If you’re thinking of making the leap from gas or charcoal grills to wood pellets, the Green Mountain Grills Davy Crockett Wifi Controlled Portable Wood Pellet Grill is a great place to start your journey without breaking the bank.
Grilling with wood pellets can open up a whole new world of flavors and cooking options that gas or charcoal can’t offer. Admittedly, it’s an acquired technique that takes practice. A premium quality wood pellet grill,however can be a costly investment for someone experienced.
After reading this Green Mountain Grills Davy Crockett Wifi Controlled Portable Wood Pellet Grill review, you’ll understand why we chose this product as top pick for Best Portable Wood Pellet Grill. Read on to find out what makes it so great for tailgating, small cooks and extra capacity for grilling AND smoking.
Amazon Rating: 4.2 / 5 Stars
Features:
- Dimensions: 29.5 x 20 x 14.5 inches
- Weight: 68 pounds
- Sense-Mate Thermal Sensor
- Meat Probe
- Peaked Lid
- Convenience tray
- 110V or 12V with adapters (3 power options)
Best Suited For:
- Tailgating
- Camping
- RV
- Small Outdoor Events
Green Mountain Grills Davy Crockett Wifi Controlled Portable Wood Pellet Grill Review - Best Portable Wood Pellet Grill
Love the wood fire taste and smoky flavor of a pellet grill? Check out these reviews of the best portable pellet grills and smokers.
Now onto the full review of the Davy Crocket Wifi Wood Pellet grill!
Description
After reviewing several different brands, most notably the popular Traeger Junior Elite, the Davy Crocket really is the ultimate portable grill at this price point. It performs even better than more expensive brands.
You couldn’t really ask for a better, more thoughtfully designed unit for the price. Hands-free monitoring, programming features for grilling your meat to perfection, exceptional temperature control and adaptable power sources - the folks at Green Mountain thought of everything!
Smoking, braising, searing or roasting, the Davy Crocket holds a consistent temperature so well that your food cooks faster than other brands of pellet grills that are more expensive. Compared to the Junior Elite, for example, the Davy Crocket achieves amazing smoky flavor with less hassle and work.
Thanks to the Sense Mate technology and amazing Wifi features your grilling will just get better and better each time you use it. Ideal for use in your backyard, the Davy Crockett Wifi Controlled Portable Wood Pellet Grill can be used just about anywhere you - camping, tail-gating, hunting, house-boating, music festivals and more.
Let’s delve into the design features and performance in more detail.
Construction Quality
On first impression, the Davy Crocket looks small compared to other more expensive brands, and it is. At 68 pounds, however, the construction material is quite heavy duty, though not as durable as you’d get with a Traeger, say. Still, the peaked lid is stainless and the exterior is all solid metal construction.
With regular use, the drip tray will warp and the stainless steel lid does eventually fade color. You will eventually notice corrosion on the exterior but they do offer a cover to help protect it against the wear and tear of the elements while it’s not in use.
The Davy Crocket comes with an internal meat thermometer and uses a PID controller, one of the best kinds for accurate temperature control in small increments. The packaging includes some tools for completing the assembly. All in all, it should take you about half an hour to assemble the grill.
Cooking Area
As we mentioned earlier, the Davy Crocket is a bit smaller than the Traeger Junior Elite by about 20 - 25 percent. Of course, the Junior Elite isn’t designed for portability. With that in mind, the Davy Crocket can still adequately serve a family of 4 - 6.
The cooking surface of the grill grates is 12.5” x 18 inches, which is enough to fit three racks of baby back ribs or two racks of spare ribs. Love smoked meat? You can fit a 12 pound brisket or 1 large pork butt. With the lid closed, you could roast a whole chicken but it couldn’t accommodate a 20 pound turkey.
WiFi Temperature Control
When it comes to grilling with wood pellets, temperature control is absolutely critical. Proper ventilation and quality engineering allow a wood pellet grill to operate efficiently, and the Davy Crocket has it all. Once you set the temperature and load the pellet hopper, this thing literally cooks your meat for you.
There are 2 ways to control temperature on the Davy Crocket Wifi Portable Wood Pellet Grill. The manual PID controller allows you to adjust the temperature in small increments of one degree by manipulating the auger and the fan speed. This goes way beyond the Traeger Junior Elite and other brands which can only adjust in increments of 25 degrees.
In addition to the PID controller, there’s also the Davy Crocket App, suitable for iPhone or Android. With it, you can program a series of instructions for smoking meat over several hours, adjusting the temperature according to your presets. You can watch Netflix, play with your kids, or enjoy a podcast and monitor your food’s progress remotely using the app!
Since the app saves your recipe program or profile, you can continually tweak it to improve your results every time.
Heat Distribution And Efficiency
The Davy Crocket has a temperature range between 150 - 550 degrees fahrenheit. This is similar to the range of a gas grill, so you can grill and sear burgers, roast a whole chicken, or smoke a pork butt. For the best results, though, low and slow cooking is the way to go with this portable wood pellet grill.
The Davy Crocket smoke box isn’t insulated, but it’s engineered for highly efficient air circulation. Thanks to the covered smokestack and a drain chute for the grease, windy conditions don’t affect the internal temperature. The heat reflector located beneath the drip tray and above the flame distributes the heat across the grill surface fairly evenly.
To control the fire’s intensity, the Davy Crocket has a built in fan that improves the air flow while. With the lid closed, your meat cooks through at a steady temperature using less fuel. As a result, your meat cooks faster than a traditional smoker, much like a convection oven cooks your food faster than a regular one.
Portability
The Davy Crockett is "tailgate ready" when you buy it. The folding legs are useful for storing it in your trunk, your yacht, or RV, but they do feel a bit flimsy. Getting the grill stable on uneven ground can be a real challenge.
The manufacturer lists the weight as approximately 68 pounds, and this thing is pretty heavy. That’s a fairly heavy load, and if the legs get warped, they won’t support all that weight effectively. Sturdier metal legs and wheels would have been a better option.
In spite of that, this pellet grill doesn’t draw a significant amount of power, so you can use it in remote places or emergency situations where an energy supply is too far away or limited. A 10 amp hour battery could supply about 2 hour of cooking time, more than enough to grill some burgers or steaks.
Unlike the Traeger Junior Elite and other similar wood pellet grills, the Davy Crocket includes all the accessories you need to power it from your car battery, car electrical plug or cigarette lighter.
Maintenance
Cleaning a wood pellet grill is always the worst part of owning one. The Davy Crocket reaches a maximum 550 degrees fahrenheit, enough to quickly burn everything inside to ash. The drain chute collects grease neatly in the drip bucket, which can be removed and dumped.
You’ll need a small vacuum with a nozzle for getting the ashes out, but the unit is small enough that it doesn’t take long to clean the fire pit. Due to the size, the hopper isn’t large capacity. You can remove excess pellets from the auger as well, which is useful when you’re first getting used to using wood pellets.
The removable cooking grate can be easily cleaned with a quality BBQ wire brush or scraper tool. You can throw the drip tray in the dishwasher or hand wash it under running water. It’s significantly less messy than cleaning charcoal, for example, and less hassle than other brands of pellet grills.
