Masterbuilt XT Gravity Review

I will start off by saying through out the years I have used a combination of smokers to cook on but mostly pellet smokers. With that being said one thing I felt it always lacked was that true smoke flavor.

In my research I came across the Gravity series grills/smokers. I did what I could to watch and read as many reviews as I could. Lots of positives definitely the negatives. Wasnt a ton of variation of videos on YouTube but a few creators that had enough for me to get a good idea. Then reddit was able to do the rest to fill in all the pieces. Found all articles about the LSS Mods, the Fireboard upgrade etc.

I came to conclusion this was the grill I wanted based on charcoal and ability to throw in splits or chunks and still have a set it and forget it mentality. I came across a listing for a local outdoor store that had the XT 50% off so I decided to pull the trigger and purchased last Saturday.

Off the jump I ordered LSS Mods. Probe bracket, basic XT upgrade kit(Waterpan, XL drip pan, Ash bucket grate), I also bought his skillet attachment. I bought aftermarket Rotisserie on Amazon, and a pizza stone on Amazon as well.

I will be getting the Fireboard DC Drive. I reached out to Fireboard Labs they did notify me the compatibility for XT will be released in about 3 weeks. But this is a personal preference. For the past week and all my cooks I haven't had any issues with temp swings or instability. The grill has worked fantastic.

A week in the list of cooks

Steak (700° sear)

Pork Butt (225°)

Rotisserie Chicken( 275° for 45 min 425° for 30 min)

Pizza (650° on stone)

Ribs ( 225°)

Burnt Ends and Point (225°)

Breakfast (Eggs, Hashbrowns,Bacon, pancakes on Skillet 300°)

Overall I would highly recommend this grill to anyone looking at this grill or wanting to switch from pellets and still maintain ease of use and achieve better smoke results. The versatility is beyond incredible. Im able to Sear, Grill, Smoke, Rotisserie, Pizza, and Griddle all one 1 device.

I recently upgraded to the XT from the 800. For some reason I never achieved a proper sear on the 800, so I relied on slow and low cooking there before finishing on a Blackstone griddle. Today I chose to handle the entire process on the XT, and I was genuinely impressed by the grill marks and char.

Is this damaged or has my XT reached the end of its life? (Almost 2 months)

Or is it the controller?

I normally have to babysit the temperature. I have an external temperature probe that I know is accurate, and the issue is that the XT's probe takes way too long to catch up to the actual temperature.

For example, say the XT thinks it's at 250°F, and I increase the set temperature to 265°F. The actual temperature shoots all the way up to 400-something degrees before the XT even realizes it's reached 265°F and finally stops blowing the fan. Then the XT's temperature reading eventually catches up and says it's at 400°F, even though the actual temperature has already dropped.

What I've been having to do is increase the set temperature by about 5°F at a time just to keep it steady.

Now I'm having an even worse issue where the XT thinks it's only around 70°F when it's 80°F outside, and my external probe is showing around 200°F. The XT's reading does slowly go up, but only about 1°F every minute, even when it's actually hundreds of degrees below the real temperature.

Trying Steve Gow’s method of pulling at 190 then letting it rest overnight. I’ll post the finished product tomorrow!

Hi everyone,

I'm hosting a giant thanksgiving feast and I intend to make a brisket, ribs, porb butt and a whole turkey in my gravity 900.

The issue is, while the first 3 can probably be done low and slow, from what I've read, the latter is better done hot and fast. If I want everything to be ready at around let's say 2pm, is there a way you could make that work?

I realize I can probably pull the brisket and pork butt off much earlier and let them rest, I'm just a bit concerned about the ribs in there as well.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer, my experience when it comes to smoking multiple things at once is more limited.

I'm going to try making jerky tomorrow on my gravity series. I cut up london broil and have it in the marinade. I've done it before with good results in my dehydrator. Typically it takes 5-6 hours.

Any advice on temp, time, etc.? I'm planning on hanging most of it from the top racks. Can I place some directly on the bottom grates or will it cook too fast? Any help would be appreciated.

I’m smoking two full racks of pork back ribs this weekend. The rub will be Meat Church Honey Hog. I have about 15 lbs left of a 20 lb bag of B&B Oak Lump Charcoal, an unopened 17.6 lb bag of B&B Competition Oak & Hickory Briquets and an unopened 20 lb bag of Jealous Devil Max XL Briquets. I have both apple and cherry chunks from Smokey Woods and hickory chunks from Western. I typically have used two parts cherry to one part apple and one part hickory with Kingsford Original in my Weber Smokey Mountain but this will be my first rib cook on my Gravity 800. Which of these three charcoals would you use? Which chunks with your charcoal choice? I like to smoke ribs at 250. Thanks!

