The Charbroil Big Easy is just that- EASY!

The Charbroil Big Easy is like a Hybrid Grill- it does a little bit of everything! It is a smoker, roaster and grill all wrapped into one grill. I’ve gotten mine put together finally and I’ve used it three times so far so I feel I can give it an accurate review!

First Impressions:

When you take the various grill parts out of the box, you will not experience any “WOW” moments. In fact, this grill makes a bad first impression because it comes in a lot of different parts that appear to be rather cheaply made. However, once you suffer through and get it put together, you end up with a good looking cast iron infrared grill that you will be proud to grill on and keep on your patio.

Scott and I lost our virginity to this grill with a duck on our first Christmas together as a married couple! Quite a big deal I must say! Scott found a great recipe online on how to “smoke a duck” that will end up crispy, much like Chinese Restaurant Peking Duck. We found the recipe on ChiliCheesefries.net and it gave specific instructions on how to puncture the skin of the bird and pour boiling water over the bird to seep into the skin. This helps with the browning of the skin, I believe.

Easy to use settings make smoking, roasting or grilling easy to do.

We set the Big Easy to the Low setting with the lid closed which is the “smoker setting”. We put cherry chips into the smoker box to help “smoke” the bird. Based on the low setting of the temperature, we mistakenly thought the bird would be done in about 4 hours. Instead, the bird reached the correct internal temp of  170 degrees at just under 2 hours!! It cooked much faster than we had thought. I hauled ass to get all the side dishes ready as I thought I had more time!

Duck is all dark meat so if dark meat is your favorite, then this is your bird!

The duck turned out delicious- moist and flavorful, just as I had hoped.

My 2nd attempt to cook on the Big Easy ended up being a disaster and I’m pretty sure it was a user error (aka my fault). So I’ll just leave it at that.

My 3rd cook on the Big Easy was with Turkey Wings. Now I’ve never cooked turkey wings before so I didn’t really know what to expect. I will tell you, I had never cooked a duck before either so there must be something about this Big Easy that seems to inspire poultry creativity in me!!!

Get the turkey wings disconnected at the joints by the butcher so they are a managable size. I then put a cherry/chipotle rub on them and let them rest for 2 hours.

I intended to smoke the wings on the low setting and I thought it would take me a while. I had it on the low setting and believe it or not, they were done in about 30 minutes! That is definitely not low and slow but I’m starting to think the smoker setting is more about smoke flavor, not true smoking…

1/2 a turkey wing is equal in size to a chicken leg!more for smoke-like effects but not the same definition of smoker that I’m used to.

In Review:

The Big Easy is a really cool hybrid grill that does a little of everything. It will grill, roast, and semi-smoke any meat you put in it leaving the meat juicy and moist without too much fuss. As “GrillGrrrl” OR “GrillGirl” I am not an expert on “Low and Slow” so I don’t know if this grill is truly a smoker. However, I know that is it incredibly easy to use and has yielded great results 2/3 times I have used it so far, (with the bad results being my fault!). I would recommend this grill to anyone who likes to cook meat in a variety of ways as this grill affords a lot of different options for the experimental griller such as myself.

Look to see more fun experiences on the Big Easy on my blog as I continue to try new things out! Happy Grilling!!