The "Duchess Cooker" - An All aluminum kettle made by maker of PK Grills


 
Jon Tofte said:
Wow, well $10 was a steal and a half! That would drive my friends at the FB PK Grills group crazy! Yours even still had the bottom vents present!

I was actually working on mine yesterday. Here are a couple thoughts:

This grill is supposed to have a charcoal grate that leaves a space for airflow. It is also important because putting charcoal right on the cast aluminum bottom can lead to burn-through. The original charcoal grate was made of cast iron. I wonder if that was on purpose to increase radiant heat. It also had two round shields to try and protect the two vents from ashes. The PK vents are completely separated (good!) so you can open one (under charcoal on one side) and close the other (under the food with no charcoal below) to do indirect bbq.

View attachment 3271

The good news about the grate is that you can buy a regular grill grate meant for the medium sized Big Green Egg which will fit perfectly. You can buy stainless, but I went with cast iron to be closer to original. I also added two cast iron coasters/trivets to substitute for the original grate's shields:

View attachment 3276

My grill didn't have the bottom vents. You are right that the "new" PK company isn't currently interested in producing or carrying parts for the Duchess. They did refer me to someone who makes stainless replacements, though. I primed the outside side of his nice vent covers and then painted with ulra high heat silver to make them look closer to original. (No paint on the side facing in to the grill!)

View attachment 3283

For the top cooking grate, I am where you are. The old nickel steel is hard to make decent after years of neglect, and it is not a regular size. You can buy a custom carbon steel grate from The Burn Shop:
theburnshopwf.com

Custom Grill Grates

If you are ready to purchase a custom grate, please fill out the order form and in the description please include the diameter/dimensions of the grate you are wanting. Also describe the design you are wanting or include an image in the file attachment. We will confirm
theburnshopwf.com theburnshopwf.com

I am planning on contacting Mark Barron of Killa Grilla about making a stainless steel replacement with the same fold-up side as the original. I am hoping he will be interested and look at this as a new product not a one-off. Mark's thick stainless will make fine grill marks for high heat, but that design lets you switch to indirect low and slow as well.

Here is a picture of the outside of mine after cleaning up. Not too bad for a grill as old as me (60:rolleyes:). I opted to only clean the old powder coated finish. I could have spray painted, but I will just wait and see if someday I can get the powder coating redone. It is a much better finish than you can get from rattle can paint:

View attachment 3281

Once I get my current top grate at least adequate to cook on, I am going to try this thing out! I hope to do a comparison between the PK Duchess and a Weber 18" kettle.
Click to expand...

Did you ever happen to hear back from Mark @killagrilla?
 
Yes, sort of. He said that there is a $150 setup charge for a custom one off project. He mentioned getting more interested persons. I think if we could line up three or four initial orders it would show him that there IS a market and with volume bring down the per unit price. I have just been too swamped with moving to pursue yet. Let me know if you are potentially interested. With both of us on board I can try to solicit additional people on the PK Facebook group. I think we can get a few more. Then I can go back to him with a volume order.
 
Jon Tofte said:
Yes, sort of. He said that there is a $150 setup charge for a custom one off project. He mentioned getting more interested persons. I think if we could line up three or four initial orders it would show him that there IS a market and with volume bring down the per unit price. I have just been too swamped with moving to pursue yet. Let me know if you are potentially interested. With both of us on board I can try to solicit additional people on the PK Facebook group. I think we can get a few more. Then I can go back to him with a volume order.
Click to expand...

Got a $90 quote from him just today...
 

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Wow, That is cool. I just haven't had time to follow up. This will motivate me. I will tell him that I want one, too and ask about pricing for additional ones.
 
Jon Tofte said:
Wow, That is cool. I just haven't had time to follow up. This will motivate me. I will tell him that I want one, too and ask about pricing for additional ones.
Click to expand...
Where did you get your “vent blocker” coasters from? I just picked up a stainless charcoal grate and was wondering what size diameter yours was.
 
AC,
This is what I bought, but the prices go up and down and all over the place. You probably would want to shop similar items. Try eBay, too. I went with this especially because I used a cast iron Big Green Egg Medium regular grate that fits perfectly as a charcoal grate. I liked that these were also cast iron. Maybe you can find something in stainless???

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S95ILTA/?tag=tvwb-20
 
Jon Tofte said:
AC,
This is what I bought, but the prices go up and down and all over the place. You probably would want to shop similar items. Try eBay, too. I went with this especially because I used a cast iron Big Green Egg Medium regular grate that fits perfectly as a charcoal grate. I liked that these were also cast iron. Maybe you can find something in stainless???

