Jon Tofte
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
I promised some follow-up on my recently acquired new Pit Boss Phoenix pellet kettle. I bought it to replace my beautiful Spider Huntsman whose charcoal flavor didn’t sit well with my wife.

I have been holding on to a diamond pattern cast iron 22” grate for this kind of application. My first cook was done using this rather than the unimpressive folding grate that Pit Boss supplies. I made sure the Phoenix was up to the max 500 degrees and gave it extra time for the cast iron to get hot.
The steaks were fair at best with minimal sear effect. It was a hot summer day, but it hauntingly reminded me of doing steaks on my former Huntsman in the winter
. I could hear The Who singing about not getting fooled again!
On my next try, I again gave the Phoenix plenty of time but used a rub on my Sam’s slider burgers that features black salt, I guess in hopes of obtaining more attractive results. (The steaks I had previously done had a mild Jack Stack BBQ steak seasoning I had bought on my trip to Kansas City.) The burgers tasted better than the steaks, and there was at least a little sizzle when I set the sliders on the cast iron:

OK, I thought, but other than a little bit of pellet smoke flavor, my gas Summit could have done much better.
A NEW IDEA
About this time, I was trying to repair the Landmann pellet kettle I had bought unused at a furniture discount store. It was originally sold for a time at Sam’s Club. I bought it cheap and got a number of really good cooks from it. My main gripe was that it was 21 inches in diameter and could not interface with Weber 22 inch kettle grates and accessories. Then, the glow plug failed, and while getting a replacement proved easy enough, installing it was another matter. After hours of disassembly, I still could not access the glow plug to replace it. In comparison, that’s a 10 minute job on my Recteq. I finally through in the towel and turned the heap of parts into scrap.
One thing I did really like about the Landmann was the heavy gauge stainless diffuser that had a spinning top that allowed some open access to the firepot below when being used for high heat grilling but which could be closed for low and slow:

With this diffuser open, the Landmann absolutely could sear:

So, the thought came to me of keeping the Landmann difuser and using it in my Phoenix
.

I have been holding on to a diamond pattern cast iron 22” grate for this kind of application. My first cook was done using this rather than the unimpressive folding grate that Pit Boss supplies. I made sure the Phoenix was up to the max 500 degrees and gave it extra time for the cast iron to get hot.
The steaks were fair at best with minimal sear effect. It was a hot summer day, but it hauntingly reminded me of doing steaks on my former Huntsman in the winter

On my next try, I again gave the Phoenix plenty of time but used a rub on my Sam’s slider burgers that features black salt, I guess in hopes of obtaining more attractive results. (The steaks I had previously done had a mild Jack Stack BBQ steak seasoning I had bought on my trip to Kansas City.) The burgers tasted better than the steaks, and there was at least a little sizzle when I set the sliders on the cast iron:

OK, I thought, but other than a little bit of pellet smoke flavor, my gas Summit could have done much better.
A NEW IDEA
About this time, I was trying to repair the Landmann pellet kettle I had bought unused at a furniture discount store. It was originally sold for a time at Sam’s Club. I bought it cheap and got a number of really good cooks from it. My main gripe was that it was 21 inches in diameter and could not interface with Weber 22 inch kettle grates and accessories. Then, the glow plug failed, and while getting a replacement proved easy enough, installing it was another matter. After hours of disassembly, I still could not access the glow plug to replace it. In comparison, that’s a 10 minute job on my Recteq. I finally through in the towel and turned the heap of parts into scrap.
One thing I did really like about the Landmann was the heavy gauge stainless diffuser that had a spinning top that allowed some open access to the firepot below when being used for high heat grilling but which could be closed for low and slow:

With this diffuser open, the Landmann absolutely could sear:

So, the thought came to me of keeping the Landmann difuser and using it in my Phoenix

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