Fire Sense 60450 Yakatori Internal Grates Charcoal Chrome Cooking Grill Japanese Table BBQ Handmade Using Clay Adjustable Ventilation For Outdoor Barbecues Camping Traveling - Large - Tan

Update 5:The good folks just sent a replacement cooking grid and another of the charcoal grid and we are ready for the Spring Grilling season while in lockdown.The customer service has been fantastic and this grill continues to turn out AMAZING food with just a handful of charcoal.This season I got Kamodo Joe big block charcoal and it already seems to be a whole lot better than briquettes or the Lazari mesquite.Great to have this grill to add some variety to my cooking while we are awaiting release from lockdownUpdate #4:Fire Sense sent replacement grids!Wonderful folks.Update #3 STARTING TO FAILThe ceramic "grates" that hold the charcoal are starting to break up. It cooks very well, but the quality of the materials is not great.UPDATE #2Still loving this little grill. Over the weekend I made a "riser" to get the grill a bit higher off the charcoal since if you cook fatty foods, the flare ups tend to singe things (or I could just LEARN something from the Japanese and stop cooking fatty food).So far there have been no issues with the plastic edging melting or with the vent doors. I do not expect this to be the longest lived grill I have ever had, but the results can be spectacular.Last night we did chunks of marinated chicken thigh on skewers which came off tasting better than most restaurant foods. Got a crispy char along with moist meat. I was sure to skin the meet to avoid flareups though.UPDATE!Loving this hibachi a lot after using it for a couple of months. It does a fantastic job with chicken, fish and lean meat. Because of the way the heat is insulated and funneled "up", the sear on food is excellent.No issues with durability, but we do put it away every evening after use. The thin metal vents are still holding up as is the plastic trim.The rack is losing its chrome finish to reveal a solid copper construction. Not stainless as advertised, but good enough.An added advantage is that the rack has a fence aruond it that keeps food from slipping off when using a spatula.Stil loving it.I bought this as an addition to our Lodge Cast Iron Sportsman Grill, and I am very happy with it after grilling, beef, chicken, pork and fish, this is a great little grill.And since I am one frugal SOB, I love it doubly for how little charcoal it requires to cook a meal for four people. In general about 16-20 briquets will cook all the meat (and even extrs) for a group of four folks. Our Sportsman grill literally takes 5x that much for the same result because while you lose a TON of heat through the cast iron of the Sportsman, the clay body of the Fire Sense is an insulator any the fuel is not wasted.The Fire Sense does indeed seem to focus the heat up for a fantastic sear on food and a wonderful smokey flavor.Yes, this is a very inexpensively made grill. The vents are thin metal that you have to be careful with, the "bumpers" areoun the upper rim are all cheap plastic and the grill surface is a little "light",Please note that on mine, the grill grate is all stainless and cleans up easily. Mine is NOT painted as others have noted.The body of the grill is unfired clay that was made in a mould and then the vents and bumbers were stapled (yes stapled) into the clay before it was fully dry. This means that if you leave it out in thhe weather, it WILL disintegrate. Don't while, just empty the ashes after each use and put it away carefully. I suspect that it is about as durable as a red clay flower pot. .Overall this grill makes great tasting food, really quickly with almost NO charcoal.PROS:- Fantastic heat for a great sear (you do need to watch it when you are first using it)- Cheap on charcoal. One Costco bag looks to last us most of the season- Wonderful smoky flavor to the good- Easy clean up of the cooking grid so far- Inexpensive overall (but should be cheaper du to the minimal manufacturing costs)- Light weight- Comes with a neat"handling rack" so you can move it, even when hot- FANTASTICALLY well packaged for shipping. (seriously, this is important. I HATE it when stuff arrives in the "store box" and is in pieces).CONS- Really inexpensive construction- Unfired clay body has about the same durability as a flowerpot- Feels like the vents will not last too long (so quit fooling with them)- Having the parts stapled into the clay is really oddGet one and grill.

This is an excellent grill for a single person who wants to grill single entrees in a limited space like an apt or condo. The drawback with most small grills such as the 14 inch Weber Smokey Joe or the Lodge Sportsman Hibachi is that they are still too large for one person and end up wasting a lot of charcoal. This is because it takes high heat and many briquets to reach the necessary heat level to sear a thick steak but once you reach that heat level, it doesn't take long to cook the steak. Then your remaining briquets and their heat is wasted as they continue to burn to ash unless you put the lid on and close the vents. Also with iron and metal, much of the heat is transferred to the grill housing. This is heat that is robbed from the cooking process. The small ceramic Yakatori is like a fuel efficient Japanese car. It sips charcoal but still gets hot since heat isn't being conducted to a metal surface other than the grate. All the heat goes to your food so you need less charcoal. This grill has a somewhat flimsy cooking grate so I recommend pairing it with the Weber Cast Iron Sear Grate whose 12" diameter is a perfect fit for the 11" diameter of this grill.(http://www.amazon.com/Weber-8834-Gourmet-System-Grate/dp/B0044ERTDY/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top) Then buy a few small spring clamps to act as retainer tabs such as those that come with the original grate to keep it from sliding around. It doesn't come with a lid but as someone else mentioned, go to the 99 Store and pick up a cheap stainless steel bowl of 11" diameter and with either a drill or epoxy glue, fasten a cheap wooden drawer knob on the top and drill a hole or two near the top to vent. You now have yourself a super efficient personal steak machine that will get high mileage out of every bag of briquets.FOLLOW UP: I have had this grill now for over a year and I still like it. I think a few follow up comments are in order. The grill comes with a clay disc perforated with numerous 3/4" holes that sits on a small ledge at the bottom of the grill. This is what the briquets sit on and through which air passes from the side vent. It is somewhat fragile. Once I was gently tipping the grill over on soft grass to pour out the ashes and the disc rolled out onto the grass and broke in half. No way such a gentle impact should have caused it to break. However, the customer service was excellent and the vendor promptly sent me a new disc at no charge. However, the two broken halves are still serviceable since they can be fitted together and placed in the bottom of the grill like before. HOWEVER, I noticed that my coals seemed to lose heat and not burn hot as soon as I poured them into the grill from my charcoal chimney. It was frustrating to pour in blazing charcoal and then for them to quickly lose heat so much that I couldn't even sear a steak. Things took forever to cook. It finally occurred to me that the clay disc is blocking a lot of air that otherwise would pass through the typical wire grate that most grills have. Even with the perforations, the clay disc is mostly opaque. The material to space ratio is probably 60-40 which blocks a lot of air. I had an epiphany and decided to use the wire trivet that came with my Rival model 3100 crockpot. This is the classic original crockpot. It came with a trivet to use in the bottom of the crockpot. The trivet fits almost perfectly where the clay disc sits. You just have to bend the three wire footings inward slightly. Let me tell you. IT MAKES A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE. Now the material to space ratio is around 5 to 95. Tiny pieces of hot charcoals can now fall down under the trivet and continue to work their magic while the larger hot coals blaze away above. It's like night and day. So if your Yakatori grill just doesn't seem hot enough, try to get this trivet. I found another one at a thrift store for 25cents recently or maybe you can order one from Rival in Kansas City. Or maybe Amazon carries it although it is an obscure part. It is an old crockpot and I don't know if the part is still available but you may be able to get one from Rival for a few dollars. If you go to enough thrift stores often enough, you WILL find one eventually for practically nothing.P.S. I mentioned in my original post that spring clamps were necessary to keep the Weber Sear grate from sliding around. This is false. The sear grate is heavy enough so that it sits on the grill without movement and no clamps are needed