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When you think of a pellet grill, you probably don’t think about fire-kissed steaks, but Oklahoma Joe’s has changed the pellet grill game with the Rider DLX. 

Disclosure Oklahoma Joe’s compensated me for this review. Opinions are my own.

Oklahoma Joe's Rider DLX Pellet Grill

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Pellet grills all work in the same traditional fashion. A box, called the hopper, is filled with wood pellets. Once the grill is on, the pellets are fed through an auger to a fire pot where an electric heat source burns the pellets, creating smoke. 

graphic showing pellets running through an auger to a fire pot

With standard pellet grills, you can raise and lower the temperature of the grill, and your meat is protected by a metal diffuser plate that blocks the direct heat.


How the Rider DLX Pellet Grill Is Different

Instead of a solid metal diffuser plate that runs the length of the grill, the Rider DLX has a round heat baffle that surrounds the fire pot. Because of its design, pitmasters can finally use a pellet grill for both direct and indirect cooking. 

handle in smoke position with center holes covered

The baffle has a vent-like feature with a handle controlling it on the front of the grill. Slide it to smoke mode, and the vent is closed. In this setting, the heat and smoke are evenly dispersed throughout the grill. 

handle in sear position with center holes open

But slide that puppy to sear, and the vents open up turning your pellet grill into a direct heat source, so you can sear up burgers and steaks like a champ.

ribeye steak on grate with flames

To Get Started

The Oklahoma Joe’s Rider DLX is a beast of a pellet grill constructed with heavy-gauge steel. If you don’t have it assembled at the store, you definitely need two people to put it together. Assembly is quite easy. It actually took more time to unwrap all the pieces than it did to put them all together. 

parts of the Oklahoma Joe's Rider DLX Pellet Grill

You start by mounting the pit control station to the hopper. Then, you add the smaller wheels to the legs. You’ll only need a wrench and screwdriver. 

using a wrench to tighten a nut

Next, you turn the whole grill on its side to add the legs and bottom shelf.

sliding a bolt into a hole

With a retaining clip, you’ll add the signature Oklahoma Joe’s wagon-style wheels. Then, you can stand the grill back up. 

man's hand adding a pin to assemble a wheel onto a pellet grill

From this point, you no longer need a helper. The rest is pretty easy to do on your own. You’ll add the pellet bucket mount, ash cup, side rack, tool hooks, smoke stacks and lid handle. Then, just slide in the grease tent, heat baffle, flex grates, flex rack and grease buckets.


Rider DLX Features

Before we start cooking, let me explain some of those cool features I just rattled off, because you won’t find them on other pellet grills. 

pellets falling through bottom of hopper

The Pellet Bucket Mount

I like using different pellets for different meats. Cherry, hickory and oak are great with beef, and hickory, pecan and apple are awesome with pork. 

Changing pellets isn’t always easy though. I’ve had other pellet grills that have a tiny hole in the back that you can open to empty the hopper, but the pellets always fly all over the place.

The Rider DLX comes with a pellet bucket (and I recommend buying a couple more). When you want to empty the hopper, you slide the bucket into the bucket mount under the hopper. 

Then, you pull the side handle and a door opens on the bottom and empties all the pellets into the bucket. Pop the lid on the weatherproof bucket and you can store that blend for another cook. 

hand holding cup of ashes

The Ash Cup

My least favorite part about cooking with a pellet grill is the cleanup. You usually have to take out the grates, take out a heat diffuser plate and vacuum out the ash. It’s a pretty messy job. 

With the Rider DLX, the engineers created an ash cup that screws onto the bottom of the grill. As the pellets burn off, the ashes drop into the cup. So when you’re done cooking, all you have to do is unscrew it and empty the ashes. 

Then, screw it back on for your next cook. 

griddle pan on Oklahoma Joe's Rider DLX Pellet Grill

The Ryder DLX Flex Grate & Flex Rack System

This pellet grill has one other feature worth pointing out. You’ll notice the bottom grate has a circular inset. This circular Flex Grate can be removed and interchanged with some of the Oklahoma Joes accessories like the griddle and deep dish pan.

Additionally, the grill comes with two upper racks that run the length of the grill and mount on four tracks along the back of the grill. Instead of the two long racks, you can use a smaller Multipurpose Flex Rack, a Rib Flex Rack or Drumstick & Pepper Flex Rack. 

This is a great solution when you want to smoke a large piece of meat, like a turkey. You can cook that on one side and then use the smaller racks to layer your side dishes or other meats. 


Prepping for your first cook

Before cooking on a new grill, you always want to burn off the initial manufacturing residue. The Rider DLX comes with a manual to walk you through your first start up. It will take more than an hour, so keep that in mind. 

One technique I learned several years ago is to run the biscuit test before cooking on a new grill. Grilling is all about mastering heat and fire – even on a pellet grill. The chamber on the DLX is huge, so it’s only natural that every square inch of cooking space won’t be exactly the same.

Biscuits Cooking on Oklahoma Joe's Rider DLX Pellet Grill

 set the grill to 300F and placed raw biscuits across the grate. I found that the biscuits on the right side burned on the bottom before cooking fully. The biscuits in the  middle were pretty evenly cooked, and the biscuits on the left took a little longer.

This test set me up for success for my first cook. It also gave me a better understanding of the Pit Control Panel.


Understanding the Pit Control Panel

The heat controls on the Oklahoma Joe’s are a little different than other pellet grills. Instead pushing buttons to change the degrees, it comes with a dial. And to be honest, the dial was a little confusing to me at first.

knob on Oklahoma Joes pellet grill.

