The Orion is an interesting cooker and cooks at extremely high temperatures as compared to most backyard grills or cookers. And while there is an open flame during part of the cook, a fellow needs to be careful with children around and also other folks that are little too far into their cups. I guess most folks now days have never attended a wiener or weenie roast as it sure is an open flame event that is far more dangerous than this cooker in my opinion.
Ok, most of the hype that you will read about this cooker is true. It will cook about any type of meat very quickly and you can get as much smoke flavor in your product as you want if you follow the directions on how to operate the cooker.
It will cook a pretty nice beer butt type chicken in just a little over an hour.
The cooker at the start of a rib cook and you can see the open flame. I don't think you would want to use it on a wooden deck!
This is after the sticky stuff burns off of the charcoal and the cooker is doing it's thing.
Couple slabs of ribs coming off of the cooker..these were cooked for 70 minutes.
Cooks a couple of slabs of ribs in about 70 minutes. Will cook 6 slabs of ribs in about 75 minutes.
It has a downside as it is expensive to operate as compared to other charcoal backyard cookers or smokers. The cooker cooks by the amount of fuel used for the cook and the time the product is in the cooker and has no other way of controlling the temperatures. It also calls for that quick lite type of charcoal that has the starter fluid in the charcoal. It is difficult to use standard charcoal but it can be done but it is a pain in the butt to try to figure out the correct amount and time is required for this standard fuel.
And of course, the other danger is the open flame and the hot charcoal right out in the open on the side of the cooker.
It's different and fun to play with and I like fooling around with cooking on it.