Slow 'N Sear® Deluxe Charcoal Basket Insert for 22" Weber Kettle Grills – Patented Stainless Steel Two-Zone Cooking Accessory with Removable Water Reservoir for Low & Slow Smoking and Searing

Introduction: I bought the Slow N Sear Plus a couple months ago. I waited until I had used it a few times before writing a review. On the slow side (225 degrees) I've cooked 2 pulled chuck roasts, one pulled pork shoulder, and ribs. On the sear side (hot as you can go) I've cooked super thick steaks with the reverse sear method and some thinner ones (just searing the hell into them). I also did a lamb roast at about 350 degrees F. I also grilled a bunch of chicken pieces with the lid off at no particular temperature. Accurate temperature is key for slow cooks. For the first two cooks with the Slow and Sear I made do with temperature estimates with a Thermapen through the exhaust hole. I think, if you are considering this, you need a good thermometer too. I now have a Maverick thermometer. It took me a while, but now I know how to control the temperature with this thing. I get 5 hours before I have to touch the fire fuel. I'm still having one problem - I need to stir the ash very well to get it to fall through, otherwise the ash kills airflow and kills the fire. However the act of stirring that hard can also kill the fire if you don't have enough stable coals. I actually killed the fire once and had to relight. (I don't know if this is exacerbated by the floor on the Plus model or not. See also the regular SNS for comparison. I'd like to try them both and compare.) I'm still working on that issue but it's going to be solved by technique. I could check the fire more often, for example. The Review: Slow side: The pulled beef and pulled pork were perfect. I could talk about my previous offset smoker for a while at this point but who cares? I don't need it anymore unless you are talking sheer volume of meat. The ribs, also perfect. My daughters said it was better than the smokehouse in our town. They were probably gearing up to ask me for money though. Medium heat roasting: The lamb roast was excellent as well. I held it at 350 degrees. This is a different technique than 225 but I just followed instructions on the ABC barbecue site. It wasn't difficult. Its just a different size fire and different vent placements. I'm thinking I'll try the Thanksgiving turkey this way. Put a drip pan down and get ready for gravy. Grilling chicken pieces: The reason the chicken was better is that the fire stayed away from the chicken skin and I got no flare ups. I moved the chicken over the fire for brief periods, and then over to the other side of the grill for the bulk of the cooking. You could get this same result with a couple bricks or a weber coal basket of course. But I don't think I'm ever going to take the Slow N Sear out of my grill. It does everything. (Or wait. Its ME that does everything. But the SNS sure helps.) Sear: The steaks. Have you ever had bistecca alla fiorentina? I think it's the pinnacle of steak. I like bone-in ribeye but it's traditionally porterhouse. Sometimes I will crush garlic onto a plate big enough for all the steaks. Add some salt and pepper to that. Put the finished, hot steaks directly onto that. Turn them over after a moment. Top it with a hit of olive oil. Holy cow. Back to the cooking part . . . My steaks were CRUSTY on the outside and medium rare on the inside. They, too, were perfect. I will admit that the steaks I did on the sear were better than any I'd made previously. You can't get this hot without trying. Forget gas grills. Even a charcoal grill needs a heat push for world class steaks. This is it. I think this product works as advertised and if I ever buy a Weber grill for someone I would have to include one of these with it.

I bought the Slow 'N Sear Plus several weeks ago from Amazon.com. I cannot yet comment on longevity, but the build quality of the product looks very good. It is made from heavy gauge stainless steal, fits my kettle grill perfectly and has not warped over several cooks (including hot sears). I have cooked on it five times now, and have smoked ribs and chicken, and slow roasted steak (with a very hot sear to finish). The results of using the Slow 'N Sear Plus have been excellent. I followed the instructions provided (even though I was initially concerned about having a lot of unlit briquettes), and it has worked very well. I measure the temperature of my cooks using a ThermaQ k-type thermocouple, which is a reasonably high precision device (+/- 1F), and I am easily able to maintain temperature between 220F and 235F over several hours (I have only cooked up to 5 hours thus far, but do not doubt the 8 hour claims at this point given the amount of leftover coals). Smoke levels are easily controlled by the addition of appropriate amounts of wood chunks (I have used 8 oz for ribs, 2 oz for chicken and 1 oz for steak). The food itself has come out great every time, and I look forward to my future cooks. Before I bought the Slow 'N Sear Plus, I had considered buying a dedicated smoker. However, this proves to be a much, much cheaper alternative for a high quality product, and I believe that the results will be as good. The only reason I may still get a dedicated smoker in the future is that the cooking capacity of a kettle grill is insufficient for large groups of people. One area where I think this could be improved slightly, is that I think the holes in the bottom could be, perhaps, 1/8th or 1/12th of an inch wider, to give a slightly better rate of ash falling through. This is obviously a balancing act between keeping the lit coals in place and not obstructing airflow with ash, and without experimentation it would be difficult to know what is optimal. However, I have not seen any ill effect of the current design in terms of temperature stability. TL;DR: If you want to do indirect cooking on a kettle grill, buy this product. It's great.

