General News
Affordable, intuitive and compact, the Cuisinart Deluxe pellet grill is a solid outdoor cooker. As you’d hope, it adds a smoky taste to your meat and veggies, and you can do everything from quickly searing pork chops to slowly cooking chicken breasts.
The Cuisinart didn’t make our list of the best pellet grills. There were other options—like the best-in-show RecTeq, the Traeger Pro 575, the Weber Searwood and the Yoder pellet grill—that came out stronger. However, our experience using the Cuisinart was generally positive and worth sharing for its affordability, ease of use and compact size. It’s a great grill to develop your skills or purchase if you don’t have as much space.
What is the Cuisinart Deluxe pellet grill?
The Cuisinart Deluxe pellet grill is a fairly basic, no-frills option. It has a 700-square-inch cooking area and clocks in at 52 inches long and 49.3 inches high. The hopper is a standard size and can hold 21 pounds of pellets. If you foresee needing more space, consider the generously sized Traeger Ironwood XL.
There is a digital controller where you can set your temperature and see it displayed in real-time. The temperature ranges between 180 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and it will automatically add pellets to regulate the temp. However, it advances the temperature in 25- and 50-degree increments (depending on the temperature), which can make it challenging to perfect a cut of meat.
TASTE OF HOME
The pellet grill is compact and has a smaller footprint, which is ideal if you don’t have a surplus of space. The dome shape looks sleek, and there are tool hooks and a paper towel holder for convenience. It also includes 13 inches of prep space and a bottle opener (good to see they thought of the most important things).
Wondering if a pellet grill is right for you? Check out what makes it different from a gas grill or a charcoal grill.
How We Tested the Cuisinart Deluxe
Our testing began as soon as the grill arrived. Points to Cuisinart for having a solid assembly manual with clear diagrams and instructions, but the assembly itself was more involved than other pellet grills we tested. Unlike the others, it also required finishing assembling the hopper, complicated by the fact that the metal had sustained some damage during shipping and needed to be re-bent. We also had to lift the grill out of the box and flip it on its back, which was a two-person job. Overall, the process took two hours.
We seasoned the grill at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, although no heating temperature was specified. Filling the hopper was very easy; all we had to do was dump the pellets in.
Then came grilling. Like with other pellet grills, we tested salmon, chicken breasts, pork chops, pork shoulder and corn, and we used Pit Boss apple blend hardwood pellets for everything.
The salmon, which we brined overnight, was smoked for an hour at 190 degrees Fahrenheit. After that, we cranked the temperature to 225 degrees Fahrenheit and added the corn. The salmon had a lot of albumin (the white stuff that appears on cooked salmon) and didn’t look great, though it did have one of the smokiest flavors of the grills we tested. The corn, however, didn’t look very smoky, and while some of the cobs had a little brown color, the others didn’t.
We smoked the chicken at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for just over three hours. The chicken breasts had some smoky color and caramelization on the bottom, but they were fairly light in appearance and looked a little dry. We then seared two pork chops at 475 degrees Fahrenheit for eight minutes, flipping and rotating throughout. The results were somewhat inconsistent. One chop had a pale side and lacked a sear at all. The other had a great sear on one side and nothing on the other. However, they felt very juicy.
TASTE OF HOME
The pork shoulder didn’t fare as well. We intended to cook it at 275 degrees Fahrenheit but settled for 300, since the grill only had increments of 50 degrees (definitely a drawback when other options let you get a lot more specific). Cooking time took almost nine hours, and the end result was tough all around. According to Catherine, who was worried that the pork would cook too fast, “it tasted like cooked meat with a hint of smoke.” Not the grill’s most shining moment—it seemed more adept at cooking meat that didn’t require as much of a low-and-slow approach.
We were pleased by the cleanup experience. The grill has a 20-minute shutdown cycle, and the drip tray helped catch a lot of fallen debris to simplify cleaning. All you need to do to empty the hopper is loosen a screw, and the pellets fall out very quickly. We used a wet grill brush and a steel scraper to scrape down the grill when it was still warm, and it was fairly painless to get everything tidy again (even the grease left behind by the pork shoulder).
Pros
- Intuitive and easy-to-use interface
- More affordable
- Compact but still has a decent-size hopper that didn’t empty out completely after our test cooking
- Chimney disperses the smoke so it’s not in your face as you’re cooking
- Stable and spacious side table
Cons
- No handles to move the grill
- Can only change the temperature in increments of 25 degrees up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. After that, it can only be changed in increments of 50 degrees, which can impact the quality of your meat
FAQ
How do you start a Cuisinart pellet grill?
The digital controller—which also controls the temperature—has an electronic auto-start ignition.
Why You Should Trust Us
Our Product Team dove into the world of pellet grills, overseen by grilling master Catherine Ward. We evaluated 11 grills in total, including four models from Traeger, like the Tailgater and Timberline, as well as options from Yoder and other high-profile brands. Each model was weighed on price, cooking quality, ease of assembly and unique features. We even pitted some models head-to-head, like in our Traeger vs. RecTeq evaluation.
I’m a food and lifestyle writer who loves a good burger and is well-versed in evaluating products for a range of consumers.
Where To Buy the Cuisinart Deluxe Pellet Grill
VIA MERCHANT
VIA MERCHANT
The Cuisinart Deluxe pellet grill costs $600 direct from Cuisinart. It’s also available on Amazon and at Home Depot. Its lower price point makes it a good gift for a griller who wants to get into pellet grills or a good option to get started if you’re not ready to invest in more expensive units.
