Product Review - Peoria Custom Cooker

When we decided to purchase a barbecue cooker for the Caribbean BBQ Association, we evaluated several cooker styles and manufacturers and finally settled on a trailer mounted horizontal offset. One of the builders we contacted was Peoria Custom Cookers in Peoria, IL. I have to admit that I wasn't very familiar with them, but once we started looking at their cookers and compared the features vs. price with the other pit builders, we placed an order with Peoria for their 30" x 96" cooker. One factor that influenced our decision was the ease of working with the people at Peoria. It wasn't feasible for us to travel from Puerto Rico to evaluate cookers firsthand, so the folks at Peoria sent us pictures of pits under construction, close-ups of their welds, etc. We couldn't have made a better decision. The quality, materials and workmanship are equal, or superior, to any steel fabricated cooker I have seen.

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Features and Options

Our cooker has a 30" diameter by 96" long cooking champer which provides plenty of room to cook barbecue for a large crowd. Standard features include:

• 1/4" steel construction
• 30” wide 24”deep and 27” high firebox made of 1/4" steel
• Stainless steel aircooled handles
• 2" drainpipe with removable cap
• Removable shelves
• 1300 degree paint

The pit comes standard with removable, lift out cooking racks, but we opted for the 3 row slide out shelves. We also upgraded to the 1/2" thick steel for the firebox, aluminum wheels, charcoal basket, brass drain valve, the steak and burger grill over the firebox, and a powder-coat paint job.

The steak and burger grill is located in the top of the firebox. Access is by a hinged door on the top. The cooking rack slides out and has brackets to position it at three different levels. This is a great option for grilling some steaks, sausages, or burgers while waiting for the barbecue to cook.

Materials, Quality and Workmanship

As I stated above, the materials and workmanship on this cooker are second to none. The firebox is bent from a single piece of 1/2" steel, not welded together from individual pieces. This gives a nice clean look to top edges of the firebox and eliminates any future problems with warping or cracking of welds that might occur.

The firebox has an elevated, expanded metal grate to allow plenty of airflow through the fuel.

The doors seal extremely well and seem to be pretty much airtight. There was no visible smoke leaking around either of the doors. They have a bracket welded along the top and bottom edge on the inside of the door that fits around the edge of the door opening and seals the door tightly when it is closed.

Each door also has a large counter-weight which makes opening the heavy steel doors a breeze, as Caribbean BBQ Association President Mike Compton demonstrates.

The right side of the cooking chamber has metal tuning plates with regularly spaced gaps to limit the amount of heat that flows in from the firebox, helping to distribute the heat more evenly. Also, fat dripping onto the tuning plates provides additional flavor. The 3 slide-out cooking racks provide plenty of capacity to cook for a large crowd.

Cooking

OK, the pit is a beauty and is well built but how does it cook you ask. In mid-September Mike Compton and I dragged the pit out to his beach house and broke it in by cooking up some chicken and spare ribs. We burned charcoal, since excellent, dense, hardwood lump charcoal is readily available here but firewood is hard to come by. Not many fireplaces in Puerto Rico, thank goodness. It takes awhile for the pit to come up to temperature since there is a lot of steel to heat up. Once it's up to temp, it maintains temperature very well with a minimum of fussing with vents. We did manage to let it overheat one time. After adding additional charcoal the temperature dropped. We were impatient to get it back up so we opened up the air intake, went back to the beach to drink some adult beverages and kind of forgot about the cooker. When we came to check on it, the temperature had climbed up above 400 degrees and some pork loins we had cooking on the lower right shelf were pretty crispy. We forgot what we already knew, which is don't make any radical adjustments to the dampers. Just give the cooker some time and the temperature will level out. Here are some pictures of our results.

Summary

We are very well pleased with our purchase of the Peoria Custom Cooker. It has met or exceeded all our expectations. It is solid, well built and a thing of beauty. The folks at Peoria are great to work with and won't quit until they are sure you are satisfied and that you are getting exactly what you want and need. Their cookers offer great value for the dollar spent. If you are in the market for a cooker, we recommend you check out Peoria Custom Cookers. In addition to the 30" x 96", they also build a 24" x 72" mobile pit. At $3,870 for the standard model, it is an amazing value. They also build patio cookers and grills.