R&V Works CES4 Cajun Express 4 Rib Stainless Steel Pressure Smoker Cooker

If there's one thing more scary than redneck engineering, it's cajun engineering. This falls into the latter category.

This thing is heavy, really heavy. Unloading from the back of your truck will require 2 men or an overhead winch.

Unit takes 13-15 min to warm up. This was starting at 70F and ending at 350F. Once preheated, you almost have to turn the flame off to keep it from continuing to climb.

So far, we've cooked hamburgers, mixed veggies, and pork spare ribs. Burgers were some of the best I've ever had. Veggies were very good. Spare ribs were a 9 out of 10.

The smoke and steam create a paste that sticks to various things. When I opened the door, black 'tar' dripped onto the patio floor. (edit) This continues. I plan to put a 5 gallon bucket under the door to catch condensation/etc that drips off the door when you open it.

The cooking times are honest. I did 3 thick spare ribs in 40-45 mins. They were all fully done, and all were cooked exactly the same. They were dripping with juice, actually being some of the juiciest ribs I've ever seen.

Cleanup: the grates are nice stainless steel and cleanup pretty easily. The drip pan cleans pretty easily also. The inside of the unit is accumulating some of this black tar stuff, but a good hosing out seems to take care of that.

Only problem I have is that the drip pan binds in the slot when the unit heats up (cold, there is no problem). I tried grinding the sides down a fraction of an inch. This has helped some but not much. You have to grip it very tightly and pull hard to get it out when the unit's hot. It IS nice that it will (when working correctly) slide out with the cooking shelf. That way you can turn/bbq the meat without dripping stuff all over the patio.

Overall, I rate the unit a 9/10. There's no guessing anymore on food. Pop it in, check your watch, and take it out. Everything inside it cooks evenly. My oven doesn't cook this consistently.

I could ding it a little for the weight. Unless built from aluminum or titanium, there's no getting around the weight. I was looking forward to carrying it to places and cooking. I can still do that, but it will take a trailer. I'm NOT unloading this thing again from a truck.

Edit: The mfg is making another drip pan, slightly smaller, and is shipping to me free of charge. Excellent!