Like pellet grills, a fan helps maintain the desired cooking temperature. On the 560, it blows air upward, into the bottom of the charcoal hopper to keep the heat going and circulate it into the main cooking area. If you have the temperature set high enough for searing, you’ll see flames too. There are switches on both the hopper lid and the side door, both of which stop the fan while you’re loading or performing maintenance. It’s a safety feature, but it also means that you won’t get blasted with smoke, embers or ash when you’re trying to keep the grill going. There’s one on the main grill lid too, and while that one doesn’t stop the fan entirely, it does alert the controller that you have the 560 open. There have been some reports of issues with these switches failing, which means the grill always thinks one of the three doors is open and the fan doesn’t operate normally, making it unusable. In over a dozen cooks, I haven’t experienced this, and the problem doesn’t appear to be widespread based on user reviews. Still, it’s worth noting as you consider buying a 560. 

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On the left side of the 560, there’s a shelf with the grill controls. Masterbuilt has simplified the things here, giving you much less to scroll through than a Traeger or Weber pellet grill. Instead of having to navigate through a menu with a rotating knob, each item has a dedicated button. There’s a separate one for grill temperature, probe temperature, timer and phone pairing. With the exception of connecting to your phone, you select each option and then set the temp or time by rotating and pushing the dial. A bright blue display is your guide on the grill, or you can do all of this inside the Masterbuilt app. Lastly, the 560 accommodates up to four food probes at once. It only ships with one, but you can add more if you need them for $20 each. 

Inside Masterbuilt made some design choices to really help with cleanup. With a pellet model, you have to vacuum out dust and ash every few cooks to keep all of that debris off your food. And, of course, to keep the grill working efficiently and safely. With the 560, there is almost no ash or dust to fall to the bottom. The only thing you’ll have to clean is the grease collection pan. It’s a smaller bin that’s easy to remove, and it sits in a larger angled tray that also slides out for cleaning. Both of these are easily accessible from the back of the 560. As far as the charcoal goes, all of that falls into a metal bin at the bottom of the hopper. And from the side door, that container can be quickly removed, dumped and returned in a matter of seconds — even during a cook. 

The 560 is capable of temperatures from 150 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. That range gives you the versatility to tailor your cooks to your preferences. Prefer to smoke ribs at 185 for the first three hours? No problem. Need to keep something warm around 165? It can do that too. Masterbuilt says the 560 can reach 225 degrees in seven minutes and 700 degrees in 13. I found those figures to be mostly true, however, they don’t factor in the time it takes for the charcoal to fully ignite. And that can vary based on ambient conditions, the state of your charcoal and how quickly your fire starter ignites the hopper. 

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During a few cooks, I double checked temperatures with the Smoke X2 and found the 560 was within three to five degrees of what I had set most of the time. The range was higher right after the initial preheat cycle, but it leveled out after a few minutes. During reviews of Traeger and Weber pellet grills, I typically experienced a variance of around five to seven degrees between the built-in thermostat and an external thermometer.

Getting the charcoal lit takes some practice. If you’re using fresh charcoal, this won’t be a problem. But if what you have at the bottom of the hopper is leftover from a previous cook, it will take an extra few minutes to get things going. I found that Masterbuilt’s recommendation of a food-safe fire starter keeps frustration to a minimum. A paper towel works, but not nearly as well since it burns so quickly. It also helps to slide the grate at the bottom of the hopper back and forth to knock off any excess ash from those lowest briquettes. In the event the grill doesn’t fully light, it will beep and flash an error message on the display. You can simply reset the temperature and try again. Unfortunately, you don’t get the error in the app, so you’ll want to stay close to the grill until you’re sure the fire is going. Most of the time ignition took under five minutes.

