Our Summer of Grill keeps getting better and better! We just received our awesome new PK360 Grill and Smoker – the newest iteration of the popular PK (“Portable Kitchen”) Grill. We were attracted to it for the ability it’s going to give us to set up different cooking zones at the same time (‘cooler’ on one side for slow and low, and ‘hot as heck’ for searing) and its smart ash clean up design (more below). Plus, we were able to take advantage of a sweet Father’s Day discount and scooped up some accessories and bonus gourmet rubs as well. Check out our little ‘unboxing gallery’ here and get inspired…

 

Funny how the most durable, least fragile things are packed so well (!)…not that we’re complaining. Everything arrived in super shape. Two of us made lifting some of the heavier items out of the box a tad more convenient.

 

You’ll be immediately struck by the high-quality cast aluminum capsule. A work of smoker art — and hard to imagine ever having to replace it.

 

We went a little grill-happy and added some accessories, like the rib rack (in the orange box), the high-quality cooking utensils (they come with convenient hooks for attaching to the shelves when not in use). We’re especially excited about the The Great Scrape Woody Paddle (pictured to the left of the capsule) which we’ll use for cleaning the grates. It’s just a flat panel now but it will ‘groove’ as we scrape the grate clean, conforming to the exact size of the wire racks over time (for cleaning those nasty nooks and charred cling-ons).

 

Working some assembly magic with an allen key…

 

The instructions were easy to follow and the unit quickly came together…

 

A beauty…almost there! BTW, above you’ve got a good shot of the 4-point venting system ‘controls’. Note the circular vents on the top of the lid (that’s one and two); you control vents found inside the bottom of the capsule with the two round black dials under the unit (that’s three and four).

 

Two black ‘durabilium’ shelves come standard with the PK360 to provide a handy prep/food staging surface.  The shelves can be removed if you want to lift the capsule off the stand and haul it somewhere (remember, PK= “Portable Kitchen”). We’re considering upgrading to the PK360 Teak Shelves – in our view a bit more attractive – but frankly the standard shelves look and work just fine. (On our first few grillings, we thought we dedicated a hint of plastic smell resulting from the high heat of the capsule, but it seems to be going away with more use.)

 

The hinged grid is ‘grate’ (groan.) Seriously, you can easily lift it with tongs while cooking when you need to make adjustments to the coals without doing contortions over fire. And it stays propped up on its own (as you see pictured) so it won’t flop onto your meat.

 

These raised vents (shaped like little ‘volcanoes’, in the bottom of the capsule) are just plain smart… You top them with the ‘lid’ show above that hovers just above the openings on the legs on either side of the hole – this protects your deck or patio or wherever you’re cooking from ash falling through the bottom while still letting air circulate from the bottom of the grill. You control the degree to which the holes are open with dials on the front of the grill, and as we showed you above, you also have vents in the lid of the capsule. (In the picture below, you’ll see that there are two ‘rows’ of vent holes. )

Check out this great features overview demo video at pkgrills.com showing off the 4-point vent system.

 

As notes, your vents are protected from the ash during cooking. This ‘plug’ is where you can push all the ash and dump it into a bucket or bin when you want to clean up. Super easy.

 

We lit things up for our first PK360 meal (rib-eye steaks) with our Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter. Watch for more on the PK360 – amazing griller/smoker so far.

 

More info:

Want to buy one now? Go right to the PK360 page on the official PKGrill site.

Or visit www.pkgrills.com for detailed information.

-Ms. K