Cooking without gas: Ninja’s Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill reviewed

For years, BBQ cooking in NZ meant throwing some snags and steaks on a hotplate and nudging them around while sipping a cold beer as they charred. That might be a tried-and-tested approach, but Ninja reckons they’ve invented a better way with the Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill.

As its name suggests, it’s powered by electricity instead of gas. It also has a smoker box that burns wood pellets to add delicious, smoky BBQ flavour to food. Because there are no open flames, the Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill is ideal for apartment balconies and other settings where open flames are not allowed.

While you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill is purely designed for scorching Bambi, it’s way more capable than that, thanks to seven built-in functions, including grill, air-fry, roast, bake, dehydrate, reheat, and smoke.

Ninja earns brownie points from the get-go as the entire setup is packaged in biodegradable paper/cardboard. This mightn’t sound like a big deal, but I find the number of manufacturers who send me a plastic widget to review, which is wrapped and packaged in plastic, to be a real worry.

Anyhow, I digress. In the box, you get pretty much everything you need. As well as two wood pellet starter packs, you also get a pellet scoop, a crisper basket (for air frying), a quick-start guide and temperature probe (more on these later), a grease tray and, of course, the BBQ. That said, a cover and stand are extra. While the grill is weather resistant, it must be protected with a cover or stored indoors. It’s so compact and light that it’s easily packed and stored after use.

Being a Ninja widget, clever design flourishes abound. Wide feet ensure stability, and its alloy body feels solidly built. Its built-in display and controls are super intuitive, but as I found out, RTFM – reading the flipping manual – is definitely a good idea before starting. There’s even a handy slot for the temperature probe to be stowed in when not in use. It might be compact, but its grill plate is surprisingly roomy, measuring 28cm x 37cm, meaning cooking for a crowd isn’t impossible.

Although the manual and quick-start guide are well written, the supplied recipes are best ignored and will likely frustrate BBQ aficionados. My first attempt involved cooking a chicken breast using the recipe book’s recommended settings, which was high for 15 minutes. This resulted in an overcooked and dry piece of chook. Dropping the temperature and cooking for slightly longer delivered a superior piece of chicken cooked evenly and moistly. At the same time, a spice rub provided a tiny amount of crispness. The other gotcha was that you need to fire up the pellet smoker before starting the grill if you want that lovely smoky flavour to get into your food.

The bundled non-stick grill plate can heat up to just over 230°C, which makes searing steaks dead easy. Heat distribution across the grill is even, too. While the front and sides of the BBQ got warm to the touch, they weren’t burning hot, which is a good thing if you’ve got kids and pets.

I added a scoop of the supplied wood pellets to the small smoker box on its right-hand side, pressing the ‘woodfire flavour technology’ button to use its smoker function. I let the ignition process happen (which starts the pellets smouldering to create smoke) and then initiated the selected cooking mode, adding the food I wanted to be smoked/cooked. Adding a smoky note can add a whole new dimension of taste to BBQ food, such as brisket, or even smaller pieces like chicken wings. It isn’t just good for pieces of dead animals, though; veggies worked just as well. I charred and skinned a red capsicum, put it in the grill and smoked it for 20 minutes at a low heat, blitzing and adding it to a tomato pasta sauce for a warming yet gentle smoke note on a cold Wellington day.

Cleaning up after a cook with the grill is a doddle. While most BBQ parts are not dishwasher safe, its non-stick grill plate is removable and easily washed in warm, soapy water. After emptying the spent wood pellet ash from the pellet box, I was ready to go for another cook.

Testing the numerous cooking modes amazed me with what was possible. The steaks were juicy and tender, and (ignoring the included quick-start recipes) the chicken was delicious. Pizza with pellet smoke gave a wood-fired pizza taste you simply cannot get with a conventional stove/oven. Central to getting good results is using the bundled temperature probe. With it connected, you can specify what sort of meat you’re cooking and how you’d prefer it cooked (options range from well done to medium rare/rare). Because the temperature probe measures the internal temperature of the meat and stops cooking once the required level of cooking has been reached, it’s far more accurate (and safe) than the usual BBQ guesswork. The probe is precise enough for most chores. Still, for more specialised dishes, such as a low and slow tri-tip brisket that needs very specific levels of cooking/resting, I’d recommend a Meater wireless thermometer, which provides more accurate temperature measurement.

I also liked that the BBQ gives you a gentle reminder to flip the meat and, critically, to rest the meat so that it’s rested and tender when served.

The air frying function is also a winner. The sizeable crisper basket means I can make enough chips for a crowd using a tiny fraction of the cooking oil you’d use for a single serving of conventionally cooked fries.

The Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill’s other killer feature is its sheer online following. There are endless YouTube clips, Facebook forums, and so on. Finding recipes and cooking tricks/techniques is dead easy, making the Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill even more rewarding.

If lugging around large gas cylinders is a hassle, or you simply don’t have the space for a big old-school gas BBQ and flames are a no-no, the sheer versatility and portability of the Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill (and its delicious smokiness) is hard to beat. Easy-to-use controls, smart cooking via the included temperature probe, and the ability to add smoke without lighting fires make it a winner.

https://ninjakitchen.co.nz/products/ninja-woodfire-electric-bbq-grill-smoker-og751