Orion Holiday Turkey Cooker/Smoker

I know of people that have used them and love them. I have never used one but have had food eaten out of them.

They recommend you use matchlight charcoal and i'm not crazy about uisng that stuff. I have a friend who has one and he only used it twice and complained about how much charcoal he had to use.Also he said the food had no real smoke flavor to it.Get you a UDS instead and pocket the difference for beer. :biggrin:

My buddy got one on clearance at Home Depot, he loves it and just did a pre run turkey on it and said it was the best ever.

They develop almost no smoke. It's a nice small oven basically.

I have one, it is basically an oil free highe heat sealed convetion system that uses the foods juices to vaporize (steam) flavor back into the meat. thesy say it is a smoker, IT IS NOT (place some dry cips around the inside of the base but basically no smoke.) For Turkeys it is great, fast and even with juicy results. I also use it in conjuction with me CB SS to do Costco pork shoulders... 3 hours on the SS then 2-2.5 in the Orion... great bark and wonderful smoke flavor. It comes with 3 rib hangers; the ribs don't seen to come out nearly as well. The matchlight is fine as the unit is sealed, no matchlight flavor ever hits the meat (load meat first then close it up and dump 13.8 lbs of match light in base and on top.. light and run...INFERNO at first!!! Does great chicken too...

I have one, and will be happy to sell it to any local brethren. I've tried a few things in it. It IS a pretty good chicken/turkey cooker. Food comes out VERY juicy!

BUTTTTTTT!!!
Downsides are...
1. VERY innefficient use of charcoal, you need a ton just to cook a chicken (though not much more for a turkey, so for that purpose, not too bad)

Difficult if not impossible to get any smoke (you can wrap up some chips in foil, roll it up in a donut shape to wrap around the drip pan and stick between the inside of the cooker and the drip pan sides - poke holes in it first with a fork)

You might look at Char Broils Big-Easy propane convection cooker. Probably just as good to cook with and less messy/expensive to use

Stoke, I put on the half arm gloves and unload/reload it... I use a larger drip pan, all the way to the edge, with taller 'lips,' and a 4 point lift with the supplied 'bird' hook to clear the pan... I just add more (non matchlight) coals and let her tip for hours... as long as wind is not a major issue, I have found you con finish a lot of meat, from the smoker... worth the expermintation... it can be a helpful ACCESSORY; but turkeys do turn out very nice!!!

Sounds cool MJ, I guess I'm just spoiled by my WSM's, the Orion seems like way too much work, but it does do a really nice job on poultry