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S95ILTA/?tag=tvwb-20
Click to expand...

A tip for things sold on Amazon.
If you go here:
camelcamelcamel.com

Amazon price tracker, Amazon price history charts, price watches, and price drop alerts.

camelcamelcamel: Amazon price tracker, Amazon price history charts, price watches, and price drop alerts.
camelcamelcamel.com camelcamelcamel.com

Then copy/paste the product link into the top search bar, it will give you the historical pricing for the product. You can see if it's high/low, etc...
 
Kyle in Woodstock said:
Then copy/paste the product link into the top search bar, it will give you the historical pricing for the product. You can see if it's high/low, etc...
Click to expand...
And it changes any affiliate ID in the product link to their affiliate ID. So if you want to help support the forum, after pasting the product link into that site and finding the historical price, you need to come back here to the forum and click the product link again that contains tag=tvwb-20. It's the last click that gets the commission from Amazon when ordering. Thanks!
 
I didn't figure that one would last long. There are some very dedicated PK Grill fans that are just as aggressive as Weber Kettle Club members about hunting down old PK grills. The "Duchess" is one of the top items sought after. That was a steal!
 
Hey guys, Kelly Caudle here. I just joined the group and wanted to show off my recent find. I saw this Dutchess Cooker sitting in the woods behind a home where we were building a handicap ramp for them. I asked about it and he so generously gave it to me. I threw it all in the back of the car and took it home. I cleaned it with Ajax and wrm water and it cleaned up pretty good.

It needs work on the frame and I also need the grill and charcoal grates. If you do get a lead on custom grates please let it be known. The bottom tab right above the bottom vents measures to 14" diameter and the top grill grate measures to around 16.5". It has three levels of tabs and any info on that would be helpful. My bottom vents are also missing but the cast part is still there!

I also want to find a couple side shelves to rivet or bolt on the the brackets. Oh and I one damaged bracket. I have the 4 legged version and need to repair or replace on of the legs and get the wheels ordered.

enjoy the pics.



1612971748343.png
fresh from the woods

1612971822520.png


1612971885445.png
she has a old prosthetic leg and rotted wheels!

1612972102835.png
 
I’m fascinated by what folks “fall into” as far as cool old grills! I live in a place where people either buy junk and it goes to the dump of they buy something good and keep it forever! Not that there is anything wrong with that but, I’d love to find a really unusual/interesting piece of grilling history as I just drive down the street!
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
I’m fascinated by what folks “fall into” as far as cool old grills! I live in a place where people either buy junk and it goes to the dump of they buy something good and keep it forever! Not that there is anything wrong with that but, I’d love to find a really unusual/interesting piece of grilling history as I just drive down the street!
Click to expand...
You have to keep an eye out for sure and make sure everyone you know- knows that you will take odd items like this before they throw them away. I get old lawn mowers and lawn tractors this way by just asking. If you are at someone's hose working like I was, look around and see what's been abandoned like in the pictures below- can you see the Dutchess Cooker in the background?

1612990656185.png


1612990939525.png
 
Jon Tofte said:
Wow, well $10 was a steal and a half! That would drive my friends at the FB PK Grills group crazy! Yours even still had the bottom vents present!

I was actually working on mine yesterday. Here are a couple thoughts:

This grill is supposed to have a charcoal grate that leaves a space for airflow. It is also important because putting charcoal right on the cast aluminum bottom can lead to burn-through. The original charcoal grate was made of cast iron. I wonder if that was on purpose to increase radiant heat. It also had two round shields to try and protect the two vents from ashes. The PK vents are completely separated (good!) so you can open one (under charcoal on one side) and close the other (under the food with no charcoal below) to do indirect bbq.

View attachment 3271

The good news about the grate is that you can buy a regular grill grate meant for the medium sized Big Green Egg which will fit perfectly. You can buy stainless, but I went with cast iron to be closer to original. I also added two cast iron coasters/trivets to substitute for the original grate's shields:

View attachment 3276

My grill didn't have the bottom vents. You are right that the "new" PK company isn't currently interested in producing or carrying parts for the Duchess. They did refer me to someone who makes stainless replacements, though. I primed the outside side of his nice vent covers and then painted with ulra high heat silver to make them look closer to original. (No paint on the side facing in to the grill!)

