One Grill Performer Basket Update


 
Steve Porter

Steve Porter

TVWBB Super Fan
I received my One Grill Performer Basket recently and have had a chance to use it and thought I would post my initial impressions. The basket is well made and the size is good for cooking a variety of items on a rotisserie. The stainless steel material and the fact that it easily disassembles makes clean up easy and it fits inside our dishwasher with plenty of room to spare. I definitely suggest to anyone considering this basket to order the extra flat rack with it to enable cooking smaller and thinner meats on the rotisserie. One thing I am disappointed in is on One Grills own website they show the support and drive rods being inserted into a square drive fitting on each end of the basket and then a lock nut installed on each end to hold the rod ends to the basket. So in other words there is square drive connections to the basket and well as the motor end of the drive rod. And another square drive end to the support handle at the basket end of that rod. But the basket I received does not have the square drive ends on the basket to insert the drive and support rods into and instead the rods just screw into the basket and the lock nuts go on to secure it. I already lost one lock nut and had the support rod almost back all the way out of the basket when the lock nut came off. Since then I am of course tightening the lock nut with more torque to prevent this but now I'm concerned about over tightening and possibly stripping the threads on the rod ends with repeated use. We'll have to see what happens over time.

That's really the only concern I have with this purchase and overall I am very happy with this basket. I have emailed One Grill with this concern and also made the suggestion that they include a SS thumb screw for the retainer bushing that keeps the rod from backing out of the motor drive while being used. The basket currently comes with a small Phillips screw for the retainer bushing and since I have to be able to tighten and loosen this screw when inserting or removing the rotisserie rod into or from the drive motor it would make things easier. I did go to my local big box store and purchased a SS eye bolt for this purpose.

Roti tri tip is on the menu for tonight!
 
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Hopefully these pictures come through and you can see what I mean about the lack of the square drive connection to the basket.
 
Nope, didn't work, I'll have to study up on how to send pictures on this site. It's been a while since I've done pictures.
 
That must be a design change. The basket I purchased a couple of years ago has the system as seen on the website, not the one described in the original post.

I love this basket!
 


Hopefully the pictures come through this time. Thanks DaveW for the picture above showing the lock nut end of the connection. Below I've included a copy of the email response I received from One Grill concerning the change in the design of the basket. I want to emphasize that I am still very happy with the Performer Basket and would purchase it again even with the change and would recommend the basket to others. But as I stated in my original post, I already lost a lock nut the first time I used the basket and almost had the support rod disconnect from the basket while using it on my grill. So I question whether the change made is a real improvement and whether the change actually costs more to make than the original design. And I do wonder if the new connection will give out after multiple uses, as I disconnect the rods from the basket with every use to enable easier cleaning and storage of the basket and rods. The following is the response from One Grill:

Thank you for contacting OneGrill. I apologize that you did not receive in your basket packing the updated instructional for the thread in rods. This design has recently been adopted to increase the quality of the basket rather than downgrade the performance. From our in-house testing the double threaded design actually provided better clamping and more consistent security for the drive and support rods than did the square shank design; this design allows the turning force to be placed against the inside walls of the basket rather than just the mounting bung on the outside; this eliminates a considerable amount of side plate flex. This did increase the overall cost of the basket, but we felt that the benefits where well worth the design change and where able to do so without passing on the cost. We will be updating our videos shortly to reflect this change as well; I apologize for the confusion. We absolutely value your input and are always working to improve our products. That being said, if you are not satisfied with the product you have received we are more than happy to facilitate a return and provide a 100% refund to you.
 
This basket interests me. I would appreciate your input as to cooks you have done using this basket; or ideas you have for possible uses. Thanks for you thoughts or pics.
 
Sorry I don't have any pics of using the basket, and we've only had the basket for 2 weeks, but maybe others will send in their pics and ideas. We so far have used the basket to spin a Turkey Breast and a Beef Tri-Tip. Both came out great. We're planning on cut up chicken parts this weekend. I really like the basket a lot and think it's design makes it very versatile. I ordered the extra flat rack with it as this really expands the number of different items you can cook with it. It's big enough to easily hold 2 or 3 whole chickens inside yet with the extra rack you can do much smaller or thinner items without them tumbling around in the basket or go without the extra rack if you do want to tumble what's inside, which is how we'll do the chicken this weekend. The basket will hold a nice sized prime rib or other large cuts of meat and I like not having to poke a big hole in my prime rib and letting a lot of juice run out while on the rotisserie! The basket disassembles easily and fits in the dishwasher with room for other things. The basket is well made with stainless steel, and is much heavier than the usual baskets found at big box stores that just slide over your own spit. I use the basket with my 26.75" kettle, but have measured it against my 18" Smokey Joe and think it would be too big for the 18". It should work well on the 22" or larger kettles and other similar sized grills. I'm sure Tuna steaks, all kinds of beef roasts, and leg of lamb is in the near future for this basket. I literally walk the meat aisles at grocery stores now and think "I wonder how that would work with my new basket?"
 
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