I cooked on one this past summer. Had to borrow one to fit all the meat I was cooking for a guy. It's the one on the left (obviously :doh
It's basically a convection cooker. I was impressed that it was able to cook 3 - 7 to 8 lb butts to complete pullable tenderness in only 3 or 4 hours (just as the recipe book said you could). But that's about ALL I was impressed with.
For one, there's no way to regulate the temp. You put your meat in, put the top on and dump an entire 11 lb bag of matchlight (which is damn expensive) in it, placing about 10 briq's in the top and then light them. The thing just cooks along for about 3 hrs until all the coals go out. Even after the coals go out, it's still cooking. After about 3.5 or 4 hours, I pulled the lid, yanked the butts and they were completely done, perfectly tender. BUT.....there was virtually ZERO bark!!! I could still see the rub and could wipe it away with my finger. The exterior of the meat was only slightly brown, really more of a gray.
I made it work. I was cooking 24 racks of BB's and 10 butts that day, so I'd just pull 2 "barked" butts and mix in one of the "gray" butts in with the meat really well. HOWEVER....if I were only eating one of the butts from the Orion, I'd have been disappointed. It's not that they didn't have ANY flavor, but not much. They tell you to put wood chips in the bottom for smoke, which I did, but I didn't taste much smoke.
The thing sure looks cool. PLUS.....my youngest son's name is Orion. But I wouldn't buy one for the money they want for one. For $150-$200, I'd build a UDS and buy a Weber kettle. Just sayin.
Here's a link to the owner's manual that I was able to find prior to my cook:
http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/e5/e5c88df4-69c6-499c-b77f-04b98c9d30ea.pdf
That's MY $.02. Sorry to be a bummer.......