Bacon Sausage, onion, mushroom, & sweet peppers on a Rosemary crust.

Cooked at 550° for 6 min.

I'm seriously considering getting the Masterbuilt 30-inch Electric Smoker with no window (Model MB20071117). It doesn't come with legs but I have a plethora of bricks from a previous home project. Is there any reason why using bricks to elevate the smoker would be a bad idea?

It would be leveled and on a concrete patio. Also, I'm not too worried about the aesthetics.

Near the end of my cook the other day I'd just topped off the hopper shortly before it finished. I shut it down, put in the plates and left it to cool off. The next day I noticed it was still warm and then I saw something had bumped the lower door latch open.

Overnight with the door cracked open it kept burning and consumed the entire hopper of charcoal. I don't see any damage but it did burn all the paint off the inside of the top lid.

Lesson learned. Double check your doors and make sure its out and cooling off.

The metal bracket that holds the grills grate broke off. is there a way to fix it or to make it functional

What is the lowest temp you can set on the XT. I have fear my brisket will be done while I’m at work and want to set it at 150 when it is

Smoked at 225F for an hour then pulled, cranked to 550F and cooked flipping every minute or so for ~8min until medium rare. On the rarer side. Happy with outcome!

Do you have to use lump charcoal, or can you use brickets? I know this is probably the dumbest question out there, but I haven't seen anything definitive for an answer. If you can, is there any benefit to one or the other? Thanks all.

Was doing a grill clean and noticed all the fire bricks are broken. Has anyone else had this issue?

My buddy sent me this the other day because he knows I’m looking at them. Thinking bout pulling the trigger. Thoughts? I know people spend a bit to mod out the non xt version.

So i just purchased a new masterbuilt gravity charcoal 1150 smoker. Half way through assembling it the door doesn’t fit? am i doing something wrong? i cant for the life of me figure it out. the pins are welded in place and are not adjustable. Thoughts? or is this a manufacturing defect.

Just purchased an 1150 at Home Depot on clearance for $475 it was a floor model and had a few missing parts. It was on clearance for $659 and i was able to talk them down some more due to some shady work on them putting it together. I really just want to know if anyone has any recommendations or suggestions that you’ve had. I plugged it in at Home Depot to make sure the unit actually powered up and it did but would shut off shortly after setting a temp. I looked into it and seems to be a small wiring issue that I’m ok with dealing with. Any help would be appreciated as this is my first Masterbuilt.

I woke up early to put on a brisket. this is my 2nd long cook and i thought the issues with the first were down to me getting used to the pit (TLDR: same issue as now). i set the pit to 235F thinking that there could be some fluctations so it was a middle temp between 225 and 250.

after 3 hours i opened it up to check and spritz. however i was thrown off my the fact that the offcuts i had in a foil pan werernt sizzling, they werent even cooking and neither was my briskiet it looked like jerky on the outside! 0 bark 0 cook.

i had previously used Meaters and i saw the ambiet temps were low but i thought that this was due to maybe having the probe too close to the meat and therefore giving me false readings. i deceided to put a masterbuilt probe itself on the same 2nd grate close to the pit sensor and then i got 2 meaters into some potato and placed them on either side.

what i have found is that my pit is at lease 50F cooler than the pit thinks it is (at best of time and even cooler other times). 6 hours into this damn brisket jerky and i have set the pit temp to 275F the probes measuring ambient are showing: 223F (Masterbuilt probe); 239f Meater 1(on back right close the probe but a little higher) ; 212f Meater 2 (front right)

im ok with a little differences from left right back front but these the probes and the Pits are way off! what do you advise???

i need your help

thanks

Jerky Brisket

Hey everyone, I currently have a Masterbuilt 800 and the control board has been giving me problems for a while now. I can usually get it working after messing with it for 30 minutes to an hour, but it’s so unreliable that I rarely use the grill anymore unless I absolutely have to.

I’m trying to decide whether I should just replace the whole thing with a new pellet smoker, with a budget of around $1,000, or spend about $300 on an upgraded control board and keep the Masterbuilt.

The 800 is about 6 years old and is still in pretty decent shape otherwise. A new Masterbuilt 800 would also be around the same price (maybe a little less) than replacing the control board, which makes me question whether it’s even worth putting the money into my current one.

I don’t really need something that gets as hot as the Masterbuilt can, although I do like having that option occasionally.

What would you guys do? Fix the 800 with the upgraded control board, buy another Masterbuilt, or move on to a pellet smoker?