Fast Eddy’s by Cookshack PG1000 Review

In the beginning pellet cookers were used mostly as smokers because they didn’t really have high temperature grilling ability. After more than a decade of design revisions, most pellet burners still cannot do both well. Introduced in 2010, the Fast Eddy’s by Cookshack PG1000 takes an innovative approach to being both a low and slow smoker and a fast cooking grill.

The PG1000 is a collaborative design from Cookshack of Ponca City, OK and “Fast Eddy” Maurin, winner of numerous awards on the competition BBQ circuit. The FEC line, (Fast Eddy’s by Cookshack) has been popular with competitive teams for years. The PG500 and PG1000 are the first residential FECs.

Although similar to other backyard pellet cookers in appearance, the PG1000 differs most significantly from the competition by moving away from the standard design of a fire pot on the bottom, a diffuser plate in the middle, and a cooking grate above. This design makes most pellet cookers exclusively indirect convection cookers, so it is impossible to have a 2-zone system, the best configuration for grilling, or to get direct flame contact for a high temperature sear.

Fast Eddy’s revolutionary design provides four distinct cooking zones. Zone one is a 10″ wide x 18″ deep direct cooking area with the firepot directly below so flames can directly contact the food for high temperature grilling. Finally a pellet grill that can properly sear a steak! Zone two located to the right of the firepot is an 18″ x 18″ indirect zone for roasting with or without smoke. Zones three and four are are spread across a 10″ x 28″ secondary cook surfaces above Zones one and two. Zone three above the firepot, is significantly hotter than Zone four above the indirect primary cook surface.

The direct zone has cast iron grates which produce superior conductive heat for searing but are prone to rust. The other two zones have nickel plated wire grates.

The digital controller is simple and easy to use. The cooking chamber is insulated resulting in lower pellet consumption and higher temps, especially in cold weather. The ash drawer is front-mounted making cleanout easy. The 25 pound capacity pellet hopper is mounted on the side. The body is stainless steel and the whole unit is covered by a 30-day money back guarantee and a 2-year limited warranty. When is the last time you saw a money back guarantee on a grill? The price sits at the high end of the personal pellet cooker market, competing with the Memphis Pro and the MAK 2-Star General.

Although the combustion cup in the direct grilling zone puts out plenty of searing heat, the temp drops off rapidly as you move away from the center of the relatively small area. If you are grilling steaks with the lid open, you cannot control the heat output from the burn cup. In fact, Fast Eddy recommends leaving the lid closed even when trying to sear. In addition, the fact that there is no cover over the flame allows ash to blow into the cooking chamber, often landing on your food. Thankfully the small cast iron grate and heat deflector can be easily removed and ash swept into a slide out ash pan below the fire pot to mitigate this nuisance. Interestingly, this configuration creates a convection flow of hot air cooking from the top on the indirect side rather than the bottom as do most other pellet smokers.

The PG1000 comes with a side shelf and 40 pounds of pellets.