View attachment 3283

For the top cooking grate, I am where you are. The old nickel steel is hard to make decent after years of neglect, and it is not a regular size. You can buy a custom carbon steel grate from The Burn Shop:
theburnshopwf.com

Custom Grill Grates

If you are ready to purchase a custom grate, please fill out the order form and in the description please include the diameter/dimensions of the grate you are wanting. Also describe the design you are wanting or include an image in the file attachment. We will confirm
theburnshopwf.com theburnshopwf.com

I am planning on contacting Mark Barron of Killa Grilla about making a stainless steel replacement with the same fold-up side as the original. I am hoping he will be interested and look at this as a new product not a one-off. Mark's thick stainless will make fine grill marks for high heat, but that design lets you switch to indirect low and slow as well.

Here is a picture of the outside of mine after cleaning up. Not too bad for a grill as old as me (60:rolleyes:). I opted to only clean the old powder coated finish. I could have spray painted, but I will just wait and see if someday I can get the powder coating redone. It is a much better finish than you can get from rattle can paint:

View attachment 3281

Once I get my current top grate at least adequate to cook on, I am going to try this thing out! I hope to do a comparison between the PK Duchess and a Weber 18" kettle.
Click to expand...
Jon let me know it you get Mark Barron of Killa Grilla to make the grill grate because I need one. I took your advice and will get the cast coal grate that also works on the med green egg- thanks
Kelly Caudle in SC
 
J Grotz said:
I have serious gear lust for that PK360. At $800, it's pricey, but a bargain compared to the Weber Summit Charcoal.
Click to expand...

It can't compete with the Weber Summit Charcoal though....un-insulated, the way it burns fuel, the size etc, you pretty well can only compare it to a traditional kettle. The $1000 Summit blows it away otherwise. The one thing it really excels at is longevity....will last pretty well forever!
 
Hi Kelly,

Yea I need to get an accurate tracing done and send it to Mark. He gave me a rough quote once that involved the "set-up" cost. I would be willing to buy a couple and if you went in on it we could get the per unit cost down. It is my tax season, but I will try to get to it this weekend. I will let you know.

I think you will find that the cast iron grate for the BGE Medium will work just about perfectly and is in the same conceptual design as the original.

If you want to go all out, you can buy two of these cast iron trivets that will mimic the shields built in to the original cast iron grate to protect the two round bottom vents.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S95ILTA/?tag=tvwb-20

Jon
 
GrantT said:
It can't compete with the Weber Summit Charcoal though....un-insulated, the way it burns fuel, the size etc, you pretty well can only compare it to a traditional kettle. The $1000 Summit blows it away otherwise. The one thing it really excels at is longevity....will last pretty well forever!
Click to expand...
I am not so sure. Cast aluminum is a really good heat reflector (and as you mentioned ultra long lasting). I know PK users would argue with your assessment. Since I haven't cooked on either of my antique PK grills yet nor have had the privilege of using a Summit Charcoal, I can't say which is really better. I would love to see a heads on comparison. I did use to own a "large" Big Green Egg which I liked very well and which has at least as much insulation factor as the Summit. I think now, though, I would rather have the PK 360. I also would like to see a comparison of the cooking area. I know the "large" BGE is actually pretty small - about the size of a Weber 18" kettle and a lot smaller than a PK 360.
 
Jon Tofte said:
I am not so sure. Cast aluminum is a really good heat reflector (and as you mentioned ultra long lasting). I know PK users would argue with your assessment. Since I haven't cooked on either of my antique PK grills yet nor have had the privilege of using a Summit Charcoal, I can't say which is really better. I would love to see a heads on comparison. I did use to own a "large" Big Green Egg which I liked very well and which has at least as much insulation factor as the Summit. I think now, though, I would rather have the PK 360. I also would like to see a comparison of the cooking area. I know the "large" BGE is actually pretty small - about the size of a Weber 18" kettle and a lot smaller than a PK 360.
Click to expand...

Very interesting that the 22" kettle has 363 sq in of cooking surface and the PK 360 has 360....almost the same. I would have though the 22" kettle was much bigger
 
Jon Tofte said:
I am not so sure. Cast aluminum is a really good heat reflector (and as you mentioned ultra long lasting). I know PK users would argue with your assessment.
Click to expand...

I just think in the end, the PK is an amazing GRILL, but it is no Kamado. For $1000 ($1050 with an expansion rack to get almost 700 in-sq. USABLE grill space) the Summit Kamado vs $800 for the PK, the Kamado has so much more capacity and capability and efficiency. They are just not in the same category as cookers. Low/slow on a PK and you lose about 1/3 your grill area too...

I am really digging the PK Go actually....that has me tempted more as a second grill TBH.
 
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