Z Grills Multitasker Review

The ZGrills Multitasker 11002b wi-fi pellet grill is a beast of a grill at the $1,200 price point. The goal of this article is to help you decide if this is the grill for you, so we're going to show you the tests and cooks we've done to help you know if this is the one.

Let's start with the specs, which tell us the scope we're working within on the Z Grills 11002B.

Quick Z Grills Multitasker 11002b Specs

Packaging and Assembly

The grill is huge, and it comes pretty much fully assembled, so the box is very large as well. The Z Grills 11002b came to us on a pallet from a delivery truck with a motorized lift gate to get it down to street level. Our driver was nice enough to use a pallet dolly to deliver it right into the garage for us, and we invited some friends over for assembly.

It took about 45 minutes to put on the legs and finish assembling the grill, so not very difficult at all when compared to the pellet grills that ship in pieces. I'd rate this assembly a 4 out of 10 since it's quite easy to roll the grill over in the box, screw on the legs and lift the grill upright and get cooking.

Quality Build

We test a ton of grills here at The Barbecue Lab, and the build quality of the Z Grills 11002b Multitasker stands out in a very good way.

The first thing I noticed when I walked up to the pellet grill the first time is that there was a lid gasket. That's not something you see very frequently on a pellet grill. Most manufacturers say that pellet grills aren't meant to trap in smoke, so it's fine if they leak smoke out of the door and anywhere else out of the cooking chamber. I disagree, and I love seeing a gasket around the entire cooking chamber door.

The pellet grill door is also double-walled, which means that there's an inner metal wall and an outer metal wall with a separation between them. This allows the grill to resist the weather and wind since the outer wall isn't also the cooking chamber wall. The only other pellet grill that I've run into with a double wall main chamber door is a Memphis Grill, and it's a $4,000 grill.

Both the gasket and the double-wall help maximize fuel efficiency in a way that not many pellet grills at this price point are equipped to do.

Other components like the heat deflector, porcelain-coated steel grill grates, and lockable wheels are things we'll get into here in a bit, but I was very impressed with the overall build quality of this cooker.

Z Grills Multitasker 11002b Wi-fi pellet Grill Features

Wood Pellet Hopper

The pellet hopper is where wood pellets are stored, and the Z Grills 11002b holds 28 pounds of pellets at a time. That's a lot of pellet hopper capacity, giving you between 15-25 hours of cooking time depending on what temperature you want to cook with.

There's a lovely bamboo cutting board that nestles on top of the hopper, and it comes in the box instead of being an extra paid accessory.

If you haven't cooked with wood pellets before, they're known for infusing rich smoky flavor while cooking when compared with propane or gas grills.

Cooking Chamber

To call this a large cooking chamber is an understatement. When you put the Z Grills 11002B Multitasker next to other grills in the same price range, it's one of the largest grills for the price.

Large Front Shelf

There's a front shelf that wraps around from the cooking chamber to the pellet hopper. It's easily the widest shelf that I'm aware of on any pellet grill. What it totes in width it also lacks in-depth though, so it's less helpful for deep trays of meat than it is for sauces, plates, and tools.

Wi-Fi Control Board

The controller is wifi enabled, so you can control the ZGrills Multitasker wi-fi pellet grill with your mobile device. There's a super smoke mode button on the front of the control panel that maximizes the control board's ability to infuse meat with smoke flavor, and it's a simple 1 push operation.

The pellet grill comes standard with 2 stainless steel meat probes, and there are two probe ports on the controller to monitor the internal temperature of your food.

Z Grills App

The Z Grills smartphone app is rather intuitive and easy to install. Just visit the App store for your device and search for "Z Grills app" to locate it. While not as thoroughly graphically designed as the Traeger and Grilla Grills counterparts, all of the functionality that you need is in the app for remote control.

I tend to set my pellet grills to cook when I know I'm going to be away at a basketball game for the kids or a practice for a musical, so having control while I'm gone is a must for me.

The Z Grills app makes it easy for me to control the temperature of the cooking chamber and monitor the internal temperatures of my meat anywhere I have a data signal.

Getting Started with the Z Grills Multitasker 11002b

I want to make sure you have all the tools at your disposal to get the best smoking performance out of this pellet grill. There's nothing like wood-fired flavor added to all your favorite recipes, and it all starts with getting the grill seasoned.

I recommend taking out the grill grates, the deflector plate, and anything else that's keeping you from being able to see the fire cup in the bottom of the grill. Now that the burn cup is easy to see, it's time to fire up the grill and hold down the prime button on the front of the controller.

This is going to continuously turn the auger and feed pellets down the auger and into the fire cup. The goal is to get the auger primed with pellets, so the first time you try to light up your grill, there are pellets dropping in instead of air.

When the first pellet hits the cup, go ahead and turn the grill off and start it up again normally, without holding the prime button this time. Start putting the components back into the grill and start watching for signs of smoke telling you that the ignitor is working to ignite pellets and get the pellet grill started.

Once you have everything back in, it's time to season the grill. For this, I like to buy a spray can of Canola oil and spray down any bare metal I can find in the cooking chamber. The goal here is to give that metal a barrier to moisture, and the burn-in that we're getting ready to do will set that oil and protect the grill, even if it gets wet from things you're cooking in the future.

As the cooking chamber is coated with oil, close the lid and set the pellet grill to 400 degrees, then let it run for an hour before you put anything in it that you'd want to eat. The burn-off and seasoning process will get rid of any unwanted oils from manufacturing that might linger. Once the hour is up, you're ready to cook on your new Z Grills 11002b Multitasker pellet grill.

