Masterbuilt Gravity Series 800 Review

What gravity feeding actually is

It is worth being precise, because the name is doing a lot of work and the idea is genuinely clever.

The 800 has a tall, narrow charcoal hopper bolted to one side, sealed by gasketed doors. Fuel sits in a vertical column. Only the charcoal at the very bottom of that column is in the firebox and burning; everything above it is just waiting, with too little oxygen to light. A fan under the firebox controls exactly how much air reaches that burning layer, and a controller runs the fan against a temperature probe. As the bottom layer turns to ash, gravity drops the next layer into its place.

The result is a charcoal fire with a throttle. More air means a hotter, faster burn; less air means a cooler, slower one, and the column keeps feeding itself either way. That is the difference between this and every other charcoal cooker on this site, where your only control is how much oxygen reaches a fire that is burning all at once. On a kettle you are managing a fire that is constantly trying to change; here the fire is constantly being told what to do.

Two numbers show what that buys. Masterbuilt publishes 225°F in 8 minutes and 700°F in 14. The first figure is competitive with a gas grill. The second is the one that matters: no pellet grill on this site gets near 700°F, because a pellet fire cannot produce that heat density. This is a charcoal fire, so it can.

We have not cooked on this unit. Everything on this page is read from Masterbuilt’s own product page and its Gravity Series comparison page, from the current Amazon listing, and from arithmetic we do ourselves and label as ours — our methodology explains exactly what that means and what it does not. If you want the 800 ranked against its bigger siblings rather than reviewed on its own, that comparison is on best gravity-fed charcoal smokers, and best grill and smoker combos puts it against the cheaper ways to get one cooker to do both jobs.

The published specs, and what each one is worth

• 800 square inches of cooking area.Masterbuilt publishes the capacity as 36 burgers, 6 racks of ribs, 12 chickens or 57 sausages. For context, that is more than twice a 22-inch Weber kettle’s 363 square inches, and more than the 710 square inches of the electric cabinet we rank first in its own category.
• 225°F to 700°F.This is the single most useful spec on the page, because it is a range no other cooker type here covers. An offset lives between about 225°F and 350°F. A pellet grill usually stops around 500°F. A kettle will reach 700°F but cannot hold 225°F without the snake method and attention. The 800 does both ends by setting a number.
• A 15.9 lb hopper.Masterbuilt’s spec table gives 15.9 lb; its own feature copy says up to 10 lb of lump or 16 lb of briquettes, which is a contradiction, so we print the spec-table figure and flag it. Either way this is a long-cook fuel load: 15.9 lb is most of a 20 lb bag, and a 225°F burn consumes charcoal slowly.
• Reversible cast-iron smoke-and-sear grates, plus a flat-top griddle insert.The griddle is the 800’s distinguishing feature within the range — the 1050 and the XT do not include one. This is the model that genuinely replaces three appliances.
• Up to four meat probes, with app control.Useful, and worth less than it sounds: the probes are the cooker’s, so their accuracy is not independently verifiable, and an app does not improve food. What it does is let you check an overnight cook from inside the house.
• 54.7 x 51.1 x 30.7 inches, per Masterbuilt’s spec table.The same page’s image captions give different dimensions (52 inches wide, 61 tall, 33 deep), so measure your space against the larger set rather than the smaller. This is a cart, not a kettle; it needs a permanent spot.
• A 1-year warranty. See below. This is the number we would push back on hardest.

The three things it is genuinely best at

1. Charcoal barbecue on a Tuesday.This is the real proposition. The reason most people with a kettle and an offset cook barbecue only on weekends is that a charcoal fire wants attention for hours. Eight minutes to 225°F and a thermostat that holds it changes the calculus: ribs become a thing you start after work. Nothing else that burns charcoal on this site does that.

2. Smoke, then sear, without relighting.A reverse-seared steak wants two hours at 225°F and then the hottest surface you own. On every other charcoal cooker that is two fires or a lot of rearranging; here it is a number change and roughly six more minutes, going by Masterbuilt’s own 8-minute and 14-minute figures. The cast-iron sear side of the grates is what makes the second half work.

3. Replacing three cookers with one. With the griddle insert fitted, the 800 is a smoker, a high-heat charcoal grill and a flat-top. If you were otherwise looking at a kettle plus a 28-inch Blackstone plus something to smoke on, the comparison is much more favorable than the sticker suggests. That consolidation is the strongest financial argument for this cooker.

The three things that can fail

This is the section this category usually skips, so here it is plainly. A Weber kettle has no moving parts and nothing electrical. The 800 has three things it can lose, and a 1-year warranty behind them.

The fan and the controller.These are what make the cooker a cooker. If either stops, you do not have a charcoal grill that has lost a convenience — you have a sealed box with no manual air control. There is no limp-home mode. Masterbuilt sells both as service parts, which matters, but a one-year warranty on the component the whole machine depends on is a thin commitment.

The hopper and firebox gaskets. The gravity principle only works because the column is sealed: air must enter where the fan says and nowhere else. Gaskets are wear items on any sealed cooker, they live next to a fire, and when they go the cooker loses temperature control before it shows any other symptom. Budget for replacing them, the same way you would on a gasketed offset, and treat a cooker that has started overshooting as a seal problem first.

