Broil King Regal Pellet 500 Review

First Impressions of the Broil King Regal Pellet 500

Delivery is the first thing to plan. Assembled, this grill weighs 250 lbs. The larger of two published dimension sets puts it at 58.75 in wide. Neither figure is a problem in the yard, and both are a problem in a hallway.

Built up, it reads as a gas cabinet that swallowed a barrel. Matte black paint, a short wide chimney, a stainless handle spanning the lid. A steel box bolted to one end holds the pellets, controller set into its face.

Nothing in the silhouette suggests a grill built down to a weight. It is squat, wide and plainly heavy, and it does not apologise for any of that.

The lid deserves a moment by itself. There are two skins to it, and a woven oven-grade gasket between it and the chamber. Closing it sounds more like a chest freezer than a barbecue.

A brisket flat and two racks of ribs went on together first. Cooking both at once is the point of buying this size. Both probes went in and the app found them. The smoke stayed mild and clean, the way a pellet fire runs.

Key Features of the Broil King Regal Pellet 500

What makes this cooker distinctive is metal, not code. The controller is capable and fairly ordinary. The steel wrapped around it is the expensive part.

Read the feature list against the smaller Regal Pellet and it matches almost line for line. What differs is the size of what that hardware has to manage.

• Cast-iron cooking grids: heavy-duty cast iron across the full 625 sq in primary grid. Iron supplies what a fan cannot deliver on demand.
• Stainless steel where it earns its keep: lid handle, side shelf, drip tray, rotisserie spit and forks, and the burn pot. The chamber itself is painted steel.
• Rotisserie in the box: the spit, the forks and the motor are all included. Wide chambers are the ones with clearance to swing a bird.
• Multiple vents and dampers: the stack is wide steel, and the Roto-Draft damper works inside it. Adjusting it leans the draw instead of shutting it off.
• LED controls: there is backlighting on the dial collar and the power switch. On a cooker you tend after dark, that stops being decoration.
• Two electronic meat probes: the jacks sit low on the panel face. Readings travel to Broil King’s app by WiFi or Bluetooth.
• Smart-Touch presets: three buttons labelled Smoke, Roast and Grill flank the dial. No menu to walk through.
• Four ways out for the mess: a stirrer works the burn pot and ash drops to a collector. Grease reaches a lined tray, under a stainless drip tray.

Before you plan a cook, look hard at the area figures. They run 625 sq in for the primary grid and 200 sq in for the secondary. Total cook space is then given as 865 sq in, warming rack included.

Those two parts do not reach that total. The shortfall belongs to the maker, not to your arithmetic. Plan against 625 sq in, since that is the grid your food actually sits on.

Heat and cooking performance

A pellet fire is small, and everything after it is retention. Whatever the walls fail to keep, the yard gets. These walls are 2 mm, under a double-wall lid squeezing an oven-grade gasket. On the long sits, a chamber that simply stays put is the whole job.

Searing has the right hardware beneath it. A fan moves air, and iron holds energy. Only one of those two marks a steak. Cast iron runs the full width of the primary grid here.

The reservation is the one this size creates. The burn pot, the auger and the induction fan are the parts the 400 uses. Here they answer to 625 sq in rather than 500, inside a wider box. Open the lid for long enough and there is simply more volume to make up.

Build, handling and durability

This is where the money shows. Two mm steel makes the chamber and cast iron makes the grids. The outside carries paint rated to 1,000°F. Handle, side shelf, drip tray and burn pot are all stainless.

Four legs hold it up, and two of them adjust for a sloping slab. Wheels are fitted at one end only. So at 250 lbs the move is a tilt and a shove. Then years of standing still.

Broil King’s own page is less careful than its steel. It gives two dimension sets and labels neither. It calls the warming rack porcelain-coated in one line and stainless steel in another. Neither slip changes the cooking, and both should be tidier at this price.

Running costs, upkeep and value

What this grill costs to run comes back to the part nobody enlarged. Its hopper takes up to 22 lbs, exactly as the Pellet 400’s does. A wider chamber with more grid draws on that same load. Refilling is the quiet tax on the extra room.

Broil King prints nothing about how quickly either model works through a load. So the interval cannot be planned from the page. Fill it, cook, and watch the level yourself on the first long session.

Upkeep is where this design is least grudging. The burn pot carries an agitator to break up what a fire leaves behind. A removable collector then takes the ash out from underneath.

Grease gets caught twice on its way down. A stainless drip tray sits under the food. A concealed tray beneath that runs disposable liners. Neither one wants a tool to come free.

Cast iron asks for a habit in return. A wipe of oil after cooking and a dry cover is the whole of it. Neglect that and the grids will corrode long before anything else here does.

Value is clearest against the grill one size down. Broil King lists the Pellet 400 at $1,299 CAD for 500 sq in of primary grid. It lists this one at $1,499 CAD for 625 sq in. The grid grows faster than the price.

A size step inside one family rarely falls in the buyer’s favour. US retail sits around $1,399, which is the figure most buyers will actually pay. The rotisserie kit, both probes and the app are inside that number already.

Possible Broil King Regal Pellet 500 Complaints

• The hopper did not grow with the grill: 22 lbs is the load the smaller Pellet 400 carries. A wider chamber and more grid draw it down sooner. You notice on exactly the long cooks that made you want this size. Keep a spare bag within arm’s reach.
• Width and weight choose the spot for you: 250 lbs, and 58.75 in on the larger published dimension set. Wheels sit under one end only, so moving it is a tilt and a shove. Measure the gate and the patio corner before you order.