Masterbuilt says you can use lump charcoal or briquettes in the 560. This gives you some variety in brands and types of wood that are available to cook with. In my experience, charcoal alone only produced a modest amount of smoke on the 560, but the company says you can add wood chunks or charcoal to the ash bin at the bottom of the hopper to boost it. As the embers from the burning charcoal fall, they cause any wood pieces or extra briquettes to burn slowly and produce more smoke. Masterbuilt also says you can mix wood chunks in the hopper with your charcoal, so long as you don’t add more than 1.5 pounds of it. During my tests, I got the best results with both: some wood in the hopper and sporadically adding some to the ash container. 

As promised, Weber added a feature that lets you really saturate your food with smoke at the beginning of the cook. It’s called SmokeBoost, and it sets the grill between 165 and 200 degrees for this initial period. The Weber Connect app provides some guidance for times based on the food you’re cooking, but if you really want to enhance the smoke flavor, this is now an option. To me, the SmokeFire grills already imparted a ton of smoke flavor, especially over longer cooks. But I can see the utility here in things like reverse-seared steaks and other things you might cook hot-and-fast, but still want that kiss of smoke flavor. If you’re worried about exact temperatures, Weber says this will vary based on ambient conditions. In my experience on days in the low 80s, SmokeBoost was 175 degrees.

“What we didn’t want to do was to make that temperature visibility a source of concern or drama,” he said. “If anything goes outside of those parameters, we have steps that are automatically taken to react to that.”

Right now, SmokeBoost is independent of the grill presets that give you guided cooking directions and estimated completion times. You run the feature for the recommended time and then you can select the preset for what you’re cooking. Scherzinger said Weber could incorporate SmokeBoost into one of the cook programs and have it activate automatically. “It’s not there today, but I’m drawn to that [idea],” he noted.

Following the recent software update, there was also a major firmware upgrade that went out last week. First, Weber improved the preheat times. Basically, SmokeFire grills reach their target temperature faster. That’s pretty impressive considering they were already on-par with other grills I’ve tested. This tweak should also remedy issues some owners were having with slow heating times. Plus, the new firmware also reduces fluctuations when you’re preheating or grilling. I haven’t clocked the SmokeFire since the updates rolled out, but I have completed three cooks on the grill since installing them. I can tell you the grill keeps a consistent temperature much better, even after I opened the lid for a quick peek or to flip some pork chops. 

Weber was careful to address the temperature fluctuation aspect. More specifically, how SmokeFire reacted to changes — like you opening the lid to inspect, sauce or flip. The company found that the grill was overcorrecting to those events, but that’s not the case anymore. 

“What we’re trying to do now is just soften that curve so that we’re not freaking out the operator of the grill when you’re just making a minor tweak,” Scherzinger explained. He went on to say that the grill will still let you know when things drop 10 degrees or more. Weber did this by adjusting the algorithms that control fan speed and the auger to smooth out how the grill adjusts to changes to temperatures both inside and outside the grill.

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And Weber isn’t done. Scherzinger said the company is continuing to work on the regular updates it promised. The challenges of remote working have slowed some aspects of the workflow down — particularly new cooking programs. Weber hasn’t been able to get its culinary and technical teams in the same room to sort out new additions there. But Scherzinger is clear they are coming, and you won’t have to wait long. 

“We were jamming out in the office a few months ago, and so [COVID-19] slowed us down a bit,” he explained. “But there is still a really aggressive stream of additional support or programs coming in.” 

Part of those new cook programs are presets that are based on time rather than a calculation between the grill temperature and the internal temperature of your food. For things like ribs, you can’t really stick a probe far enough away from a bone to get an accurate reading for the entire cook. You’ll still get guidance from the app — push notifications, etc. — but those will be driven by how long you’ve been on a particular step instead of how the food is progressing. 

“The next wave of cook programs will be released on June 15th,” Scherzinger said. Ribs should be in the update after that one, but the chief executive explained that Weber is “trying to launch a new chapter every couple of weeks over the summer.” You know, when people are using their grills the most. 

Having tested the updates myself, I can tell you they make a huge difference. From the handy and informative software tools to the background tech that runs the grill, Weber has taken its work-in-progress and made it a more complete product. I can’t stress enough how much easier SmokeFire is to use with detailed notifications and remote temperature controls. And if the company continues to improve, things should get even better. 

