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Orion Cooker, Any Reviews?

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dnz

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I was just givin a Orion cooker from a friend that was moving out of state. He would always tell me it was a smoker, but I could never buy that cause it had no vents at all and the heat is outside the cooker. I figured I would drill some holes for vents and make some kind of real smoker out of it. Now after looking it up at the Orion website I have a different view. Orion states it's a convection cooker but you can smoke things in it( I still don't buy that, no vents). The cook times they have in the instructions make it pretty appealing if you don't have the time to BBQ. Does anybody have one? I would like to hear some real reviews on this thing. Thanks for the site and all the great posts.
 
I guess you'd get smoke from putting wood chips in the cooking chamber.
Not sure that would be a very clean burn though without a little bit of ventilation.
You could also try pellets in there.
 
can't remember who but there is a guy on the big steel keg forum that has one. he has a big get togather every year in louiseanna looks very interesting
 
I have a buddy who says he smokes on his. Not exactly sure how he does it. So there you go, vague advice :).
 
Thanks for the advice. I know you can smoke on them, at least the manual sais you can. You place wood chips inside around the base against the inside wall and drip pan. As MG NorCal said " I don't think it would be a clean burn at all because there are no vents at all. I was trying to find anybody with first hand experience with the Orion as a convection cooker. I like the idea of total indirect-convection cooking. I will have to do some experimenting with it.
 
I have one. It's a cool little cooker. Won't give you any kind of smoke ring though. You can replace the drip pan with a bigger aluminum pan and put more wood chips in to create more smoke. I also light it early and really let the chips start to smolder. I used mine in a "Tailgate" Rib contest and got 2nd out of 37. Of course I smoked them first in my off-set to get the smoke ring and better color, then finished them in the "O". Tried that same trick with ribs in two KCBS events and got our but kicked. So for competitions I'm leaving at home, but for a quick weekend cook it does a great job.
 
I bought one on sale several years back, and if I had it to do again, I'd leave it at the store.

1) It is VERY inefficient! You use between 1/2 to a full bag of Kingsford loading it up

2) As others have said, tough to smoke in. (not impossible though. I wrapped some sawdust up in foil, folded it up like a long ribbon, poked some holes in it, and wrapped it around the outside of the drip pan. I did get some smoke on the ribs I was cooking

Because it's enclosed, it creates a very moist convection, that cooks food fairly quickly. The chicken I made in it was fabulous. Tried ribs once, they got so soft they fell off the hooks and ended up in a pile on the bottom.

Only good thing I can say about it is that the poultry roaster thing that came in it, along with the rib hooks, have turned out to be useful with my other cookers

I will give mine to anyone who wants it, free
 
Looked at them a while back when HD was selling them out. Decided that the 2 levels of open charcoal would not be a good thing with a golden retriever around.:shocked:
 
Orion Cooker

They do a pretty good job with most items if you just follow the directions.

S6EDSC00205.jpg


These are 70 minute ribs and although there is no smoke ring, these ribs were about right on the smokey flavor. I used sugar maple smoke chips.

82MVC-016E.jpg


A 70 minute whole chicken.
 
I had an Orion for a while. We cooked butts, whole chickens and ribs. I hated the texture of the ribs and everything we cooked on it seemed to have a funky taste.

It cooks fast, efficient and doesn't require you to do anything but load it, light it and start the timer.

Personally, cooking is one of my favorite things to do and doing it faster is not a big concern of mine. If I want to eat BBQ and I only have 3 hours I just go out for a sandwich.

Mine went to a good home (for free) and it gets used for tailgates every now and again.
 
I had one and loved it. I used it when I was limited on time. If I wanted ribs for dinner after work I could have spares done in an hour. Worked great for stuff like that.
 
It does do a good job on a quick cook when you don't have the time. I like to do ribs or a quick brisket Sunday morning before kickoff. I did a butt on it the other day and like someone above said it had an odd taste. That was the first time I had an odd taste though. It really does do an awesome job on chicken and turkey. :thumb:
 
Forgot to add.........for those of you who are having your ribs break off the hangers and fall in the drip pan, put another grate on the lowest setting and that will keep them out of the drip pan.
 
I've been involved with one cook on an Orion cooker and wasn't impressed. Don't like hanging ribs. Didn't get much smoke flavor. Hard to tell when the ribs are done.
 
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