The Weber Searwood 600 is a 648 sq in pellet smoker-grill with a cast aluminium cookbox, a 20 lb side hopper, Wi-Fi app control and a range of 180°F to 600°F. AmazingRibs.com gave it 5/5 and its Platinum Medal, reporting some of the best smoke flavour it has had from a pellet cooker plus genuine searing heat across the whole grate. Serious Eats names it the best pellet smoker from Weber and a strong choice for beginners, though it did not find its wings especially smoky. It suits cooks who want one pellet grill for both brisket and steak; anyone who needs lots of shelf space or wants to move the grill often should look elsewhere.
Full review
Smokes at 225°F and sears at 600°F on one grate
AmazingRibs.com reports that everything it cooked, from ribs and pulled pork to a rib eye roast, came off with some of the best smoke flavour, colour and aroma it has had from any pellet burner, and it never needed the SmokeBoost setting. It credits the open, V-shaped flavorizer bar design, which exposes the whole cooking surface to flame from the burn pot, and says the grill out-sears a number of gas grills it has tested, though not a charcoal grill. Serious Eats found the wide range produced excellent low-and-slow wings and well-browned steaks, but was less convinced on smoke, describing its wings as not supremely smoky.
Easy to run, easy to clean, short on shelf space
Serious Eats says the Searwood is simple enough to operate without opening the manual, and rated assembly as easy. AmazingRibs.com found the Weber Connect controller and app useful, with two probe ports and one probe included, plus a manual mode for cooking with the lid open on the optional griddle. Cleaning is handled by slide-out trays that catch ash and grease, and the diffuser collects ash so the burn pot stays clearer; after around 100 lb of pellets the reviewers still had not needed a shop vac. Both publications flag the lack of work space: the hopper lid is the only shelf, and AmazingRibs.com adds that the 125 lb grill would benefit from casters.
Runs a little cool, so cooks can take longer
The main caveat from AmazingRibs.com's temperature tests is accuracy. Its probes showed the main grate and upper rack running about 15°F below the set temperature at 225°F, 350°F and 600°F, which made low-and-slow cooks take longer than expected; its advice is simply to set the dial higher. A bread test showed fairly even heat with a slight drop on the left side. At its $999 list price the Searwood sits at the top of this category's budget, but AmazingRibs.com still describes the price as surprisingly modest for what it does, and Weber covers the cookbox for five years.
Strengths
- +Produces smoke flavour across its full 180°F to 600°F range, including when searing
- +Cooked low-and-slow wings and well-browned seared steaks in the same test run
- +Simple enough for beginners to run without reading the manual
- +Slide-out trays collect ash and grease, making cleaning straightforward
- +Burns any good-quality pellet brand, not just Weber's own
Watch-outs
- −Grate temperature ran about 15°F below the set point at all tested settings
- −Very little work surface; side tables are an optional extra
- −Heavy at 125 lb and has no casters on the left legs
How it compares
Where the Traeger Pro 780 is aimed at large batches and the Traeger Pro 22 at simple traditional smoking, the Searwood 600 is built around searing as well as smoking, reaching 600°F across its 648 sq in of grates. It lists at $999, at the top of this category's budget.
Rating sources
“We have no choice but to award the Weber Searwood 600 Pellet Grill our top AmazingRibs.com Platinum Medal.”
Not in the average — we derived this score from the review's words, and a publisher printed a score for this product, so the printed number counts instead.
Our 5.0 score is the average of 1 of the scored reviews above. 1 derived score above is not in the average because a publisher printed a score for this product. Ratings marked * were derived from the reviewer’s written analysis or video transcript — the publisher didn’t print an explicit numeric score, so we inferred one from their own words. Click through to verify. More about methodology.
