Pulled the Trigger - Prestige Pro 500 SRIB

[T-bone]

Congrats!! I have had one for three years and it's awesome. It will treat right. Enjoy!

[glitchy]

All makes sense, I just figured you never used the gasser and was freeing up space. Nice to know I’m not the only person in the world that gets nit picky about details versus just learning to live with things that are annoying.

[GolfGeezer]

Looks very nice. Napoleon has a lot of neat looking features and accessories. Curious why you’d give up a Heston and move to Napoleon though? Aren’t Hestons in the Kalamazoo category?

Yes, the top Hestan "line" is considered right up there with Kalamazoo. The one I owned was the Aspire line, one level down. More in line with the mid-tier lines of Fire Magic, DCS, Twin eagles, etc. As I posted previously, there just were some design issues with the Aspire that bugged me - a lot. It is a beautiful machine, very well built, high quality everywhere, and it was that "sex appeal" that had me overlook some things. The main infrared burner is fixed, not easily swap-able for a regular burner. So 2 zone becomes more limiting since you cannot put food over the IR burner section (maybe could if covered in foil). The grease management was abysmal to me - closed bottom of the firebox with just some oval holes. Grease, being stupid, doesn't know where the holes are, so needed to regularly take it apart to wipe out the bottom below the burners. The ceramic briquette heat dispenser system traps grease on the top of the steel holding the briquettes - lots of flare-ups, requiring constant moving of the food. Finally, it guzzled propane (28K BTU burners), but surprisingly did not get nearly the level of heat one would expect for all those BTUs. It probably would have been better using a fixed natural gas version, but I do not have a line out where I have my cookers.

So, I decided to go back to the type and level of gasser I had with my Weber Summit E-450 (well loved and well used, but it suffered some big damage in a wind storm that literally threw across our yard). I looked at Blaze, Summerset, Weber and a couple of others. Read all of Max's reviews of various gassers. Then found a local dealer that had both the Weber and the Napoleon in their showroom. Warranties very similar, with a slight nod to Weber, so kind of a wash on that. The Weber has a weird sear zone setup, using an extra burner between two main ones to create it's sear zone. Didn't like that. The Napoleon's is on one of the side tables - a bit small, but for me cooking for 2 usually and 4 with company, quite adequate. A very, very hot quickly. Slightly more BTU's then Weber per burner. And there you are!

[glitchy]

Looks very nice. Napoleon has a lot of neat looking features and accessories. Curious why you’d give up a Heston and move to Napoleon though? Aren’t Hestons in the Kalamazoo category?

[GolfGeezer]

Not exactly MCS. After giving the "Ferrari" away (The Hestan Aspire), I bought this top end "SUV" to replace it. Delivered this last Saturday, I've only had time for the initial high heat burn-in. First impressions: this baby gets to heat FAST! I love the propane tank pullout drawer - really helps my arthritic back get a tank in and out. Love the cool lighted dials (you can change the color or have it rotate through several colors), the separate side infrared burner and built-in shelving inside the cart portion. Looking forward to some burgers on it tomorrow and really want a crack at wings in the rotisserie basket.