It finally came!

I ordered an AZ BBQ Outfitters Santa Maria Grill in early December and got my shipping notice last Friday. I have been as giddy as a school girl since then and it finally got here yesterday. 891lbs on the shipping manifest, the thing is a beast and it about killed me getting it off of the pallet and into the back yard.



Now that I have it I can honestly say that I have mixed feelings. The thing is beautiful, awesome and will be a ton of fun to cook with, but my expectations were kinda let down. I ordered a 48” x 20” grill and expected that to be the cooking area... I was wrong. I guess I didn’t ask the right questions at order, the 48” is the span between the pillars and you loose cooking area for the bearings and lifters to raise the decks. My cooking area is 40” x 20”, so I feel like it was a bit deceptive. If I knew that, I may have gone in a different direction, most likely a LSG Santa Maria, or not. Hindsight sucks!

As far as build quality goes, the welds are good but not spectacular and the thing is as solid as a brick house. My issues is that there are sharp corners and burrs all over this grill and the grates. Every time I touch the thing I end up with a cut on my hand and get blood all over because I didn’t realize I was bleeding. No biggie, I’ll pull out the demel tool and take them down, but for what it cost, I expected more attention to detail.

So I’ll either stew about not getting what I expected or come to terms that my expectations were too high and I just need to get over it. I do know that I’m going to love it and use the hell out of it. So I got it fired up for an initial burn in.











So yeah... it’s kinda sexy. Spatchcock chickens on deck for the weekend, that should be a good test run. I do think I need to give it a nickname, looking for suggestions. Now I get update my signature.

Thanks Titch - deflated is a good way to describe it. The grates lift up to the top and with the front door open, it is very easy to shift the coals.

The snow is left over from last weeks misery when it was -10F as the high. A good welcome back to the US, but I do miss the Melbourne weather right now.

SmoothBoarBBQ said:

I think you didn't pay good enough attention when you were looking at the information on the website. I'm looking at it now (unless it has all been recently updated) and it shows the 24x48 is the size of the cooker, and then right next to it they display the actual size of the cooking grates as 22x31.

http://www.azbbqgrills.com/page-15/

I'm not sure exactly which model you ordered, but I looked at quite a few and every one of them showed the size of the cooker, and then the size of the cooking area right next to it. This is pretty common with smokers in general and I can't think of a single 24x60 smoker where the actual cooking surface is 24x60. I understand being a bit let down but I don't feel like they were deceptive.

If there's sharp burrs all over the cooker then I'd be pretty upset about it. 100% you should reach out to AZ BBQ and see if they are willing to address it. Maybe they'll send you an extra accessory or something. I agree that for the price paid you shouldn't have to break out your own tools and de-burr the surfaces.

All of this being said that's an awesome looking cooker and I'm sure you'll end up having a ton of fun with it. I've been a bit upset with new smokers over small stuff, but after a few cooks that small stuff usually isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

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Thanks - they updated their website after a very long phone call I had with them. They agreed that the website could have been more descriptive and it is good to see they followed through. I get that the dimensions will never be what is stipulated, an inch or two is acceptable to me, but mine was off 8” and that is what’s got me.

I need to consider this as small stuff and start giving her some love.

Thanks again

Nuco59 said:

That is impressive looking- I'm certain you will be very happy with it.
Looking forward to hearing how your first cook goes. I hope the weather cooperates.

(I did not put a brassero on my home built unit - may be rethinking that. Let us know how you feel about the placement of yours after you cook on it a bit.)

Very nice cooker, sir.

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Thanks,

I like the brassero in the back and it is easy to move the coals around. I have done two burn ins so far and there is plenty of room to just pull the coals forward. I went with the placement in the back because most of the side brasseros required a shovel and taking the coals out of the cooker to get under the grates (LSG style).

I was worried the fire in the back would give off radiant heat and make it hard to control the temperature, but it hasn’t been bad on the burn ins. I’ll get to know her more this weekend and will report back.