My last grill was an inexpensive Blue Ember and was propane fired, but it was good enough to convince me I wasn't giving up anything in the flavor department by giving up charcoal. But the drip pan inside the Blue Ember rotted through after seven years, and I wanted a grill that would last forever given normal care. The Blaze grills are one of the few that feature near 100% stainless steel construction, so there are no concerns about rotting drip pans or ceramic coatings flaking off the grills. I ordered the 32" 4 burner LTE version from BBQGuys.com, and it includes lighted dials and a pair of lamps under the hood for grilling at night, something I do quite a lot of in the winter months here in California.
The grill arrived by freight company truck, and I used my tractor with fork attachment to get it down off the truck. Not a big deal, but you should be aware that the pallet was large and too heavy for even two people to pick up. There was some visible damage to a couple of the boxes, so I made note of it on the delivery receipt before I signed it. When I unpacked the parts (and there were a lot of them), it was obvious that the pallet had been dropped at some point, and several of the cabinet panels were bent at the corners and the hood had a small dent in it. I also found that the lenses for the under hood lamps had broken loose from their packaging, and one had been damaged. I also found that the inner and outer pieces of one of the cabinet doors had not been welded together at the factory, but by looking at the other one was able to fix it with equipment I have on hand. Not the best delivery experience, and I ended up with a TON of left over cardboard and a pallet to get rid of.
A few days later I called BBQGuys and told them of my problems. Even though their web site says they pride themselves in their customer service, they said I'd have to purchase a new lens for the interior light, and didn't even apologize for the time it took me to correct the bad door and bent parts. I hung up in disgust, but two weeks later a new lens arrived in the mail. I should have called Blaze instead, but Amazon reviews indicate they aren't much better.
I'm pretty mechanically inclined, and didn't have too much trouble with the assembly. The supplied instructions could use some better photos to help with identifying which parts went where, but trial-and-error was enough to get it done. As one Amazon reviewer noted, Blaze left a lot of razor sharp edges on the sheetmetal cabinet components, but by working carefully and slowly, by myself, I was able to get it put together without any trouble. I did have to use the forks on the tractor again to lift the grill into position on top of the cabinet. If I'd have had a helper, that wouldn't have been necessary.
Once assembled, the cabinet/grill assembly seems very sturdy and the wheels make it very easy to move. My patio has several expansion joints in it, and the wheels rolled over them easily even though smaller wheels on other items will catch and have to be lifted out. The only thing left to do was drop in a propane bottle and connect it to the regulator, then plug the grill in to an AC outlet to power the lamps. It fired right up and I followed the instructions to season the grills, all of which went just fine.
My first real cooking experience on the grill came at a gathering I hosted for a couple dozen people. I grilled bratwurst sausages for everyone, and I found out that while the grill puts out plenty of heat, it's not at all evenly distributed across the grilling surface. The sausages at the back of the grill cooked about twice as fast as the ones at the front, and I was forced to rotate the sausages from back to front to keep them from burning. Pretty inconvenient and time consuming, especially if you're hosting an event like I was at the time. I also learned that the warming rack sits too low over the grill and it's easy to burn your hands on it when reaching underneath it to turn or move food. I also had trouble with the grill being too hot even when turned all the way down. My previous grill would almost never burn food, even with the hood down, but the Blaze couldn't be trusted with the hood down at all, even at the lowest setting.
After the event, I went back and read the user guide again, and found the instructions for adjusting the opening of the valves controlled by the knobs on the front. I found that the flame could be set much lower than set by the factory and adjusted each burner down until the flame started to sputter and pop, then back up until they ran smoothly. I also adjusted the shutter on the burner to eliminate the orange color that they were burning with, also another factory snafu. But even after these adjustments, the aptly named Blaze still cooks too hot even at the lowest setting, and I have yet to be able to close the hood while cooking, at least in warm spring and summer weather. Maybe that's a good thing because closing the lid in the winter time will almost certainly produce more than enough heat, even when it's raining. The only time I have been able to close the hood is while cooking ribs with indirect heat, where I can set one burner at the far left to 50% and end up with the desired 225F heat under the closed hood. But that brings up another problem, in that the thermometer built into the hood registers a much higher temperature than at the cooking surface of the grill. How do I know this, you might ask? I purchased a two probe temperature gauge, where one probe is pointed so it can be inserted into the meat being cooked, and the other comes with a little metal bracket that attaches to the grill surface and holds the probe about an inch off the surface. When the "air" probe was showing 225F, the Blaze thermometer in the hood was showing about 300F. If I'd been relying on the Blaze thermometer to cook my ribs, they'd never have gotten hot enough to avoid trichinosis. Not good.
On the other hand, the high heat available on any of the burners works fantastic for grilling steaks. My old grill never got hot enough to actually char the meat, and now I know what char is and how much it improves the character and flavor of properly charbroiled meat. Not sure why you'd need the special searing burner Blaze offers, unless perhaps you're cooking a grill full of steaks, and then you'd need one for every burner.
That reminds me of another shortcoming, or perhaps it's just a problem with this particular grill. When more than one burner is running with the valve at the highest setting, opening additional valves will decrease the heat available from the first burner. As more valves are opened, the grill produces less and less heat at each burner, until with all four burners open, the heat level is down by about a third of what is available using just one burner. I don't know you'd get a good char on a grill full of steaks in this situation, so it's something to think about if you want to use this grill to feed a small army with well prepared steaks.
At the end of the day, I wasn't very happy with the delivery experience, or the warranty response of the merchant I purchased from (BBQGuys.com). I am very happy with the build quality of the grill, and am pretty sure it will outlast me. I seldom cook for large numbers of people, and am starting to learn how to work around the uneven heating issues. I had hoped for much more even heat than is available on the Blaze, especially considering its near two thousand dollar price tag. Had I the opportunity to purchase again, I'd have done more research and found a grill that cooks just as hot but more evenly. But I'm not sure one is available that is made almost entirely from stainless steel.
