So, brother Attjack has been pushing this cooker for a couple years. You old hands around here know that he is an MCS enabler of the first order. He chortles as he lures we poor, unsuspecting souls into the trap that he himself avoids quite adroitly. Call it what you will, a Santa Maria grill. An Argentinian grill. Titan calls it the Live Fire grill………..safe and descriptive.
A couple months back I got a pop up ad that offered this on sale for something in the area of $900 and I bit on it. I assembled it, not a difficult task, but did take some time and a little help from the bride when it came time to lift the main body onto the cart portion. In general the quality is pretty good for an import cooker of this design that is at the lower end of the typical pricing range. The total weight is 340 pounds, mostly from the powder coated steel used, but also from an array of fire bricks around the main body fire box/tub. The components of the cart portion are made up of various gauges of steel, ranging from the 6g legs to the 10g braces and shelf. The casters work very nicely and are heavy duty enough for the weight involved. The main tub, including doors, is made of 8g steel with some 9 & 10g miscellaneous components. The shaft that attaches to the grate rides in bare holes rather than bearings, so that’s one concession to price that I might improve on down the road, though it works very smoothly and really shouldn’t be a wear issue unless someone were to use this extensively (low likelihood) , The turning wheel on the shaft is powder coated, formed steel tubing and there’s a ratchet mechanism to hold the shaft in place when raised. The cooking grate is made of stainless steel in the V shaped rungs which are a lighter 14g. It has a trough at the front to catch rendered fat, but unfortunately it is solid bolted to the grate frame. That means if you want to pour off the renderings you’ll need to remove the two screws that hold it in place. My plan is to modify the mounting holes so the tray will hang from those screws and be easily removed and reinstalled. I will say, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised and pleased at the build quality for the price. It’s not unusual to see similar sized units from domestic vendors that are at least double, or more, in price without significantly better quality. Once assembled and washed down with a solvent, I built a good, hot fire to burn off any residual manufacturing chemicals. One of the other preferences I have is to keep my equipment covered, inside or outside storage, doesn’t matter……..it’s just my thing. Unfortunately Titan doesn’t offer a fitted cover so I was on my own to find something that would work. Once assembled I had the dimensions I needed, and the side shelves remove easily enough that it gave me a second option for overall size to search for. Looking at the overall shape my brain remembered seeing another cooker (not a Santa Maria style) that had roughly the same outline of shape. I dug into the interwebs for the Pit Boss Lockhart pellet grill, found that the dimensions were close enough and ordered up one of their covers. The convenient thing about this cover is it has two top to bottom zippers on the back side that make fitting it over a tallish frame a breeze. It fits, almost, like it was made for this cooker.
I usually wait a few months and do at least a handful of cooks with new to me equipment before I do a write up like this, but frankly, this won’t be something I use as often in cooking for just the two of us so I’m doing this right after the first cook. I had a nice, prime, cowboy ribeye steak in the freezer so pulled that out. It’s a good 2†thick so I figured it would be a good test for the variable height/heat features of the grill. Since it was the first cook I was guessing on grate height, using my hand at grate level as a guide. I probably could have started it a bit lower in the beginning, but looking and eating the end result I’ve got no complaints about my choices. It did take a little longer than I guessed, but that’s what experimentation is for…………………….learning. Next up will be a tri-tip, because, isn’t that what these are supposed to be for?
And just because I know my buddy Panhead John is going to whine about it, here’s a link to the Titan site: https://www.titangreatoutdoors.com/o...ll/899886.html
A couple months back I got a pop up ad that offered this on sale for something in the area of $900 and I bit on it. I assembled it, not a difficult task, but did take some time and a little help from the bride when it came time to lift the main body onto the cart portion. In general the quality is pretty good for an import cooker of this design that is at the lower end of the typical pricing range. The total weight is 340 pounds, mostly from the powder coated steel used, but also from an array of fire bricks around the main body fire box/tub. The components of the cart portion are made up of various gauges of steel, ranging from the 6g legs to the 10g braces and shelf. The casters work very nicely and are heavy duty enough for the weight involved. The main tub, including doors, is made of 8g steel with some 9 & 10g miscellaneous components. The shaft that attaches to the grate rides in bare holes rather than bearings, so that’s one concession to price that I might improve on down the road, though it works very smoothly and really shouldn’t be a wear issue unless someone were to use this extensively (low likelihood) , The turning wheel on the shaft is powder coated, formed steel tubing and there’s a ratchet mechanism to hold the shaft in place when raised. The cooking grate is made of stainless steel in the V shaped rungs which are a lighter 14g. It has a trough at the front to catch rendered fat, but unfortunately it is solid bolted to the grate frame. That means if you want to pour off the renderings you’ll need to remove the two screws that hold it in place. My plan is to modify the mounting holes so the tray will hang from those screws and be easily removed and reinstalled. I will say, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised and pleased at the build quality for the price. It’s not unusual to see similar sized units from domestic vendors that are at least double, or more, in price without significantly better quality. Once assembled and washed down with a solvent, I built a good, hot fire to burn off any residual manufacturing chemicals. One of the other preferences I have is to keep my equipment covered, inside or outside storage, doesn’t matter……..it’s just my thing. Unfortunately Titan doesn’t offer a fitted cover so I was on my own to find something that would work. Once assembled I had the dimensions I needed, and the side shelves remove easily enough that it gave me a second option for overall size to search for. Looking at the overall shape my brain remembered seeing another cooker (not a Santa Maria style) that had roughly the same outline of shape. I dug into the interwebs for the Pit Boss Lockhart pellet grill, found that the dimensions were close enough and ordered up one of their covers. The convenient thing about this cover is it has two top to bottom zippers on the back side that make fitting it over a tallish frame a breeze. It fits, almost, like it was made for this cooker.
I usually wait a few months and do at least a handful of cooks with new to me equipment before I do a write up like this, but frankly, this won’t be something I use as often in cooking for just the two of us so I’m doing this right after the first cook. I had a nice, prime, cowboy ribeye steak in the freezer so pulled that out. It’s a good 2†thick so I figured it would be a good test for the variable height/heat features of the grill. Since it was the first cook I was guessing on grate height, using my hand at grate level as a guide. I probably could have started it a bit lower in the beginning, but looking and eating the end result I’ve got no complaints about my choices. It did take a little longer than I guessed, but that’s what experimentation is for…………………….learning. Next up will be a tri-tip, because, isn’t that what these are supposed to be for?
And just because I know my buddy Panhead John is going to whine about it, here’s a link to the Titan site: https://www.titangreatoutdoors.com/o...ll/899886.html
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