that they have moved the ash dump pullout to the front, so you don't have to reach under the Sidekick to pull it out. Makes the access just so much easier. I did also get the gas kid. The sidekick is very sturdy and the gas option is awesome. Heats up very quick if you wanna grill or sear a ton of stuff very quickly. The 30lb Hopper is also impressive, you have no reason now to ever run out of pellets between the Pellet sensor and just being able to hold so many more pellets. To end I'll just say I'm impressed with the quality of the build and how well this Smoker has worked for me so far. Looking forward to the future and a few more Apex for my Patio I'm sure. Smoke On......

1 user found this review helpful

I've had the APEX 36 with gas kit for a little over a week. I have approx 15 hours of usage on it. I've had CC Pellet grills for years so I'm very familiar with them. The APEX is a very well built, extremely well insulated chamber for smoke retention and exhibits a more even cook temperature all across the grates vs edge/hopper side running a bit warmer in previous smokers. I did the "biscuit test" on the APEX (using pellets) the first day I got it. 100% even cooking on all of the biscuits. It does a great job of maintaining the temp you want along with giving you the smoke profile you are after. The way they re-designed the inside of the grill with the airflow is evident after a few long smokes (chuck roast & ribs). Seems that the smoke stays in the chamber longer and instead of just coming up from the firebox and out. The cold smoke (Fan only) mode is a nice feature. It will be used a lot when temps cool off this fall for cold smoking cheese. The gas portion of the APEX is equally impressive. Can hit 600° + in approx 5 mins. I've done a "clean" on the APEX since I've had it and the one piece drip tray with the heat deflector welded to it makes cleaning even easier than previous CC Smokers (which was pretty easy to begin with). The accessibility of the drip tray (it slides out from the front of the APEX) is 10/10. No longer do you need to remove all the grates to access the tray. The APEX is HEAVY. 400 lbs with the sidekick, the gas kit and 30 lbs of pellets in the hopper yet you can move it with one hand. The casters (all 4 wheels) are very heavy duty.

3 users found this review helpful