Well, as is the case with everyone, things have been derailed a bit. Road life just required too much contact with public places and surfaces for us to feel like we were doing our part to try and prevent the spread of coronavirus so we decided to cut our travels short in order to take shelter in one place. This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop cooking. In fact, like many of you, I’ll be cooking even more than ever! It’ll actually be a fun project to try and come up with recipes that require only basic ingredients. I will continue to focus on recipes that will translate well to road travel and camp cooking. 

One thing that will keep me able to experiment with live-fire cooking is my KUDU grill. This grill allows for a campfire (or charcoal) in the bottom and has adjustable-height rings that hold a grill grate and a large cast iron pan. In short, it’s the perfect live-fire cooking system. So what exactly is in the box? I’m glad you asked. I’ll happily share with you my KUDU grill unboxing experience!

First is the box. It’s big. And heavy. All in all it’s 32 inches wide, 27 inches deep, 11 inches tall, and weighs a whopping 62 pounds! While it’s easy to put the grill together by yourself, please do yourself a favor and get a friend to help you carry it to your chosen assembly location.

When you open the box the first thing you’ll see is the glorious cast iron pan that comes standard with the grill. The pan is about 3 inches deep and 15 inches in diameter. Paella anyone? Just saying. I haven’t done it yet, but that pan was made for paella.

Next are the grill grate and corresponding holding ring nestled into the beautiful base. I think that one of the things I like the best about this grill is that you could leave the legs off and keep the base as a nice little shallow campfire ring. I like to keep mine covered since we were gone for the winter, but I may keep it outside this summer for backyard s’mores!

The legs are an absolute cinch to put on, and have nice little self-leveling feet on the bottom so that you don’t have to worry about having a perfectly level patio for this glorious grill. The pan and grill grate are equally easy to install, but play around with adjusting the height when you install them. You’ll notice that they are a bit heavy and take two hands to lift/lower. There’s also a bit of a trick to getting the angle right in order to adjust things. It’s best to play with this before you get cooking so that you have the hang of things before it’s smoking hot. 

The other items that I added to my arsenal were the cover to protect everything from the liquid sunshine that Oregon is so well known for and the smoker lid. Both have proved to be essential!