RecTeq RT-1250 Backyard Beast

“Picked up a Recteq Backyard Beast from Ace Hardware and had a few solid cooks on it early on. Then I grabbed some beautiful ribeyes from Costco to reverse sear for the family — set the temp to 225°F and walked away. Next thing I know, there’s a ton of smoke pouring out. I check and find a massive grease fire — the grill had jumped to 450°F on its own. Steaks were totally ruined. Figured maybe it was user error and gave it another shot the next day with burgers — again doing a reverse sear at 225°F. This time, the grill ran 50+ degrees hotter than the setpoint the entire time. That was the last straw. Returned it to Ace the next day and picked up a Weber Searwood XL 600 instead. No regrets so far. Holds temp rock-solid, and the ability to actually grill on a pellet cooker has been awesome. I’m 12 hours into a pork butt cook at 250°F right now — not a single hiccup. Used manual mode to sear burgers earlier too, and it performed flawlessly.”