It goes to 300F degrees, but then after that, it has a setting that shows low, medium and high in orange letters. Sometimes, I like to set the smoker above 300F degrees. I wasn’t sure how to pull that off with this dial, so I called the team over at Oklahoma Joe’s. 

To understand the Pit Control Panel, you have to understand the temperature indicators on the digital display screen.

pit control panel showing smoke mode

When you turn the control knob and set the temperature, the digital temperature will appear on the screen. Next to that number, you’ll see three possible icons. If the smoke icon (three wavy lines) is showing, the display is showing the temperature of the air in the cook chamber. 

So for instance, if you set the knob above 300F, when the indicator light shows the smoke icon, you’ll know what your cooking chamber temp is.

pit control panel showing grill mode

If the small flame icon is showing, this is the temperature of the actual porcelain coated cast iron grill grate when your heat baffle selector handle is set to smoke. You’ll find that the grill grate is likely hotter than the grill chamber, especially since cast iron holds heat so well. 

pit control panel showing sear mode

If the large flame icon is showing, this is the temperature of the grill grate with the selector handle set to sear. 

You can toggle through the different settings by pushing the plus or minus signs below the display. 


So Why Is This Temperature Control So Different

This goes back to the first part of this blog post. The Rider DLX isn’t just a pellet grill. Now, if you want to come home from work and grill up a quick steak or some burgers, you can set the pellet grill to grill. What a concept. 

Just turn the dial to the orange section on low, medium or high, just like you would a gas grill. Once the grill is pre-heated, throw on the meat.

If you want to get some flame-kissed steaks, change the selector to sear.

Or if you want the best of both worlds, start the grill on smoke, setting the dial to the gray numbers at about 250F. Cook your steak to an internal temperature of 110F. Then, change the dial to medium on the grill setting, open up the sear plate and bam! You’ve got yourself a killer steak. 

temperature probe in ribeye steak on pellet grill

Oh and the grill comes with a meat probe and port, so you can probe the steak during the smoke stage, and the digital display will tell you when you’re getting close to hitting that mark. You can add a second probe, as well, but the grill only comes with one. 


My First Cook on the Rider DLX

So it’s pretty obvious that my first cook was the ribeye steak, because I wanted to fully test out the “grilling” features of the Rider DLX. While the steak was cooking, I added a pan of hasselback potatoes on the middle rack. 

blue 13x9 pan of baked cinnamon rolls on pellet grill

For my next cook, I wanted to test out how well the Rider DLX could bake, so I whipped up a batch of homemade sticky buns

I wanted to bake these at 350F degrees, so I set the dial to the orange low setting, and I made sure the indicator icon showed the smoke symbol. The chamber stayed steady at about 350F.

This is where the biscuit test came in handy. I knew if I set the pan straight on the bottom heat at this temp, they would burn on the bottom, so I placed the pan on the middle rack, and they came out perfectly tender.

cinnamon roll on a white elevated plate


Smoking Meat on the Oklahoma Joe’s Pellet Grill

For the final test, I had to slow smoke a big hunk of meat. After all, that’s what most people cook on a pellet grill. There’s nothing sexier than a rack of beef plate ribs

3-bone rack of beef ribs on pellet grill grate

The grill performed wonderfully. I set the dial to 250F on the smoke setting. Again, I used the middle rack, so the heat wasn’t too aggressive on the bottom. 

After five hours, the meat reached an internal temperature of 203F degrees, and they were perfect – smoke ring and all. 

smoked beef rib on butcher paper

What This Grill Doesn’t Have

With the Rider DLX, you aren’t going to find any fancy wi-fi controls. At first I thought I would be disappointed, but I applaud Oklahoma Joe’s for being so bold. 

Oklahoma Joe’s has been a foundation in the barbecue world for decades. They understand that barbecue is about the thrill of understanding how to manage heat and fire to create great food.

With the Rider DLX, they give you some crutches that make smoking easier, but you are still required to learn the ropes as a pitmaster. Which in my opinion makes the food taste even better. 

Rider DLX Grill Specifications

  • Height: 54.2 inches tall with the lid closed. When the lid is open, the primary grate is 37 inches from the ground
  • Width: 45 inches without the side rack, 55.5 inches fully assembled
  • Weight: 245.6 pounds, without pellets
  • Primary Cooking Area: 19.5 inches deep by 29.6 inches long (578 square inches)
  • Secondary Cooking Area: Two racks 12 inches deep by 27 inches long (656 square inches)
  • Fuel Source: Pellets
  • Hopper Capacity: 20 pounds of pellets
  • Temperature Range: 200-650F degrees
  • Price: $899

Price quoted at time of review; subject to change


Video

christie vanover standing against wood wall.

Hey BBQ Family

I’m Christie, the head cook and award-winning competitive pitmaster for Team Girls Can Grill. I have won multiple grand championships and top 10 category finishes. I’m an expert grill reviewer for BBQ Guys, and I have appeared on the Food Network and Ninja Woodfire Grill infomercials. I established this website in 2015 to share my BBQ tips and recipes.

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19 Comments

  1. I’ve had my Oklahoma Joe DLX for 4 months. The auger jammed and quit turning. I just installed a new motor and auger still won’t turn; even the fan on the motor won’t turn. Motor did get warm after 5 to 10 minutes. What would keep power from getting to the motor? Is there a vacuum switch? If so, where is it? Could it be control board?