I think I will wrap up this review.
Now this is more of a niche item I feel. It is extremely heavy duty and very well made. The pizza oven is much larger than I thought. Last nights pizza was a 16inch round offering and it fit comfortably in the oven. This oven should have no problems with multiple things going on. Casseroles and breads can be done at the same time.
The smoker works well and creates a very nice smokey moist environment. The size seems limited though. You are pretty much forced to have a pan on the bottom rack because there is no where for the grease to go. So that leaves with just the top rack. You can get three racks of ribs on it because both ovens are 2 feet deep. Two pork butts should be fine and one packer brisket is no problem. Two spatchcocked chickens or one spatchcocked turkey is fine. There is no headroom so you cant leave them whole..but I like spatchcocking anyways.
The firebox is brilliant. It is set up for large fires for using the pizza oven and smaller fires for doing lo and slo. The mfg really put some time and thought into this. The firebox is adhered to the heavy stainless rack by a rod and the rack is set up to be pulled all the way out safely with no fear of the rack coming out completely. Very reassuring when pulling it out to stoke the wood or add more chunks.
Now wood consumption is another thing. If you only add a "couple" of chunks every hour you eventually will not have enough of a coal base to get the two chunks burning when you add them. The air tight fire chamber can be a hindrance by letting your wood smolder instead of catching a flame.
I have found a way around this....you just knew
The Smoke would
I take a small axe and half the chunks. I add 6 smaller pcs total about every 45 minutes and leave the three spinner vents open more. This gives me a smaller hotter cleaner burning fire...I do not mind adding wood more often. This unit is a vertical stick burner. I almost have to treat the fire the same way I do in my off-set...just on a smaller basis.
So I do use more wood than the Mfg says that I should but there is one feature that does make up for this.
At the wrapping stage, I simply stop adding wood and place the wrapped meat in the pizza oven. The brick and stone in there stays hot for hours...even after letting the fire burn down. Free heat if you ask me.
Wendy and I looked at this oven/smoker for almost two years. When I contacted the owner he sadly informed me they had 39 left and when I talked to Tim late last week about fire management issues he said they were down to 25. So these units are selling pretty well. I believe they had a lot of 2000. My unit was mfg in 2014. We bought direct from the Mfg and got 500.00 off of retail and a free cover and free freight shipping. There will be no more after this. There is a slight re-design change in the works but Tim is not sure there will be another incarnation.
If anyone or if you know of anyone that is interested...act quck. Go to outdoorchefstore.com to get the 500.00 off retail with all the goodies and free shipping.
We were concerned making this large of a purchase with the item going away soon. Tim assured me they have plenty of parts for warranty claims. He informed me that they have only had to ship somebody a pizza stone. That was because it had cracked during transit.
Everything on this pit is heavy duty. All stainless steel lined fire-box and both ovens. Fully insulated. Very nice powder coating. Charcoal tray is 12 gauge and welded. Racks are heavy stainless steel. At 380 lbs this oven/smoker will be around for a while. I had to hire a couple of guys to help me get this bad boy through the cabin and down to the bottom deck. Now
The Smoke is buff and chiseled (that is my story and I am sticking to it
) and this is at least a two man lift or somebody will get hurt.
So is this unit for everybody. Probably not. We like the two distinct cooking environments. The pizza oven is dry and hot. The smoker is moist and smokey. At the same time!! So, while I feel wood usage is not as good as suggested, the unit makes up for that by being able to use both "ovens" at the same time. Being able to use the pizza oven as a "holding" oven after smoking something is a real neat feature.
I hope everybody enjoyed this review. I have been informed by Wendy that I won't be doing any product reviews any time soon
so this one is going to have to suffice for a while.
Now if I can only figure out how to get a Fire Butler into the storage shed sight unseen
Until then, lets keep that blue smoke rolling