The dog days of summer are over, and we move into the cooler, shorter days of fall. But that doesn’t mean that your outdoor cooking needs to come to an end!
One of the most popular outdoor cookers currently is the pellet grill. Z Grills, founded in 2016 but with over 30 years of experience in the industry, recently sent me one of their favorite models, the Flagship 700D3, to try out.
What Is a Pellet Grill?
Pellet grills use electricity to ignite wood pellets, combined with a system of fans to heat food to a specific temperature. With a pellet grill, you can smoke, grill, and bake foods, all in one outdoor cooker. You can also use different types of wood pellets to provide different flavors to the foods you prepare in the pellet grill.
What Is the Flagship 700D3?
The Flagship 700D3 is a pellet grill with a total rack surface area of 697 square inches and a pellet hopper with a 20-lb capacity. It comes with the following features:
— Dual wall insulation construction
— Hopper cleanout
— 20 hours of non-stop cooking with a full hopper
— Enclosed storage cabinet
— Includes 2 meat probes
— Manual feed feature
— Locking casters
— Grease management system
— Automatic start-up and cool-down
— Versatility from slow smoking to grilling
— Constructed with heavy-duty materials
With a Gen V2.1 PID controller with an LCD screen, the Flagship 700D3 can be automatically set to maintain temperatures allowing for multiple types of cooking:
This is a versatile grill. Image by Z Grills.
The Flagship 700D3 retails for $769 but as of this writing is on sale for $649, and is available directly from Z Grills. Z Grills is also currently doing a special Cashback Promotion for the 700D3, where buyers can earn a refund up to the full purchase price of the grill, depending on how many years they want to wait for their rebate. At a minimum, you can get $199 back a year after buying the 700D3. Full information on the Cashback Promotion can be found here.
The two shipping boxes for the 700D3 grill. Image by Paul Benson.
Assembling the Flagship 700D3
The Flagship 700D3 arrived in two boxes, weighing a total of 162 lbs. Needless to say, I was happy that I was at home when FedEx delivered, as they were able to dolly the boxes right into the backyard.
Opening the boxes, you’ll find that the parts are very well-packed, with plenty of foam and heavy-duty cardboard to keep everything safe during shipping. Assembling the grill is straightforward and quick, thanks to the illustrated instructions. Z Grills thoughtfully provides a pair of assembly gloves, to make sure that you don’t cut yourself, or burn your fingers on hot metal in the sun, while you’re putting together the grill.
The most time-consuming part of the assembly was actually unpacking all the pieces. To cut down on shipping volume, several parts are shipped inside the body of the grill itself. These were so efficiently packed in, that it was a bit of a challenge getting everything out.
Packed to the gills! Image by Paul Benson.
Working with my girlfriend to put together the grill took about an hour. We could have done it a little faster, but we were also sorting all of the non-recyclable packing material while we were unpacking the parts. Sadly, we did fill an entire contractor’s bag full of waste. But that’s also packing material for a grill designed to last for years of use.
The finished grill. Image by Paul Benson.
Using the Flagship 700D3
Before cooking for the first time, you add pellets into the hopper. Then there is a one-time firing process that you must go through, to not just confirm that all components are working properly, but to burn off any foreign matter that may be in the grill from manufacturing and shipping. Once that has been completed, then you’re ready to cook.
When you cook with the Flagship 700D3, you always start on the Smoke setting. This ensures that the pellets are feeding in and have ignited. Once smoke is coming out, you can set the temperature to whatever you’d like on the controller.
For my first time cooking on the 700D3, I chose to smoke a tri-tip, which I would then finish off with a reverse sear. Using a recipe from Steven Raichlen’s Project Smoke, I seasoned the tri-tip with the rub I had prepared, and then inserted one of the two meat probes included with the grill into an end of the meat. The wires from the probes can be threaded through a gasket in the grill, where they can be plugged into the PID controller.
The meat probe plugged into the PID controller. Image by Paul Benson.
The internal temperature of the meat, the set temperature, and the grill temperature are all indicated on the PID. While you will see some variation between the set temperature and the real-time grill temperature due to weather and opening/closing the grill, over the course of your cooking these will even out.
The seasoned tri-tip, starting to smoke. Image by Paul Benson.
After smoking at 225 degrees for about an hour, the tri-tip had reached the desired internal temperature of 110 degrees. At this point, I removed the meat and tented it on a rack, while I prepared to sear.
To sear, you want to set the temperature at High, which is about 450 degrees on the 700D3. It took about a half hour to get the grill up to that point.
Just about ready to sear! Image by Paul Benson.
