Customer Ratings & Reviews

Possibly the worst purchase I've ever made. Incredibly over-priced for the features you get. What I realize now is that this is a fancy rotisserie, full stop. Rotisserie cooking a large hunk of meat for a long time is this grill's reason-for-being. It's terrible in every other way. It isn't really a grill and isn't really suited to much else than slow rotisserie cooking. If you want to spend an afternoon roasting a pig on a spit, this is your grill. If you want to grill steak, pork chop, chicken thighs -- this is a time-consuming and inconvenient way to do it. The electric element the Hub uses to start the charcoal is undersized. One cycle of lighting charcoal using the electric element will not ignite enough charcoal to cover the charcoal chamber. In reality it takes several cycles (3-4), which doesn't seem much faster (~20-30 mins) than a regular old charcoal grill. Despite what the manual implies, the promise that (paraphrasing) "after a 7 min cycle, the surrounding charcoal will ignite and after 10-15 minutes most of the charcoal should have partially or fully ignited" is actually carefully qualified wishful thinking. The description gives you the hope that after 10-15 mins you have a grill full of charcoal hot and ready to go, when in reality after 10-15 mins you have a small pile of lit charcoal, some partially lit charcoal, and some charcoal that looks like it just came out of the bag. The ignition process and limitations also means the grill burns/heats unevenly (esp without a usable lid) and can be hard to get to temperature. Last but not least, and this is a real face-palm, what have I done, what where they thinking, is this returnable "feature" -- there's no way to slow/extinguish the charcoal burn. There are no vents or lid to modulate airflow or extinguish the fire. It's basically a fire pit. Best case scenario, you can scoop hot charcoal out by hand with a hand shovel and ever so carefully put that red hot charcoal in a bucket and pour water on it... while hoping that in the process, you don't burn yourself or start a fire. You're not supposed to pour water in the charcoal chamber (which will destroy the electrical element), you're not supposed to use the provided lid to cut off airflow (to thin and flimsy), and their are no other vents to close/adjust to cut off oxygen to the charcoal. So if this thing gets too hot, too bad! Best case, you can put on some fire-retardant gloves, take the grates off, and use what are hopefully some very long tongs to move that red hot charcoal around. And when you're done for the night... you're supposed to just leave the charcoals burning in full open air until whenever they stop burning -- without a lid or anything else to protect people and property or slow their burn. According to the manual, the charcoal can remain hot for "up to a day." Case in point, I started the grill around 5:30pm to cook some chicken thighs, and before I went to bed at midnight, the charcoal was still red hot. Unlike a classic, OG $200 charcoal kettle grill there are no vents to cut off oxygen to the flame, and no lid to close to keep things out of the fire. I live in wildfire prone California -- there's no way I can leave hot charcoal burning unattended and uncovered for 12-24 hours. So if you don't feel comfortable going to bed with red hot charcoal still burning in an uncovered grill seven hours after you started it, this is not the grill for you. If you need a grill to do some *long* rotisserie cooks, and you can keep kids, dogs, strangers, combustible material away from the un-coverable, un-extinguishable open-air charcoal flames for 12-24 hours, this could be a one-of-a-kind grill for roasting that pig on a spit or whatever.