by Gregory Moore

Many don’t know or realize but since the pandemic, your inner demon for cooking has probably been unleashed or let out.

For me, when that happened, I realized that I needed to not only really hone in on some cuisines that I wanted to perfect, I needed to also step my game up with technique and equipment.

Luckily I have a wife who gets the passion and so in February of 2020, I purchased my first “big boy” smoker; a Kamado Joe Big Joe 3. Now I could say a lot about this smoker as for over a year and several months, we have enjoyed some scrumptious meals off of it. From spinning prime rib for Mothers Day to a perfection of my renowned seafood stew to chicken wings, great steaks and some killer beef ribs and pork ribs. But the one thing that always held us back a bit on using this as an every day appliance was the time it took to get the big girl up and going and then shutting her down for the night.

Fortunately one of the projects we had been discussing was a complete redo of our backyard and that included me having an outdoor kitchen. Cue the barbecue fairies as I was able to actually look at a pellet grill option to go along with Big Red. And that is where this post comes in. This is my first 90 day impression of having a really good pellet grill in my outdoor space.

A Luxury Pellet Grill That Didn’t Break The Bank

As stated, when the wife and I began the journey of transforming the backyard, we had to make sure that the previous purchase of a Kamado Joe ceramic grill was in the picture. What we also wanted to have was an outdoor kitchen that met a few criteria, mainly the following:

• The appliances had to be cohesive to each other and the space
• That we stuck to just one vendor when it came to the new grill and storage
• Everything had to meet our budget line for the project that was allocated; could NOT go over that allotment and not come out of our pockets as an extra cost/addition

With that information in hand and with a strict mandate to stick to the cost allotment for appliances, I went out and started sourcing what was going to be in the space in regards to just those items.

If you have never had to shop for appliances, lucky you are. The process is daunting and it can be down right brutal. Add to this stress level the fact that you have a project being built during a pandemic and supply chains are all over the place, what you end up with is a stress you never thought existed. But it wasn’t impossible; just daunting.

With the stress level set and acknowledged, I looked at three vendors for the kitchen: Coyote, Memphis and Twin Eagles. Each one had a built in option for outdoor kitchens and also had storage options. What was the deciding factor on who I went with was straight down to pricing of the pellet grill.

With all three pretty much having many of the same features I wanted, I went with the 28 inch Coyote Pellet Grill Built-In model

Didn’t Want All The Frills and Whistles

So before I get hate comments from the Traegar, Pitt Boss and other folk who have pellet grills/smokers, let me just start by saying the following: I DID NOT WANT ALL THE BELLS AND WHISTLES that comes on a lot of grills these days.

What’s the bells and whistles you may ask? Namely WiFi functionality.

If you broke down the reasons why the Coyote is in this kitchen, it comes down to the fact that of the three vendors I looked at, Coyote was by far the more affordable option for my budget and that I didn’t want to have to worry about making sure my grill was connected to WiFi every time wanted to use it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve heard that being able to see how many pounds have been consumed or being able to monitor the cook are important for a lot of people but keep this in mind: I have a Kamado Joe. That’s not WiFi people. Sure I have gadgets that monitor the cooker such as a blower attachment and the use of wireless meat probes but guess what? I can use the same meat probes on the Coyote AND I can even use the grill monitoring system’s wired meat probes and grill grate temp probe if I want.

Now with that said, the biggest reasons why I purchased the Coyote was that there were some design attributes that just made my life easier. And these just so happen to be the selling points for me:

• Front loading pellet drawer
• Ability to do a direct sear above 550f
• Easy ash/grease clean out
• Interior lights

Now let me also set the record straight here. Everyone who has any of the three built in grills from the