Okay, I decided to get my feet wet in charcoal grilling. I really want to get a huge barrel grill, but all my friends keep hammering me about gas grilling being better. The problem is I LOVE the taste of food on a charcoal grill, and simply don't like gas grilling anywhere near as much. All that said, one of the most common complaints about any charcoal grilling is that its a lot more work. A point I would have to concede having done both gas and charcoal grilling at other people's houses. So I have never really been tasked with the setup, prep, and cleanup.
So I figured before I go into a huge barrel grill for the beginning of the 2020 season, why not buy a little cheap unit like this one to see if its for me. I know the taste of the food is, but buying this when I saw it on sale for the low price of $21.99 seemed like a great idea.
The grill was pretty easy to assemble, took me all of about 10 minutes from start to finish. Now I want to address some of the complaints I read in other reviews, some of which almost made me pass on this grill.
The first complaint I read on Amazon was that the instructions weren't good and that this made the grill hard to assemble. I can tell you that I am not particularly handy and I had no trouble at all. Everything was illustrated clearly, screws and other hardware all appropriately labeled, and I thought everything was quite straightforward. However, I can see how someone not experienced at products like this that come disassembled might get a little flustered. The illustrations can seem a little confusing at first. But if you take a step, slow down, and visualize what you are seeing on the page, it will all become clear.
The second complaint I read on Amazon was that the grill is flimsy and fragile. While I can see where people are coming from, as this is not a high end grill, I think that when you pay 1/3 the price for this grill you would for, say a Weber the same size, then I honestly believe reviews should be done grading on a curve. But that's me. I paid just over $20.00 for this. Am I really going to ding it because it isn't a $50.00 or $100.00 grill, when I didn't pay for that higher quality?
The third complaint I read on Amazon is that the grill never got hot enough and the food did not cook. To be fair, I experienced the same problem my first time cooking on it. Rather than waste the burger, a couple of hot dogs, and veggies, I simply gave up on that cook, brought the semi-cooked food into the house, and finished it on the stove. On a side note, I still had that AWESOME charcoal flavor, so the grill did cook it. A little. I realized as I brought the food in that the problem is NOT the grill. It was the fact that I didn't use enough charcoal. I made the mistake of only mostly covering the bottom grate to see how much charcoal to use, then transferred the unlit coals to a Weber chimney my Dad gave me. But when the coals turned white, and I poured them in, they had lost some of their volume, so they no longer really covered the bottom grate. Aha! There was my problem. By the way, using standard sized, Kingsford Briquettes for that first quasi-failed cooking attempt, I knew I was going to write this review, so I actually counted them. So that first cooking I only used 18 briquettes. As I said, it turns out, the problem was that wasn't enough.
So today I almost doubled it. I think I used 32 briquettes. In the end, that was fine. Using my thick, 3/4 pound burger as my acid test, it took the standard 3-4 minutes per side before the burger was a nice medium rare and seared perfectly on the outside. Hot dogs and veggies were likewise great.
So the lesson to me, and ANYONE else having this problem is to MAKE SURE you use at least 30 briquettes. Maybe 36 would be even better.
The final complaint I read turns out to be not only valid, but a real black mark on this grill. Not sure what Cuisinart was thinking, but the reviewers who complained that the top grill where the food sits on is too unstable are 100% right! See, the problem is twofold here: First, that top grate/grill really needs to be another 1/8" in diameter to fit the circumference of the bottom of the grill more snugly. But even worse, the lip that goes around the bottom, that the grill sits on, is very small. So if you just look this thing too hard you're going to end up with your food all dumped out on the coals, and ready for the garbage. This is a TERRIBLE design flaw of this grill. Honestly, its so bad, I took off two stars for it.
After assembling it and seeing this absurd nightmare, which I will admit I was pre-warned about, having read several reviews on Amazon, I was all set to just disassemble it, re-pack the thing back into the box, and ship it back off to Amazon. But then I had an idea. See the pictures I posted so you know what I'm talking about. I am not particularly handy, but since I really like the design, weight, and even the aesthetics of the grill, and I love the price, I took a chance and came up with an idea to try and fix it.
Beware that if you try the solution I came up with, you're all-in with the grill since you will void not only your warranty from Cuisinart, but also Amazon's return policy. Anyway, what I did was I went to the hardware store and bought a little plastic pack of nut and bolt sets. The bolts have a Phillips head. I took out my drill and drilled four holes, all at 90 degrees to one another. I then I then put the screw from outside-to-inside, and tightened a nut on each one. The nut being on the inside of the grill and the screw head on the outside.
The intent was to have the four bolts act like shims for the grill to rest on to hopefully make it a lot more stable while cooking. Again, see my pictures. Its very easy, and if you go this route, use 4 nut/bolt sets, all each at 90 degrees to one another. This fixed the problem beautifully. I enacted this before my first use on it, and I can tell you that before I did it, I could see that the slightest accidental, lateral pressure would flip the grate over, and dump my food all over the white coals. Now, I have to say that it is incredibly stable.
On a side note, it seems really silly to me that I had to come up with this idea to make the grill serviceable for my use. When I had seen how unstable the top grill was, I knew that cooking on it would be a nightmare. But I can tell you that after a few dinners on this, I have never even come close to up-ending it. Whereas, before I did this, the grate was falling into the grill with the slightest pressure when I was sort of "rehearsing" using it with no coals, no food, and only kind of pantomiming cooking with the spatula. lol Kind of like playing air-guitar, only with the new grill. When I did, the damned grate kept tipping over.
Anyway, problem solved, but it is absolutely indefensible that I had to be the one to solve this problem. Still, if this review or my pics help anyone else, then I am a very happy guy!
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