Cooking on the Z Grills Multitasker

We've cooked all kinds of things on the Z Grills 11002b in the past few months, and I want to outline some of my favorite things we've cooked with it. I'll sort them by the cooking methods to keep it somewhat organized.

The Biscuit Test

The first test that I suggest everyone runs on their new pellet grill is the biscuit test. You simply take a can of store-bought biscuits and place them directly on the grill grates, evenly spaced out, 4 in the back row and 4 in the front row. Cook the biscuits according to the time and temperature on the package instructions.

After the timer goes off, flip your biscuits over keeping them in the same position on the grates. The bottom of the biscuits will tell you the story of where your pellet grill might have hot spots or cold spots that you'll want to be aware of for future cooks.

Our Z Grills 11002b Multitasker passed the biscuit test with flying colors, with a perfectly even cook of the biscuits from front to back and side to side.

Smoking Test: Cooking Low and Slow

When I'm cooking low and want more smoke flavor, I turn on the super-smoke mode. I could cook on low with my indoor oven, but since we're smoking here, the super-smoke setting brings more smoke to the party, and that's what I'm really looking for.

The first cook was baby back ribs with a sweet and spicy rub. I set the grill to 225° and let the pork soak in the smoke for 3 hours before we wrapped them up in butter, honey, and brown sugar wrap. After a total cook time of 5 hours, the ribs had a gorgeous bite-through without the meat pulling off the bone. Straight-up competition ribs on the Multitasker 11002b.

The next cook was a pork butt, where we made some pulled pork for a few burritos. I let the pork run at 250° for 5 hours, and I didn't open the grill until the 3-hour mark. There's so much intermuscular fat in a pork shoulder that it doesn't need much attention when you're cooking slowly, but we wrapped it in butcher paper when it reached 160° internal temperature to push through the BBQ stall.

When the pork hit 200° internally, we took it off the pellet grill and let it rest in a dry cooler for 2 hours before we broke into it. Absolutely delicious pulled pork with a smokey goodness that pushed that burrito over the top.

Hot and Fast Test

Cooking on the Multitasker 11002b hot and fast is simply a temperature difference from our low and slow cook. We're still working with indirect heat, it's just a hotter temperature overall.

We purchased a whole chicken and cut it in half like what you'd find at an official BBQ joint. The chicken was coated in a blackening seasoning from Smoked Bros, and it only took about an hour of cooking time at 400° to take this chicken half from raw to 160° internally. I know that the chicken is going to carry over in temperature another 5 degrees minimum, so I like to pull my chicken around 160 to keep it juicy, and the Multitasker 11002b didn't disappoint.

Grilling Test

One of the Achilles heals of the pellet grill is usually searing meat. There aren't many pellet smokers out there that have the ability to put a great sear on a burger or decent grill marks on a chicken breast, so we tested both to see if we could get the ultimate grilling experience on a wood pellet grill.

We know that a gas grill can deliver heat and sear, but it's flavorless for the most part, and the pellet grill brings flavor to a grill session. The Z Grills 11002b has a high-temperature setting of 500° Fahrenheit, so we set it as high as it would go and let it heat up for about a half hour.

For the burgers, we used 80/20 ground beef and made one-third-pound burger patties. For the grills, we set up a GrillGrate Sear Station on one side of the grill and the factory grates on the other side to compare the searing potential of both.

Even set to high heat, it's still definitely indirect heat, which was very evident as we flipped the burgers. There were little to no sear marks on the burger cooked on the factory grates, though the burger cooked on a GrillGrate Sear Station did show some visible grate marks.

Searing meat is a task that the Z Grills Multitasker won't really be able to do without additional add-on accessories such as GrillGrates.

Cleaning and Maintenance of the Z Grills Multitasker

Cleaning these grills isn't my favorite part of the review, but I'm a firm believer that you should know going into it what you're signing up for when it comes time to clean.

There are two types of cleaning with any pellet grill I've ever worked with. The first is the cleaning you'll do every time you finish using it. Cleaning the grates, and making sure you turn it off the right way so the leftover pellets can burn through; pretty simple tasks.

The second type of cleaning is the deeper clean that you do every 3-4 cooks. This is where you clean the grease tray, remove the ash debris, and clean out the burn pot.

The Z Grills 11002b cleaned up like pretty much every other typical pellet grill: the old-fashioned way. You take off the grill grates, the diverter plate, and anything else that's in the way of the bottom of the grill, grab your Shop Vacuum and it only takes about 20 seconds to hit the pellet cup and the bottom of the grill to clean it up.

There are a couple of brands that have certain features to lighten the load of pellet grill cleanup, (I'm looking at you, Camp Chef!) but Z Grills sits with the majority of the crowd on this one, leaving the cleanup responsibility with the user.

Z Grills Warranty

The ZGrills Multitasker 11002b wi-fi pellet grill has a 3-year manufacturer warranty, and you can find out more information on the ZGrills website.

Recommended Accessories for the Z Grills Multitasker

Grill Cover

If you're planning on keeping your grill outside, you're going to want a cover to protect your investment. I have the official ZGrills cover, and I like it. It's not a snug fit over the grill, so it's incredibly easy to get off and on with just one person. If it's windy, you'll want to use the hook and loop straps to tie it down tighter so you don't find the cover in the neighbor's yard.

Our Z Grills Multitasker 11002b wi-fi pellet grill Review

If I was going to sum up the ZGrills Multitasker 11002B grill, I'd talk about the huge main cooking grate, the "shelves everywhere" concept and the even heating that you can get from left to right and front to back.

If you like cooking for a crowd, having even distribution of heat across the entire grill grate and more shelves than you can fill with bbq accessories, the Multitasker 11002b is the grill for you.

What we love about the Z Grills Multitasker 11002b