The media could not be loaded. I have had many grills in my life. My family likes the taste of charcoal grilled food more than other. We currently have a Vision Kamado grill, but my wife thought it is too hard for her to use. When we came across this Everdure Fusion grill. She really liked the look and thought it is easier for her to use. On top of that, it has a built-in rotisserie. So we ordered with great expectations. It came very well packaged. The assembly was not hard at all. Right of the bat, I cut my finger from a sharp point on the bottom. You might think with the price of this grill being on the upper end, it would be built better than leaving sharp points on the bottom. Upon further inspection, there are multiple sharp screw ends stick out the bottom. By the time I had the grill fully assembled, I had three cuts on my fingers. The instructions are not that great, but it is fairly easy to assemble. Right before I start to load the lump charcoal in the grill, I noticed the left hand bottom vent is slightly bent. I guess the quality control department fell asleep too. When I put the charcoal in, I noticed there is not air inlets anywhere except for the small round charcoal pan. Right off the bat, I was thinking this is going to be a problem with uneven burning through out the grill. To light the grill, all I had to do was hitting the start button. It even turns the electric burner off all by itself. That is nice. Once the fire is started, it is a real pain the get an even fire through out the grill. The burning pan is not deep enough to hold enough charcoal to last but an hour or so. You can't stack the charcoal too high since it will be too close to the food. Even at the maximum height, the rotisserie is not high enough for even a large chicken. You are going to have problem with even a small turkey. The height adjustment is kind of useless since you really would not be using anything but the highest settings. It is very easy to load the rotisserie. The forks holds the food very securely. The locking mechanism is much better than the thumb screws used in the cheaper rotisserie setups. I loaded a five pound chicken in the rotisserie with ease. Besides being able to start and stop the rotation at a touch of a button, you can also control the direction of the rotation as well by cycling the switch. Anyway, it was not easy to get bird to cook all the way through without burning the skin. It is just a pain in the butt to get this grill to burn at the right temperature, and the flareup is the worst of any grill I have ever used. The design problem start to show more and more once the bird is on the rotisserie. The burn pan is not vented, and there is not ash collection anywhere else except for the center round pan. Since the ash just accumulates in the square pan, it would rise up in the air into your food if you mess with the charcoal while you are cooking. But you have to mess with the charcoal because it burns unevenly. Next up, is the steak test. I put a couple of New York strips on the grill. It was not easy to do since the steak sits too close to the charcoal. Getting a hot flame up without stacking up the charcoal high required a bit of small wood chunks. But when I get the flame up, the steaks would sits below the hottest point of the flame where the unburnt wood gas is. The grill height is not adjustable. So, the steaks did not come out as good with the Vision grill. Forget about emptying the ash during a long cooking session. This grill is stupid when it comes to ash collection. To empty the ash, you have to move the charcoal off the center first, then take out the top pan. After that, you have to flip the coil upward. If you get that far, you will be granted access to a tiny shallow pan about five inches in diameter. Well, that doesn't hold much ash. So where is the rest of the ash? They are in the square pan mixed with the charcoal. I guess you could just throw away the partially burnt charcoals along with the ash to make it easier, but that would make this inefficient grill even more inefficient. So far, I am not impressed with this grill. In fact, if it was not for my wife, I would just return it. The Vision Kamado grill is better in almost every aspect that matters to me.
