Memphis Wood Fire Grills Pro Built-in w/WiFi - 304 SS Alloy

The media could not be loaded. Our Memphis grill/smoker worked for a total of about 10 uses. First we had wifi connectivity issues then we have had to have 2 screens replaced. This 3rd screen is now not turning on!!! The grill is NON operative without this screen. Apparently there is a faulty design and water gets in-even with the extra screen covers they provided each time they sent a new screen. Memphis was bought by Superior Equipment Solutions and even though we are still in the 3 year warranty (have had it 1.5 yrs) and the first (and ongoing) issue started 6 months in, they are currently saying they are refusing to replace this grill. It is so unfortunate to pay $7,000 for a grill that we cannot use. Will update the review if the company ends up honoring the warranty. But after reading all the other customer reviews with similar problems, I don’t have much faith in this.

I've had my Memphis Wood Fire Grill Pro Built-In with WiFi for over 6 years. While I love the grill itself, recent customer service issues make me strongly advise against dealing with this company. Here's why:Grill Stopped Working: In November/December 2023, my pellet grill stopped working due to no power. After verifying that the unit was receiving power, I called customer service for support.Voicemail Limbo: After my December call, I waited for a return call that never came. I started calling again in mid-January and received the same message stating they were backed up and wouldn't be making calls until after the holidays.Persistent Calls and Online Tickets: Over the next couple of months, I repeatedly called and filled out an online ticket but received no response. Eventually, I gave up and was without my smoker for another month.Finally Reached Someone: When I finally got through to a representative, he explained the issue might be a fuse. Since my grill is built-in, I had to remove it to access the controller. This led to another month of unreturned calls and voicemails.DIY Solution: I found online instructions, replaced the fuse, and got power back to the smoker. However, it didn't heat up, leading to more calls and another ignored ticket.Igniter Issue: After months of calls, someone finally answered and diagnosed the need for a new igniter and WiFi antenna. It took weeks to receive the parts, and then I faced the challenge of getting help for the installation.No Support, DIY Again: With no help from customer service, I dismantled the grill myself to replace the igniter. Despite the difficulty, I managed to get the smoker working again.It has been over 8 months of frustration and lack of support. While the grill itself is great, the abysmal customer service has completely soured my experience. I will never buy from this company again due to their unacceptable customer service. Avoid them at all costs.

Great grill, poor design for an outdoor grill unless it is completely under cover from rain. The vent holes in the mounting flange, which run along both sides and across the back, allow rain to enter the cabinet below. When planning to smoke or roast something that takes some time, check the weather carefully.The Memphis cover doesn’t cover the vent holes either. So rain at any time will flood your cabinet. Memphis answer to this is that the rain won’t hurt the grill. Memphis needs to design a better grill cover to prevent rain from entering the vent holes and extend the front of the cover down past the drawers. They also need to provide a trim kit to cover the space between the grill and cabinet cutout as done by other manufactures.If Memphis were to redesign their grill cover, I would up my rating to 5 stars even though rain, while cooking, would still enter my cabinet.As far as actual use of the grill for smoking, roasting and grilling, I couldn't be happier.