Once I had gotten the grill hot enough, it was time to reverse-sear the meat. It took about 4 minutes on each side to get the tri-tip to medium rare. Rather than use the meat probe again, I used an instant thermometer to check the temperature.
Removing the tri-tip from the grill, it was ready to serve right away.
The finished tri-tip. Image by Paul Benson.
And indeed, the tri-tip was a nice medium rare:
Be thankful I remembered to take this picture…that tri-tip was tasty! Image by Paul Benson.
A couple of nights later, chicken breasts were on sale, so I bought a couple of packs and went for an easy cook to make meals for a few days. Using a Kinder BBQ rub, I coated the chicken breasts and then put them in the smoker at 250 degrees. The 700D3 has the capacity to cook 5 whole chickens, so it would definitely handle the 8 breasts.
That’s a lot of chicken! Image by Paul Benson.
The recipe said that the breasts would take 90 minutes to smoke, but it ended up taking closer to 2 hours. This wasn’t a fault of the grill, but, rather, these chicken breasts were huge, and so took longer to cook.
Chicken breasts, ready to eat. Image by Paul Benson.
They were definitely worth the wait, though, with a nice smoky flavor. My girlfriend was surprised at just how juicy these breasts were, too… just one of the benefits of smoking them. After a couple of meals with the chicken breasts, we ended up shredding the meat of the last two and using them to make soft tacos, which were also delicious.
Cleaning the Grill
Cleanup is pretty simple, especially if you’ve covered the grease drain pan with aluminum foil as Z Grills recommends. Scrape the grill racks, and once the grill has cooled down, you remove a few components, vacuum out the ash, and clean out the grease pail. Periodically you’ll want to do a deeper cleaning to the grill, but for the most part, this is how you’ll reset for cooking.
If you want to change out pellets, there is a chute inside the hopper that empties to an access door in the back. Just place a bucket under the door, open it up, and let the pellets fall out into the bucket. You will need to do some pushing of pellets from inside the hopper to get everything down the chute. It’s also not a bad idea to remove excess pellets before the rainy season, as the humidity may cause the wood pellets to expand and jam the pellet feed mechanism.
Access to the pellet cleanout chute. Image by Paul Benson.
Z Grills Flagship 700D3 — The Verdict
Using the Z Grills Flagship 700D3 was about as easy a process as you would want, especially if you’re an inexperienced outdoor cooker. Thanks to the convenient PID controller, all you have to do is set the temperature that you want to cook at, and the grill does the rest. The inclusion of two meat probes is very helpful, as they can be read directly from the PID controller during your cook. It can be slightly awkward getting the cords of the probes through the gasket, as the gasket can have a tendency to pull off from the body of the grill, so you’ll want to be sure to have your oven mitts on for that.
I really like that Z Grills included a waterproof cover as part of the base purchase. It’s one of those items that you’d definitely want to protect your grill from the elements, so it’s great that they included it.
Safe from the rain. Image by Paul Benson.
Similarly, I was happy that they included a pair of assembly gloves with the grill. While it would certainly be possible to put the grill together without them, it was a lot safer and more comfortable having that protection. I also liked that the included Phillips screwdriver was magnetic — -which was especially useful when retrieving a screw that fell down into the pellet feeder. As a bit of advice, when attaching the handle to the lid of the pellet hopper, place some cardboard inside of the hopper to prevent what happened to me from happening to you.
I would have loved to have seen a shelf included on this grill as part of the base package. There is one that you can purchase separately for $79.99, but Z Grills hadn’t sent it along. You really do need either a shelf or a nearby table to help with transferring food to and from the grill.
The only feature I found myself missing was wireless capability so that I could monitor my meats and adjust the temperature of the grill from the comfort of my couch. Z Grills will be launching a new Wi-Fi grill later this year, which I’m hoping to take a look at. But if you don’t want those Wi-Fi capabilities, then the 700 D3 is an excellent choice, and much less expensive than a Wi-Fi-enabled grill.
Overall I was extremely pleased with the Z Grills Flagship 700D3. It has a great cooking capacity for its size and is able to hold temperatures well. I was very pleased with my initial smoking endeavors, and have already been earmarking other recipes to try, including a smoked apple cobbler in a cast iron skillet. It’s simple enough to use that almost anyone can cook delicious meals in no time and is definitely built to last. With the current price reduction and that cashback offer, the Z Grills 700D3 is an amazing value for a workhorse grill that will be a fixture in your backyard for years to come.
For more information or to purchase the Flagship 700D3, head to the Z Grills website.
Z Grills provided a unit for evaluation but had no input into this review. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission on qualified purchases.
