Cuisinart Portable Wood Pellet Grill And Smoker CPG-256

This thing is an awesome portable smoker that produces really good smoked meats, however it has some minor quirks to get used to. Day or night, ambient temp hot or cold the programming is not quite right so the temperature dial and the actual smoker temperature do not match specifically on the lower range (i.e. set to 225F and smoker temp is 290-300F). This seems to match other reviews as well. On the higher range it seems to match much closer to the set temp as a set temp of 500F produces temps around 510-520F. The sear grate is insanely effective and will give a steak a nice crusty sear within 30 seconds. Overall, an amazing smoker packed into a small unit, but it has some minor limitations related to temperature regulation. Product is closer to 4.5 star.

I was initially a big fan and enjoyed this item. However, this unit went rogue and it could have burned down my RV and poisoned me if I continued to use it afterwards. I cannot recommend Cuisinart’s table top smoker.

Cuisinart service was deceptive and missed a chance to keep a customer and referrals. I can verify everthing below from the documentation and exchanges I had with Cuisinart customer services through emails, videos and pictures.

I followed the instructions for set up even though I have had a smoker for 20 years thinking that improper set up and break in was the cause of temperature issues found in other reviews. I can confirm on at least one occasion that at a setting of 180F the temperature was 260F or more. But I dealt with it and was generally pleased to have such a small format smoker available.

Then in late July we turned it on, per instructions, and after it was lit we turned up the temp and went to get the chicken ready. When my wife came out it had flames shooting out of the back slots. Not a typical fire but one under pressure like a forge. The firebox is a forge but it is usually under thermostatic control. This time it was out of control. My wife yelled, “the smoker is on fire” and and I immediately looked. When I saw it, I told her to immediately unplug it and the fire subsided (there was still fire but not being forced out the back slots because the fan was then off.

Cuisinart customer service asked me if the auger was working the whole time which tells me they know somewhat of what happened. I believe both the fan and the auger were working at a very high rate – beyond design because the flame it created was under pressure and was shooting around the shield and under pressure out the back and approximately 12-18 inches above the slots and 3-5 backwards.

I didn’t monitor its performance so I don’t know for sure if the auger ran the whole time, but if it was just the auger, without the fan to feed the flame oxygen it would likely have choked itself out or as other people have described the fire would spread back up the auger into the pellet hopper. IF it were grease fire it might have come out the back but not under force. My wife had cleaned it before the previous use. Additionally, it burned so hot that it caused the fire resistant paint on both the inside and outside to bubble and burn – you can see it in the pictures – on the end, not uniform throughout the unit. Assuming the unit was properly designed for 500 – 600 degrees from a fire, a regular fire, even grease fire should not burn the paint off. You can see that the fire was from under the shield and persisted even after we unplugged it. We think it still burned the over abundance of pellets (trager pellets). You will also note that the burning of the paint is not universal but on the far end, the direction a fire would be forced under a fan, not uniform in the unit. The pictures of the inside of the lid are deceptive because what might appear to be grease is the discoloration of the paint in various levels and stages of it burning up and flaking off. We do cook meat and there are external drippings, but that is not what was burning.

Fortunately we were cooking that day on a metal campground table. If it were on the metal camp table we usually use, about 18-24″ from our RV, it may have caught it on fire from the flames shooting out the back or caught the awning on fire from the height of the flames once they escaped the unit. It burned so hot it melted all of the fire-resistant insulating felt that seals off the cooking area for better temperature control.

I contacted customer service and they engaged me in collecting endless photos for their product development team (doing a post-mortem) and then in the end said they wouldn’t honor the warranty because we used foil on the shields (did I mention I’ve had one for 20 years) and everyone I know puts foil on the shield because they become dirty with baked on food, drippings, grease, etc… It was a chicken ____ answer which told me everything I needed to know about the manufacturer, from whom I will not buy any products.

From reading all the documentation I do not recall any references to foil being an issue in the documentation and the warranty document is missing on line… There are cooked on drippings from doing ribs last time however there was a layer of ash that then covered the drippings and the foil I don’t know whether that is ash from being blown from underneath (remember there was high pressure within the unit) from the big fire or they are ashes from the paint on the inside of lid as it burned off.

The rub is that I disclosed that I used foil in about the 1st round of questions so they led me along to do research for them. Among the questions was whether the auger ran the whole time which discloses that they know of at least one problem. I wanted to document this so that Cuisinart does not have plausible deniability when their unit actually causes an external fire or someone gets hurt from their defective product.

They asked if we have used it since and we have not and will not because besides no trust in their tempurature control, the coatings have been compromised and who knows what toxins that would put in our dinners.

At first I was miffed that they denied my warranty claim, because if they had I would still be a content customer but the truth is that them denying it may save both my health and my RV.

I cannot recommend this unit. I will likely replace it with one from a credible company like Traeger or Pitt Boss and only keep the probe and grids, if they fit.

They showed no integrity in dealing with me even after I asked pointed questions about their intents, they led me on.

My conclusion:
This is a cheap, though good looking and feature rich, knock off that uses low quality components on the inside with high finishes and good design on the outside.
The temperature and brains are faulty and a liability.
The company lacks integrity and will not back their products.

Caveat Emptor.

Small and easy to use. Sits great on a table, and produces quality meats.