Louisiana Grills LG 1100 61100 Wood Pellet Smoker Grill Review
Some wood pellet smokers struggle to stand out from their competitors. While they are all innovative in their design and engineering, it’s hard to incorporate a lot of bells and whistles.
Louisiana Grills doesn’t back down from this challenge one bit with their LG 1100. If anything, it is festooned with features and options that set the bar higher in the competitive wood pellet grill market!
Probably the most impressive is the built-in broiler plate. One knock on a lot of other wood pellet grills is the inability to grill with direct heat and flame. With the Louisiana Grills LG 1100, you simply use tongs to slide a metal plate in the bottom of the primary cooking chamber. This allows you to use direct heat just like you would with a charcoal grill. It even provides you with more total square inches of direct flame than competitor wood pellet grills that also feature a broiler.
The back of the Louisiana Grills LG 1100 also has a proprietary exhaust system with multiple ports. This helps to maximize smoke and heat circulation, while also directing vented smoke out the back away from you as you use it.
The Louisiana Grills LG 1100 comes with sophisticated temperature control and an internal probe thermometer. The two work together to let you know what the heat of the internal chamber is and what the heat of the meat is. Then it works to keep them in proper balance. This greatly reduces the chances of the meat drying out, while also helping you to hold things over if say something gets done a little early or you are waiting for more guests. It works in 5-degree increments to allow you detailed temperature control.
There is also a folding front shelf. If it was a permanently fixed feature you might complain that it’s just going to stain the front of your shirt a dozen times a year, when you reach over a bowl of sauce to adjust the meat. Since it folds away, you can have the shelf when you want it.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Louisiana Grills offer some accessories that are designed to integrate with this unit. They include a large offset smoker cabinet, which is great for doing things like smoking sausages, fish, and jerky.
There is also an accessory hopper extension. This allows you to load up a truly staggering amount of wood pellets for times when you need a very long smoking session, or if you want to smoke something overnight, like a large full brisket, and you don’t want to worry about getting up to reload the wood pellets.
Construction & Ease of Assembly
Louisiana Grills understand that quality is a factor when it comes to investing in a wood pellet grill. They use 14-gauge heavy duty steel throughout, with a very durable powder coat. The grill grates are cast iron that’s been covered with a special non-stick porcelain material.
The directions for putting it together are relatively easy to read for what could be considered a complicated device. However, this grill is very large, and you would be wise to dragoon a friend into helping you.
With an extra pair of hands and some run of the mill tools that you probably already have around the house, it should take around 2 and a half hours to fully assemble the Louisiana Grills LG 1100. If you order the accessory side smoker cabinet, you might need to add on another 30 or 40 minutes.
Grilling Performance
The Louisiana Grills LG 1100 excels at pretty much everything you can ask it to do. As a smoker, it can produce competition level barbecue. It’s 1100 square inches of grates also means that you can make an awful lot of it!
Louisiana Grills also makes a point to not call the upper rack a warming rack. Because it’s not a warming rack at all. It’s large enough to handle one if not two racks of spare ribs! The meat probe thermometer being integrated with the digital read temperature control means that you can closely dial in how hot you want it at any point in a cooking session.
It’s particularly handy if you have a really large pork shoulder, that has started to plateau the temperature, or if you want to dial it down to try smoking your own cured pork belly into homemade bacon. If you like thick plank fillets of wild caught salmon that are done to perfection, being able to control the temperature like this really helps. It also has a very nice range from as low as 170 degrees to a roaring 600!
If you decide to spring for the accessory smoker cabinet, you can also use it for making your own sausages, cold smoked fish and things like slow smoking a whole ham. It’s also really handy for adding real smoke flavor to strips of beef before dehydrating them into jerky.
Something else to keep in mind is that Louisiana Grills also sells their own line of wood pellets that have been enhanced with other specialty woods. This includes things like Minnesota Maple, New England Apple and Maple blend 40/60, Washington Alder, Pennsylvania Cherry and Maple blend 40/60, Competition Blend, Cherry, Texas Mesquite and Maple blend 35/65, Georgia Pecan and Maple blend 40/60, Smokey, Bacon-like flavor, and Tennessee Whiskey Barrel.
Grilling Areas
The Louisiana Grills LG 1100 has a staggering 1061 square inches of grill space, divided into a 731 square inch main rack and a 330 square inch upper rack. This gives you the ability to prepare a massive amount of food.
Special Features
The sliding broiler plate is probably the thing that stands out the most with the LG 1100. It lets you use it just like a normal grill. Yet with a simple slide with a pair of tongs, you can convert it back to a smoker.
The exhaust system might not seem like the sexiest special feature, but it really does a nice job of circulating the smoke in the main chamber. It also seems to keep smoke from flooding your face when you open the main door.
The digital thermostat controller integrated with the meat probe further helps you dial in the relationship between the temperature of the food you are cooking, and the smoke being produced.
Ease to Clean
In general wood pellet grills are pretty easy to clean. You wait until it’s cooled down, a quick blast with the shop vac will suck out any lingering ash from the firebox area. The drippings cup can then be emptied and cleaned.
If you have some excess drippings in the lower unit you should be able to wipe them away with a damp soapy sponge followed by a careful dry with clean paper towels.
Warranty
It comes with a 5-year limited warranty from the date of sale to the original owner only, against defects and workmanship on all steel parts, (excluding the burn grate). There is a 3-year warranty on electrical components.
This level of warranty is one step above most of the competitor wood pellet grills in this class.
Conclusion
If you want a wood pellet grill that can produce competition level barbecue for droves of adoring family and friends, yet can also grill up some steaks on a Tuesday night, then you have to give the Louisiana Grills LG 1100 a good hard look. Everything on it is high-quality and it is designed with intuition and care. Just don’t expect to ever use it as a portable grill, as this thing is massive!