We remodeled our backyard just before this whole COVID-19 thing happened and had a Memphis Pro built in grill installed in the island. I picked this grill because my wife wanted a gas grill because they're "easy to use" and she wanted to be able to occasionally use the grill rather than relying on me to always startup the Weber charcoal grill we've been using for the past 10+ years. I hate gas grills, so we compromised on this pellet grill.What sold me on the Memphis is:1. Stainless steel construction. It is really well built. While I've only had it for about 4 months now, it shouldn't rust out like my friend's Traeger pellet grill did.2. Direct heat. Indirect heat is great for low & slow or when you're doing a reverse sear, but if you want to sear a steak you need direct heat. Most pellet grills can't do this.3. Built in temp probe & monitoring- important for low & slow cooks. I've done a 30# turducken on my old Weber smoker which took 18hrs and so being able to monitor this over night via my phone is a great feature.Reality:1. Temp controls work great. The grill lights easily and quickly automatically once you turn it on. Takes about 8min to come up to temp (450F). Definitely more convenient and pretty than my Weber kettle, but honestly I was able to get better results with the Weber + lump charcoal for grilling. But for low and slow, non-direct cooking the Memphis wins hands down.2. It's as easy as reasonably possible to switch between direct and indirect heat. If it's not obvious, you need to swap out the heat deflector under the grates in order to do that. That does mean of course swapping between the two while cooking is a little problematic. That said, on the Pro model, the grate is broken up into 4 sections and you only need to remove the center two in order to replace the deflector. So as long as you don't have a lot of food on the grill you can do that.3. No matter how the grill is configured, the left and right side of the grill are indirect cooking zones.4. You do have to be careful about cooking with direct heat and too much oil/fat. Marinades with oil in them in particular can cause significant flare ups in the grill. Best to keep the lid closed for a few minutes and let it burn out in those cases, but I definitely have to be a lot more careful than with my Weber charcoal grill or gas grills I've used in the past.5. Much to my surprise, my wife is actually using the grill on a regular basis. She's a great cook and so far enjoying learning the differences between using the grill vs. her oven.6. The cover they sell is so so at best. I got mine free and sprayed it with Scotch Guard to keep the water out.7. There are two "hoppers" on the pro, but there is only a single auger. I wish I could select between two different pellets, but in reality that may not work for most people. Right now my wife and I cook on our Memphis grill 3 or 4 times a week and living in California means low humidity so we can keep pellets in the hopper. If you live in Florida or other area with high humidity- that would be a disaster.8. A really long "cool down cycle". Means you can't just turn off the grill when you're done using it like a gas grill. Wouldn't be a big deal (other than not being able to put the cover on), but for the fact you need to unplug or turn it off when not in use (see problems below).9. There is a grate in top of the hopper to allow you to pour pellets in, but keep fingers out. I understand it's a safety issue, but one of the important things about all pellet grills is removing the pellets if you're not going to use it for a while because they will suck the moisture out of the air and ruin the pellets. Luckily, it's easy to remove, but I know my friend's Traeger doesn't have this "safety feature" which just is in the way.Problems:1. In the very fine print of the manual it says you need to put this grill on a dedicated circuit or a switch. Doesn't say why. Apparently inductive loads on the same circuit (like a compressor motor on a refrigerator) causes the grill to "lock up". They should of made this much more clear and frankly put a filter on the power input to avoid this problem. We had to have our contractor rewire things to put our grill on a switch so it wasn't "plugged in" when not in use.2. The wifi feature sucks. I've been working with Memphis on this for a couple of months now. They have sent me multiple replacement WIFI modules and even a replacement controller board. It still doesn't work.3. Tech support is merely "OK" (only replying to emails once a day early in the morning) to "non-existent". When you pay this kind of money, you expect the manufacturer to stand behind their product- especially for one which says "Made in the USA". But here I am, writing this review and the last email I have from their technical support person is from June 17th. Today is July 10th. The wifi on my grill is still broken and they haven't replied to multiple emails requesting "next steps".4. The iOS app is pretty horrible. I mean, I get that companies like this don't have a lot of experience writing apps like this and I had pretty low expectations going in, but even when the WiFi feature did work, the app was at best pretty bad- it merely technically worked. Most of the apps in this space (Weber has one as does BBQ Guru) aren't great either and have their own set of usability issues, but the Memphis app is IMHO the worst.But I haven't been able to really use the app for about 2 1/2 months because something between the app or cloud service and/or Wifi module on my grill has been broken.Honestly I've been holding off on this review for a while now- hoping technical support could resolve all my issues with this grill. But my first email to them was back in April and it's now July 2020 and it still doesn't work properly. Hence, I just can see giving this better than a 3 star review. Hopefully they will respond to my emails and fix my grill so I can use the wifi/app but I'm not very hopeful at this point.Update 4/26/2021:1. I've been talking to technical support for an entire year and they still don't have a fix for the broken wifi. They've made numerous promises about dates to deliver and missed all of them. I'm still hopeful they eventually fix the wifi, but who knows. Definitely disappointed.2. I'm still having issues with flare ups - even with things like lamb loin chops. Sure there is some fat on them, but never had this kind of issue with a Weber kettle. Can't say if it is better/worse than gas because I have little experience, but it's super annoying and you have to be really careful you don't over cook your meat and the obvious danger of a grease fire.Would I buy again? I dunno. It's one of those things that I both love and hate.Update 5/16/2021:Memphis finally provided updated firmware and I flashed the controller and wifi boards and I was able to get it working with the iOS app. Super happy and looking forward to using this feature to monitor my temps.Did a nice marbled rib eye steak a couple of nights again- reverse sear method so started off on the indirect side with the grill at 300F and then when it was ~95F internal temp pulled it off the grill, covered the meat and raised the temp to 550F for direct heat/searing. The grill takes a few minutes to come up the 250F, but pretty happy with how responsive it is. Still fighting some flare ups, but with only doing 45-60sec per side it wasn't bad. Steak came out perfect though.One thing you have to be very careful about is that it's actually easy to have a flame out if you try to go from a high temp to a low temp. The controller uses very simple logic to know when to feed more pellets into the hopper- if the target temp is lower than the actual temp then it doesn't feed pellets. However, the grill is so well insulated that it will run out of fuel and flame out. So you have to either open the lid to drop the temps or remember to do a quick power cycle to reset the controller.I still haven't used the smoke feature with the Memphis as I prefer my Komodo Kamado Ultimate for long smoking sessions.Anyways, since the wifi now seems to work, I raised my score from 3 to 4 stars. In terms of performance/flexibility for grilling, I still wish I had my Weber kettle. The amount of control you have with a Weber kettle really can't be beat. But in terms of ease-of-use, the Memphis is near gas-like. The fact my wife regularly uses the Memphis makes this a winner for me, even if I do sometimes wish I was using charcoal.