(Originally published in The Daily Telegraph in England.)

A day after model Kate Hillman told how a red kite swooped down and tried to fly off with her pet dog, police are investigating reports of the huge predators pinching sausages from a garden barbecue.

Grilled Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients:

• 4 sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cut into “fries”
• 1/4 cup cilantro or any other fresh herb, finely chopped (Todd’s Dirt Seasoning works well too!)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup  olive oil
• Kosher/Sea Salt
• Pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat your grill to medium-hot.

Mix all ingredients together.  Make sure sugar is some what dissolved with no clumps of sugar.

Grill potatoes on all sides until done.  About 15 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Ingredients

Directions

Place the chicken, oregano, cumin, garlic, zest and juices in a large glass dish and stir to combine.  Cover and refrigerate for a least 30 minutes but not more than 60.  Remove chicken and toss out the marinade.  Season chicken with salt and pepper.

Grill over medium heat until down.

I came across a blog post showing someone cleaning their dirty grill grates with an onion.  After seeing this post I knew the next time I lit the Weber kettle I’d need to clean the grill this way.

Cut an onion in half and while the grill grates are still hot, rub the onion back and forth across them.  Remarkably the onion did cut through the grease and grime on the grates.

Anyone that grills often should have a good grill brush handy so “wasting” an onion cleaning the grates wouldn’t be necessary.  But if, by chance, you don’t have a brush then the onion will work.

On their website Bob and Kerrie tell their story.  “We love to grill and have a passion for barbequing. We’d been using a propane gas grill for years and didn’t like way it dried out our food,and charcoal grilling was inconsistent. The meat was often still raw in the middle and that didn’t go down so well with our guests! We dreamt of cooking with wood like hickory – but couldn’t find a grill that was convenient to use. We also wanted to have better control of the cooking environment to get perfect results every time.”

“We investigated existing wood pellet grills but found that most were made in China. When we talked to friends who had bought these grills, we discovered they rust out quickly. The grills were hard to clean and didn’t allow for long periods of cooking or smoking without constantly refilling the fuel hopper. Even worse, we would have to buy an additional grill to actually flame cook our food since these grills didn’t have that function. Besides, we wanted a grill with a warming box that would keep our food hot,” they continued.

With over 20 years of precision sheet metal work with their company MAK Metals in Dallas, Oregon Bob was able to gather his team of designers and metal workers and put together a list of all the features they wanted in their smoker grill.  Not only was it important to them to use only the finest materials but that all labor and materials used would be American sourced and of the finest American quality.

I’ve now had a chance to use this grill smoker and I have to say that Bob and Kerrie Tucker have succeeded in building a fantastic product.  When one of my fellow BBQ Brethren forum members found out I was testing this grill smoker the first thing he wanted to know why it was $2,000 and if it was worth it.  When you finish reading the review you’ll have a good idea of why it’s that much money.  Is it worth it?  I’d have to say yes.

Let’s take a look at some of the features of the MAK Grill 2 Star General:

MAK Grills Pellet Boss Digital Controller:

I’ll be the first to admit I have limited experience with pellet smokers.  I have one of the most popular brands and use it a great deal.  I only mention my limited knowledge because I don’t want to slight any other manufacturer of pellet smokers if they have some of the same features.

But from my experience there isn’t much that a backyard smoker needs to do that the Pellet Boss Digital Controller won’t do.  The Pellet Boss was easy to use and gave me plenty of flexability with my cooking options.

In addition to the fairly standard “auto igniting” the controller allows you set the grill temp in 5 degree increments and set the “smoke mode” so you can have greater control over the amount of smoke during your cook.

With three meat probe jacks you don’t need separate  thermometers to keep track of your meats on the grill.  A fantastic feature that I took advantage of.

One of best features was the countdown and elapsed timers.  I like to keep a log of all my cooks and sometimes I don’t remember to make note of the exact time I put something on to cook.  With the elapsed timer all I have to do is remember to hit the button and it keeps track of how long the meat has been cooking.

The Pellet Boss also has three “User Programs.”  This allows you to have a great deal more control over your temps.  For example:  You want to cook a brisket at 245 degrees until it reaches 200 degrees internal and them drop the grill temp down to 190 degrees to hold.  You can do it.  It’s a great feature for cooking and holding meat while you spend time with your guests.

And with the Auto Shut/Cool Down you can truly “set it and forget it.”

Direct Heat “Flame Zone”

One of the my favorite cuts of beef to cook outdoors is tri-tip.  When I’m serving tri-tip I want the best of both worlds.  I want the carmelization I get from a hot sear and the taste of smoke I get from a low and slow process.  Sometimes the sear is first, sometimes it’s after the smoke.

With the MAK Grill I can accomplish both without having to crank up the Weber kettle with charcoal.  By setting the the controller to high and uncovering the holes I can get a good sear on my meat. 

Honestly, I was pretty skeptical I could get a temp high enough to actually sear the meat, but sure enough I could.   I think after using it I’d probably be more inclined to do the “reverse” sear process.  Meaning I’d smoke the meat to a little under my desired finished temp and then crank the MAK up to high and sear the meat.

Removable Fire Pot

One of the things I dislike about my pellet smoker is cleaning up the fire pot.  One of the somewhat common brain farts pellet smokers make is using a shop vac on their fire pot when their are still hot embers in it.  I’ve caught my shop vac on fire twice without much effort.

The MAK Grill has a removable fire pot which makes clean up that much easier.  This allows you to empty the fire pot when ash builds up with relative ease.

Quick Pellet Change Feature

Sometimes you want to change wood flavors and with some pellet smokers it’s virtually impossible to change pellets without a huge hassle.

The MAK Grill has a door on the hopper that allows you to empty the hopper in seconds.  There have been many times when I’ve wanted to switch from a fruit wood to something like hickory and you have to manually remove the pellets from the hopper.

With the quick change feature all you have to worry about are the pellets that remain in the auger.

Large Capacity Tapered Hopper

Although I love my Traeger one of the most frustrating things about it is the pellet hopper.  The hopper on the Traeger has to be watched.  Everyone once in a while the pellets get hung up and they don’t fall down into the auger.  When this happens it creates quite a problem when the smoker stops smoking.

With the design of the hopper on the MAK Grill this didn’t come close to happening even once.  It’s design allows the pellets to flow evenly and constantly into the auger.  It’s also large enough to hold a standard 20lb bag of pellets.

Some of the other features:

Ash clean out tray: You can open the ash area and sweep it out.  No need to haul out the shop vac.

Warmer/Smoker Box: The MAK Grill has a large 220 square inch warming box that can also be used as a cold smoker.

Large Cooking Area: The cooking area is 14 inches tall and a total of 429 square inches.

I’m not sure how a team of people in a metal shop in Oregon, with very limited BBQ experience to come up with a product that does almost everything, but it’s been done.  Is it worth $2,000?  That’s for you to answer.  But from where I sit this is one smoker/grill I’d love to have in my backyard.  It sets a whole new standard for backyard pellet smokers.

For more information about the MAK Grill check out their website.