Char-Broil Big Easy TRU-Infrared Oil-Less Fryer – 17102065

Went together fairly easy – except for a couple of screws on the bottom leg plates (fixed that with finding better screws) Was a bit scared to try it really, but , got over that after watching a few vids . The initial start up was fine except for some reason – the flame went out and I had to restart it – thank goodness I was there!! Very quiet – you don’t hear anything really. As it got darker outside – I could see the blue flame easier. Cooking the pork roast went smoothly – except it did take twice as long as I thought it would – but that may be because it was quite cold outside and a bit of a breeze as well. Luckily – I also bought a a Thermapen MK4 – highly recommend!! Cleaning up was a lot easier than the grills on the BBQ – just make sure you spray the liner and basket with Olive Oil spray prior to cooking.
**UPDATE** after discussing with others on the Big Easy FB site – recommendations are:
#1- go by internal temp of meat – NOT by any time charts (temps and wind play a huge factor in cooking)
#2 – unless there is NO breeze outside – be sure to place the BE in a sheltered area to help with cooking temps staying consistent
#3 – if cold out – this will have an affect on cooking time – use the meat thermometer only to make sure it is done

We love our infrared cooker! We used to use a Turkey deep fryer but gave up when buckets of oil went up to almost $50 in our area. I’m really happy that I found this cooker instead of another fryer!! This thing makes Turkey and chicken turn out just like rotisserie from your fav take out and it easily cooke ribs and other extras at the same time using other attachments that we bought separately. Potatoes and veggies can cook up top, ribs on the side and two chickens in racks below. Love it! And it uses much less propane than our deep fryer used to. It’s not nearly as fast but it tastes much better and cooks much more evenly and not to mention safer!

I bought this for one sole purpose, to deep fried turkey at Thanksgiving. I hated the electric, oil deep fryer by Butterball ever since they came out with the new model. A slight touch to the electrical cord, the connector on the Butterball deep fryer would come off. I tossed that Butterball deep fryer and looked for another fryer. When I saw this oil less fryer and read the reviews on it, I bought it and used it last Thanksgiving. It was very easy to assemble and use. Hooked it up to a propane tank, turned it on and it’s good to go. One thing that I noticed though is that the cooking time took considerably longer than what I expected or heard from other people. For a 14 lbs turkey, I think it took me something like 5 hours to deep fried and have internal temp reaching 185. Now that I know roughly how long it took to fully cooked a 14 lbs turkey, I can compensate for the time accordingly next time. The bright side is that the turkey came out superb. The skin was crispy, and the meat was juicy. Best part is that I don’t have to spend the money on peanut oil to deep fried. Because there’s no oil, it’s healthier to deep fry in it.
The basket that came with it can be a bit difficult to take the turkey out after cooking. I bought a collapsible basket that made it a bit easier to put the turkey in and remove after cooking, but I’m not wholly convinced if it was worth it. Neither basket is all that easy to clean by hand. I put them in the dish washer when I cleaned them, but I still scrubbed them down with a brillo pad first to remove as much of the stick on food.

I’ve been deep frying turkeys for over 20 yrs, usually just once a year; the relatives that come here over holidays expect it, as there is no comparison as far as flavor goes.
But (and I never told any of them)–it’s a huge hassle and expense. Figure $40 for peanut blend oil, only to find out 3 gallons isn’t quite enough, add some more $ for oil to completely cover the turkey. And the waste–yeah, I would either store it until I’m sure it was rancid and then throw it away, or would wait half the day for it to cool down enough to pour back in the box and freeze it. Did you know it takes 3 days at room temp to thaw frozen peanut oil? I do–years 13 through 20.
Year 7 it started raining. Rain and hot oil? Booya.
And it was dangerous, all that oil and open flame…actually I enjoyed the danger part.
Whatever rub you use on outside of the turkey boils off and makes it way to the bottom of the pot. Last year instead of spending a lot of time scrubbing the inch of crude off the bottom, I just threw the pot away.
Present day–found out about this Big Easy, and I’m thrilled.
Did a turkey today to make sure know what I’m doing (don’t want to experiment on Thanksgiving).
This thing is idiot proof.
Every bit as delicious and crispy as deep frying. Even more so because the legs can be eaten (deep frying fried the legs and wings to nothing). And unlike deep frying, was able to capture the drippings for gravy.
Sold!
Now that it’s so easy and cheap, plan to use it year round for a lot of different things.

Used this for the first time in Thanksgiving and the turkey was a hit! So easy to prepare and then it just did it’s thing. My one complaint would be that there were no assembly instructions that I could find, but YouTube to the rescue.

Cooked a Turkey for first time. It was perfect. 10 min per pound was right on. Golden crispy skin meat was extremely juicy. Much recommend!!!