After only 5 uses or so, I can confidently say that the Slow 'N Sear is one of my favorite accessories for the Weber Kettle. It makes it super easy to use the Weber kettle as a smoker, and it can put out really tasty brisket, smoked chicken thighs, smoked wings, and really anything else you can think of smoking. Before having a SnS, I would use the snake method with charcoal briquettes to smoke meat at a relatively steady temperature (anywhere between 225 F to 300 F) for extended periods of time. Look up the snake method if you are not familiar with it, because there are plenty folks online who have explained it really well and with pictures and videos. The primary downside with the snake method is the setup time. It requires extra time and effort to set up the 2x2 or 3x2 snake of briquettes prior to cook. A secondary downside is that it is somewhat difficult and finicky to add to the snake in the case of longer cooks that require extra fuel. With the Slow 'N Sear, both of those downsides are eliminated, and the temperature control is maintained. To start the cook, I can simply dump charcoal briquettes (or even lump charcoal, which doesn't work with the snake method) willy nilly into the SnS. I don't have to carefully place and stack charcoal briquettes like I do with the snake method, thus drastically reducing the setup time and effort. I then light the charcoal at one end using a tumbleweed starter or Weber wax lighter cube. A full tray of charcoal lasts 8 hours easily, and probably lasts closer to 10 to 12 hours. If I am smoking a larger cut of meat that requires more time, I simply flip up the side of the grill grate (I have a the Weber hinged grate) and dump more charcoal into the SnS. This takes only 1-2 minutes. Regarding temperature control, I have found that temps can be held very steady (in a 15F or 20F range) with the SnS and with very slight adjustments to the bottom and top vents of the Weber kettle. If I am doing a cook where I want to smoke at a higher temp such as 275-285F to speed up the process, then I open up the vents a little more. If I am doing a cook where I want to smoke at a lower temp such as 225F and for a longer time, I close the vents a little more. The last thing worth mentioning is that the SnS includes a removable water pan that slots right into the overall SnS charcoal tray. This saves me the hassle of having a separate water tray set up in the Weber kettle. I recommend always having some hot water in that tray while using the SnS; this means that you will very likely have to refill it during longer cooks, as the water boils off and evaporates. (It is really easy to refill. Just pour in more hot water.) The water helps to maintain higher humidity in the kettle chamber during the cook, thereby reducing the chances of drying out the meat. Also, water has high heat capacity, meaning it can absorb a lot of heat before its temperature rises. This helps prevent the stainless steel sidewalls of the SnS from absorbing too much heat from the lit charcoal and then deforming. Also due to water's high heat capacity, I suggest pouring hot or boiling water into the water tray when starting a cook or when refilling during a cook. If you use cold water, a lot of the thermal energy from the charcoal will ":be wasted" since it would go towards heating up the water (because of water's high heat capacity). Instead, if you heat up the water first, say using an electric kettle or on a gas stove, then when that hot water is added to the water tray, the kettle's internal temp won't drop or fluctuate as much because the heat from the charcoal can continue being used to maintain the kettle's internal temp rather than to heat up the water. I lied--one more thing is worth mentioning. Since the SnS sits off to one side of the kettle, it allows for two zone cooking. You can sear meats at high temps in the area of the grill grates that are directly above the SnS, since all of the charcoal in the tray concentrates its heat directly upwards. At the same time, you can smoke meats at lower temps in the area of the grill grates that is away from the SnS, allowing for indirect cooking. The Slow N' Sear is definitely one of the more versatile accessories that you can add to your Weber kettle, and it is well worth the investment. From the length and detail of this review, you can probably tell that I am really happy with my SnS. I would highly recommend it as an upgrade to anybody using a Weber kettle to smoke meats.

Quality build! I am new to grilling and I love the ease of using the Slow N Sear. Very Impressive and worth the investment. This thing is built to last. I wanted to slow cook/Smoke meat and this made it easy to use and control the temp.

