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.

I loved this - of course easy to set up. Used it right away. Lit charcoals, put meat on skewers and popped them on grill. Had authentic yakatori in no time! Can't wait to use it again and again!

I got this to do Japanese yakitori as my wife was missing it and we don't have a good yakitori place near where we live. I had apprehensions about this grill since some of the reviews indicated some negative themes. But, it was very affordable and we thought it would be a "fun" experience even if only once or twice and we can later invest more into something more substantial.Keeping in mind the things I learned from some of the negative reviews, I made sure to keep the clay dry and to be gentle with it. We used lump charcoal from the local home improvement store which was only $14 for 20 lbs. I did use the grill on top at first, but after trying it once, I realized for Yakitori, it's easier to just rest the skewers on the edges of the clay grill itself and that saves us from having to clean the grill top. If you're cooking something other than yakitori, like some fish or slices of meats, then you will certainly have to use the grill top. However, it's not hard to clean and most burnt on stuff just chips off when it is dried. As far as cleaning the clay grill, since I knew not to get it wet, i simply dump the ashes out (it's small, so this is easy) and used a hard bristle brush to clean out any remaining ashes. As with any barbecue event, drips of our marinade (we were doing tare-yaki style yakitori instead of shio-yaki) did drip onto the clay and various other places, but I just left it as-is and considered it "seasoning" the clay. I didn't let it bother me, after all, it's where the charcoal burns, not where it would make contact with our food. There are many ways to start a charcoal fire, the user instructions suggested lighter fluid. But since there's an air gap under where the charcoal sits, you'd probably have fluid dripping to the bottom and out the air intake doors. In which case, you may be better off starting your charcoal in a metal can with the lighter fluid first and then transferring them over when they are burning. I decided to just use some newspaper to start the fire and stacked my charcoals into a mound around it which worked fine but took a little longer to get started. The depth of the grill isn't very high so you can't really stack the charcoals really high. After the charcoal started burning, I rearranged them into a lower mound before I started cooking. Overall, our yakitori experience was a great success!I couldn't give this a full five star rating because I felt like some of the complaints are legitimate. The clay appears to be unfired and so indeed it would probably not hold up to any cleaning under water. I think the manufacturer could have raised the cost by just a little bit and glazed and fired the clay to make it more durable and possibly easier to clean with a smooth glaze. Overall, if you keep in mind some of the drawbacks and workaround them, it still works and provides plenty of value for the price. If you decide to get something more substantial, there are certainly those options, but the most affordable one I could find was at least 5x the price of this. This is a very small and reasonable investment to enjoy some yakitori cooked over charcoal with family and friends.

I have wanted a grill to cook yakitori for years so I purchased this one. I tried grilling chicken on sticks, steaks and sausages with little success. It is not easy to clean and is very heavy. Plus, there are warnings in the instructions that it could crack if it gets wet, so I have to cover it when its outside. I don't recommend it. Too heavy to return.

It is great for a small family, especially if you like charcoal taste. Easy to fire-up and clean. Very portable therefore easy to store. This is my second order, and I highly recommend.