The Rival Crock Pot BBQ Pit: Bringing the barbeque(r) indoors.
I for my part have no doubts that the Rival Crock-pot slow cooker long ago became a ‘must-have’ base unit for numerous North American household kitchens, conversely I in all honesty think that nearly all faithful, avid crockpot users are most likely not terribly aware of one of the more recent Rival Corporation innovations, the Rival Crock Pot BBQ Pit. Considering the unusual character of this new appliance – it is being marketed as an indoor alternative to the established outdoor barbecue after all – I am not at all shocked that it brings with it something of a learning curve, and should probably not be used right out of the box without in any case a percursory browsing of the included instruction bookletI myself have yet to personally come up with any reasoning for somebody deciding to go and use the bbq pit appliance without the included meat rack, which I think is agood thing since cooking any meats without using the meat rack likely will result in your rersults not being very dry cooked and instead seeming more liquidy or stewlike. One more detail that I have found is that you will almost certainly boast better results with any meats that you want to cook if you make the effort to dry them out a bit before you cook them.
After playing around with the BBQ Pit crock pot for a while, I have started to figure out that the appliance is similar to many other home appliances in that it has its own design strengths as well as its own design weaknesses.
The countertop intention of the BBQ Pit is an observable big boon. This point makes the unit exceedingly user-friendly as well as makes the conception of indoor barbecuing doubly appealing since it just might be giving any possible beginner bbq chef the opportunity of being able to practise barbecue-style cooking right there on their countertop. And, to be truthful, the home barbecuer or crock pot user who cares about having convenient acces to barbecue even when it is not a viable outdoor option, is likely a large part of this appliance’s target market. Isn’t it marketing the intention of being able to without difficulty, and with minimum effort, transport an outdoor tradition and practise indoors – at least to some degtree? A further plus would have to be the abovementioned included meat rack which can be set to two distinct positions which you choose depending on whether you are likely going to be slow cooking something like steak, chicken, ribs or something else. One other feature of the Crock Pot BBQ Pit’s design that I really liked is that the stoneware liner insert is not only easily removable (like with all Rival Crock Pots) but that it is also claimed to be both oven and dishwasher safe. That is something that cannot help but make such an appliance more adaptable and alluring to the purchaser. To be honest, I think that Rival has been making a concerted effort to institute these features into a number of its more recent slow-cooker offerings.
And of course, I did say that the BBQ Crock is not without its own number of design weaknesses. I am aware that the crock-pot bbq pit is being marketed as a practical indoor alternative to an outside barbeque, and in order for it to fulfill that function it would likely have to be of some girth to sufficiently achieve its ambition. Nonetheless, this is an appliance that will require some serious room on your kitchen counter-top when it’s being used and when not in use you would likely want to store it somewhere out of the way, and if you are at all strapped for space in your domicile then this could be a likely problem. An added drawback of the appliance – although to be fair this may just be the nature of the beast, is with the stoneware insert, or to be more precise, how dirty or messy the insert surface can get from burned on foods after cooking and how tricky it can be to clean it all off afterwards Getting the insert clean doesn’t have to be a real hassle if you put it into your home dishwasher, however if your dishwasher is just too small to fit it in and it isn’t therefore really an option, then cleaning it can become achore. If you find yourself in the situation of hand cleaning the oversized insert, one thing you can try is to clean the insert with a combination of baking soda and water – an effective, yet less abrasive solution. I have read that if you coat the insert with spray on cooking oil then it might make clean up afterwards easier. Anything else? Well, there is one more thing that I consider to be something of a negative aspect with the appliance; there are no external handles on the lower half of the exterior of the heating unit, and this can make for an awkward situation if you should decide that you actually need to move the BBQ once it gets hot. Because of this you need to be sure that it is okay for it to stay where it is before you get going.
The Crock Pot BBQ unit measures in at about 20 inches by 16 inches so as I made reference to earlier, you will find that it takes up a fair bit of your kitchen’s counterspace can imagine that this barbecuing appliance will – in some small way, let some home cooks get a taste and feel for something that maybe is not too far renmoved from the real culinary experience of home barbecuing. Still, I do not in fact anticipate scores of ordinary barbecue enthusiasts adopting this system of barbecuing when their customary outdoor propane or charcoal barbecue grill is an available option. However because of the Rival Corporation’s successful track record with slowcooker appliances It will be interesting to see how keenly this new Rival Crock Pot BBQ Pit catches on with Crock Pot enthusiasts in particular and shoppers in general.