Excellent build quality, and worked flawlessly. Maintained temp very well with only minor tweaks needed during the 7 hour cook. Looking forward to testing its versatility with various cuts of meat.

The Slow N Sear is amazing! I have the Slow N Sear Plus for a 22.5 Weber Kettle. I just completed my first BBQ using the Slow N Sear. I used kingsford blue bag and a few pieces of hickory and apple. I have never smoked a pork shoulder in my life on a BBQ Smoker or anything for that matter. However, I have been cooking on my Weber with indirect heat for things like beer can chicken, chicken thighs, chicken drums, chicken wings, brats, steaks, burgers and dogs. I followed Slow N Sears simple directions, that came in the box, on how to light the grill for a 225 cook. Next, I put the meat, a 7.78lb pork shoulder, on at 10:51pm. I set my digital thermometer to wake me up if the grill got anywhere above 290F or below 200F. It was a little windy and the air temp was 62F. I got the temp dialed in between 225F-230F and fell asleep around midnight. My low air temp alarm did not go off until 6:00am that morning. I brushed the ash out of the way, moved the remaining coals to one side, refilled the Slownsear back up with coals. I was just reversing the process. Cooked for 3.5 more hours before I had to open the lid again. My temps were dropping a little and I think it was because I needed to get some more of the ash out of the way and through the bottom of the grate. I think it was clogging the airflow. As soon as I made sure the the ash was cleared I closed the lid and I got it ack to temp around 245-250. I only had to open the lid twice during the entire 13.5 hour cook. I Cooked it until 12:23pm. I took the pork shoulder off the grill when it had an internal temperature of 203F. I never wrapped the Pork Shoulder for the entire cook so I could get a great bark. I also only filled the water pan once right at the beginning. The water ran out and I didn't need it after it emptied from the initial fill. I let the pork shoulder rest for 1.5 hours with a tinfoil tent over top. The bone pulled right out and I could shred it with my hands. The family loved it. My neighbors could smell it from blocks away. I had some friends stop by to try it after I sent them some pictures and they all loved it. It turned out amazing! It was so easy. Two friends stopped by, tried the pork and immediately went home and ordered the SlowNSear for their own Weber Kettles. The bark was delicious, I had a great smoke ring and the meat was moist. What more could I ask for? A side note, I called Adrenaline BBQ during the cook, left a message and a real human called me back to answer my question. They were so polite, very helpful and happy to hear my cook was going well. They seem like a great company located in NC. I paid full price for my Slow n Sear and I do not work for them in anyway. I am just a man trying to elevate my skills on my Weber Kettle. The Slow N Sear is worth every penny. I am so happy with the purchase.

I have waited a while to write a review on this so I can sound somewhat educated on the product! One of my wife's coworkers husband mentioned this to me while we were in Maui, so I came home and did some research on them. I did this because I loved the flavor of the Huli-Huli chicken and ribs we got while on the island. I like the fact I get both the charcoal and smoked flavorings in one grill! I do have a REC-TEC Bull smoker that I use often, but when I crave the charcoal flavor I can't get from the smoker, I use this on my Weber. I have cooked numerous racks of ribs and even a whole chicken as well as a bacon wrapped meatloaf smothered in BBQ sauce. It was able to keep desired temperature for at least 6 hours. I would highly recommend this as an alternative to a regular smoker (a ton cheaper as well) if you are looking to diversify your flavor profiles! Update: 5 years later & still going strong. Even though the grill ash removal/temp regulator parts are broken and waiting for a replacement I was able to keep the temp at 325 for 4 hours.

Buy it. This thing is great. You can use a fraction of the amount of charcoal you would normally have to use to get a good sear because the Slow N Sear concentrates the heat. You don't even need to fill it to the brim to get a good sear. If you fill it up for 2-zone cooking, the kettle will still get to 500 degrees F.

I've got a bunch of after market add ons for my weber kettle, but if I had to pick just one, it would be my slow and sear by miles

An alle Grillfreunde , es ist eine Offenbarung was man aus dem Webergrill noch rausholen kann, 14 Std. Smoken und lecker Pulled Pork zubereiten ist kein Thema, genauso mit großer Hitze Steak Grillen ist super.

Hubby loves it and it does an excellent job at assisting the low n slow bbqing. A new staple in our summer bbq repertoire we wldnt want to be without

Works fantastic for smoking brisket adds moisture and enables me to control temp on charcoal Weber grill.

great add on for your grill. must have. very high quality