Just bought the silverlight 810 at Costco today.

[Thorasta]

Setup was relatively straight forward except the flip. Roommate and I are not weaklings, but on first flip attempt the lid pushed the box off and clunked on the ground. It left a scratch in a corner, but fortunately no dents. Not sure what to use, but should probably touch up the scratch to guard against future rusting. Needed wife to hold on to lid (meaning we needed three people) on the second attempt when we succeeded. The rest of setup was uneventful. I am really curious as to why the drip pan can slide about an inch forwards and backwards? -- I centered it as best I can suspecting that'd be best for air flow.

Edit an hour later -- the lid needs to be tied to the base.

Wifi connection took two tries and about 10 minutes, but once it finally connected it took less than a minute to update. I've read where it took some people hours or days to update -- thankfully that was not my experience.

I primed the auger and hit ignite -- I heard pellets plinking, but it took about 20 minutes before the temperature started coming up, and perhaps another 15 minutes to hit 350 (I'm hoping the slow start is a first time anomaly?). I did an oops (I picked the chicken challenge on my phone and it auto-set the grill to 165 -- the recipe calls for 375, what's up with that?) half way through the 350 burn so added another 20 minutes (about 45 total) before I cranked it up to 500.

The salesman suggested the Chicken Challenge and gave me a small vial of chicken rub -- I accepted!

After the 500 degree portion of the burn-in, I set the temp to 375, and gave it 10-15 minutes to settle down and put the chickens on. (my neighbors got a free chicken tonight - woot!)
I pulled the chicken when the probe read 162 (instructions said 160, I added the 2 for insurance) brought them in to my kitchen and stuck an analog thermometer in it which topped out at 150. Called the wife over and she pulled the leg (heeey - not my leg okay?) and said yeah-no, not done yet (she has mad wizard cooking skills I don't have yet). So I put them in for about another 20 minutes until the probe was reading 173 -- and THEN it passed the wife leg-pulling test.
I ordered a probe from thermoworks to double check temps in the future, not exactly pleased with the 10-15 off-degree probe.
Near the end of the cook I added veggies - they came out perfectly, and unlike on the barbeque, had no burned tips.

So it was a little bit of a rocky road up to this point, but you know what?
THIS IS THE BEST DAMN CHICKEN I'VE EVER HAD. The wings were both crunchy AND juicy. The breasts were amazing, flavorful and could taste the rub, but the breasts couldn't hold a candle to the legs and wings! Oh... My... Goodness!

One last thought. I used way more pellets than I expected. Perhaps half of a 20 lb bag.

 

[davwhite]

Like a racing car, the faster you go the more gas you will use. Once you are over 300f you are going to churn through your pellets.
When I do a reverse sear ribeye I will cook it at 225F until the internal is 110F. I then will crank up the gas bbq, put my grill grate on and sear the ribeye 2 mins each side, turning 90 degrees each min. This does a fantastic sear and saves a lot of pellets.