Ash management. Charcoal makes far more ash than pellets do, and all of it falls below a fire that is being fed from above. Ash buildup under the firebox is the most common reported cause of a gravity cooker refusing to hold temperature, and it is a maintenance habit rather than a defect: clear it between cooks, not twice a season.

None of that makes this a bad cooker. It makes it a machine rather than a tool, and the difference is worth understanding before you spend. If you want a charcoal cooker you will still be using in twenty years with no service parts at all, that is a kettle, and best charcoal grills under $200 is the page for it.

800, 1050 or XT?

All three run the same gravity-fed firebox, the same controller and the same published 225°F to 700°F range. The cooking is identical. What differs is grate area, the warranty and what is in the box.

The 800 is the one to buy for most people, because it is the only one that includes the griddle insert and 800 square inches is already more than twice a kettle. The 1050 adds 250 square inches and nothing else— same 15.9 lb hopper feeding 30% more cooking area, no griddle, same 1-year warranty — so it is the pick only if you genuinely cook for a crowd often enough to need 7 rib racks rather than 6. The XT is the interesting one: 1,260 square inches, a bigger 17.6 lb hopper, stainless grates instead of cast iron, and a 3-year warranty. Given that the warranty is this platform’s weakest spec, tripling it is a real argument — but the XT costs roughly double an 800, and stainless grates hold less heat than cast iron, which blunts exactly the searing the range is best at.

One honest note about the category: the other well-known gravity cooker is Char-Griller’s Gravity 980. We could not verify a live, purchasable listing for it through the retail channel this site uses — a search on the day this page was written returned only a replacement hopper lid switch — so it is not in our registry and not priced anywhere on this site. It exists and it is worth looking at locally; we just will not quote a price we cannot read from live data.

How this is funded: we earn a commission if you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which product we recommend, and we’ll tell you when we’d skip one, or point you to a cheaper option when it’s the better buy. Full disclosure.

The rest of the range

Gravity Series, compared on what actually differs

Same firebox, same controller, same published 225°F to 700°F range on all three. Live prices read from Amazon with the date on each row; specs from Masterbuilt's own product and comparison pages.

The one to buy

Masterbuilt Gravity Series 800 Digital Charcoal Griddle + Grill + Smoker

800 sq in and the only model with the flat-top griddle insert included.

$889.99 · View on Amazon

Price as of November 12, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

More grate only

Masterbuilt Gravity Series 1050 Digital Charcoal Grill + Smoker

1,050 sq in on the same 15.9 lb hopper, no griddle, same 1-year warranty.

$989.00 · View on Amazon

Price as of November 12, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

Longest warranty

Masterbuilt Gravity Series XT Digital Charcoal Grill + Smoker

1,260 sq in, a 17.6 lb hopper and 3 years instead of 1 — for roughly double the 800.

$1,748.99 · View on Amazon

Price as of November 12, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

How it compares to what you might already own

Against a pellet grill.This is the closest comparison and the 800 wins on two specs that matter: it burns actual charcoal rather than compressed sawdust, and it reaches 700°F where a pellet grill generally stops around 500°F. A pellet grill wins on fuel handling — pellets pour, charcoal is dusty and heavy — and on ash, of which it makes very little. If you have never been satisfied with how much smoke flavor your pellet grill produces, that complaint is the exact reason this cooker exists; how to get more smoke flavor from a pellet grill is the free version of the fix.

Against an offset. An offset burning splits of wood will still produce a better crust and a sharper smoke ring, because a stick fire in a separate box gives you dry radiant heat and combustion gases the 800 cannot match from a smoldering charcoal column. What you give up for that is every afternoon the fire needs tending. Offset vs pellet frames the same trade in the other direction, and it is the right page if you are genuinely weighing effort against flavor ceiling.

Against a kamado.This is the comparison most people underrate. A ceramic kamado also burns charcoal, also reaches 700°F, also holds 225°F for hours, and has no fan, no controller and no gaskets to replace. What it does not have is a set point — you get there with vent adjustments and patience — and it offers nothing like 800 square inches at this money. Ceramic vs steel kamado and kettle vs kamado cover that family properly.

Against a drum smoker.A drum is the other honest answer to “charcoal barbecue without the work,” and it gets there by removing the controls rather than automating them — see best drum smokers. It costs a fraction as much, has nothing electrical in it, and will not sear, griddle or let you pick a temperature.

Who should buy it, and who should not

Buy it ifyou already cook on charcoal, you like the result, and what stops you doing it more often is the time the fire takes. That is precisely the gap this cooker fills, and nothing else fills it. Buy it also if you are consolidating — a smoker, a high-heat grill and a griddle in one cart is a genuinely strong argument.

Do not buy itif you want a cooker with nothing to go wrong. A kettle and a bag of briquettes will outlive this machine and cost a small fraction of it; the kettle just will not hold a number. Do not buy it if your cooking spot has no mains power, because the fan runs for the whole cook. And do not buy it expecting competition bark — for that, the answer is still a stick burner, and best offset smokers for competition is honest about where even retail offsets stop.

One last piece of advice that applies to any cooker with its own probes: get an independent thermometer. The 800 supports four of its own probes and reports what its controller believes, and the only way to know whether the grate is actually at 250°F is to measure it with something that is not part of the cooker. Our best meat thermometerspage covers the options, and the USDA’s guidance cited below is blunt about why color is not a doneness test.