“The key for us is making sure that everyone gets that [ideal] experience every time they grill,” Scherzinger noted. “It’s not good enough to have 90 or 95 percent of cooks going well, so we’ve been trying to make sure everyone’s having that same great experience consistently.”

The SmokeFire grills run on Weber Connect, which is built on JuneOS — the same software that powers June’s smart ovens. It can monitor the grill and internal food temperatures to guide your cooks. Like the Smart Grilling Hub, Weber Connect will lead you through cooking a variety of meat and seafood, from prepping to final slicing, and every step in between. The app will tell you when to complete each step, estimate how long until the next one and offer video how-tos if you need a visual aid. 

You can also run Weber Connect in a more manual mode, with the target-temperature option. Here, you’re overseeing the process on your own without the step-by-step instructions. As you might expect, you can control everything on the grill itself — including setting and adjusting temperature, timers and more. However, if you want to employ the estimated-doneness times, you’ll need to select a meat or seafood preset and send it to the grill. 

Even though Weber Connect gives you a specific cooking temperature, picking a preset doesn’t send that info to the grill for you. You have to manually set it yourself before beginning the ignition process. This sounds like an inconvenience, but it’s not. No WiFi pellet grill will allow you to start it remotely, for safety reasons. Some grills, like Traeger’s, will send temperature info, but you still have to physically push the ignite button, so it’s not exactly a huge time saver.

When I reviewed the Smart Grilling Hub, I didn’t have any issues with the estimated cooking times. Almost always, the time frame the device provided once the grill recovered from me putting the meat on was accurate. There were fluctuations when I’d lift the lid to check, or if there was some other environmental trigger, but both short and long cooks were finished pretty close to the initial estimate. 

With the SmokeFire, that wasn’t always the case. Notifications to flip and remove quickly seared steaks were fine, but the time estimates on both of the smoking sessions that lasted eight hours or more were way off. Weber Connect said a brisket I was cooking still needed another two hours, even after it hit an internal temperature of 200 degrees. I had a similar outcome with a pork shoulder. The time estimate to wrap was also slightly off on the latter, showing an hour and a half about 20 minutes before pinging my phone that it was time to complete that step (of course I had left the house to run an errand). These time estimates can be handy for longer cooks, and they were a welcome feature on the Smart Grilling Hub. However, on the SmokeFire grill, there’s room for improvement. 

Weber has pledged to do just that. The company committed to adding more cook profiles to the app on a quarterly basis. Like I mentioned in the Hub review, there are some limitations and omissions right now (specific steak cuts and pork ribs, for example). Weber Connect is also missing key SmokeFire tools like the ability to adjust the grill temperature from your phone. That’s a basic feature that nearly every other WiFi-enabled pellet grill has onboard. Weber has already pushed software updates to improve how SmokeFire runs, so I hope it can move quickly to add the temperature adjustment as well. 

When Traeger announced its 2019 lineup, it included its so-called WiFire wireless connectivity on every model. However, the sensor that monitored your pellet supply so you didn’t have to worry about running out was reserved for the priciest grills: the Timberline 850 and Timberline 1300. As I’d discover in November, the more affordable Ironwood and Pro Series grills were designed to accommodate the sensor, it just wasn’t included on those models.

It’s unclear if Traeger is simply including the sensor in the box or if it’s installed on the Ironwood grills already. Even if it’s not, the installation process is quick and easy, and should take you 10 minutes or less to attach and connect.

And yes, a pellet sensor is a handy addition to these grills. Without it, you have to walk out to the grill, lift the pellet hopper lid and manually inspect things. With this sensor, the grill automatically monitors how much is left in that container and displays a percentage inside the Traeger app. That info is shown alongside things like grill temperature, probe temperature, cook timers and more. When you’re running low, the app will send you a notification so you know its time to add more or make a quick run to the store.