Alfresco LX2 42" Grill

I just purchased this grill in Natural Gas. It is beautiful to look at, and cooks things like steaks and vegetables very well, but takes some getting used to. The searing burner cooks steaks magnificently, with great outside searing and juicy, med-rare, tender insides. The u-burners really do need to heat up the grill, as recommended for at least 20 minutes, or the grill does not get hot enough. (This is a waste of fuel, in my opinion) Once the surface grill rods are hot, though, they cook faster than one would think, so it takes some attention. Watch out for flare-ups, though, even with lean meats on the searing burner. Looks great so long as you clean it well. Smoker tray works very well, even a little too efficiently. Don't put your chips in until you are really ready to cook; they will burn down rather quickly The lights light up the grill brighter than daylight, a huge bonus for me, as we cook well into the fall, and in the early spring, when it is dark in the evenings. Some design issues I do not like: 1) No utensil rack or hooks 2) The stainless steel surface surrounding and above the searing burner gets stained readily with spattered meat juices, and is impossible to fully clean. 3) When it rains, even a light rain, the grill's inside gets soaked if the grill cover is off. The side shelves on the doors have no drain holes, so water collects there in puddles. The inside of the cart gets soaked as well, ruining potholders, paper towels, etc. The igniters won't fire, and have to be dried out, by manually lighting the grill and letting the flames dry them out. The thermometer gets moisture in it, and takes forever to dry out. 4) The side shelves on the grill are a pain to collapse downward; they have to be lifted, then folded down. 5) The drip pan is not easily lifted out nor easily replaced, without some foul words. 6) The location of the burner knobs and the igniter buttons are not intuitively placed, and figuring this out takes some effort. I suspect that with time, I will get it, but placing the knob over the actual burner (like the smoker over the smoker, the rotisserie burner knob centrally for instance) makes intuitive sense. The igniter buttons are not intuitive, either. Seems the rotisserie igniter (knob all the way on left side) and main u-burner igniters all work off the igniter switch located all the way on the right side. The searing burner's igniter and the smoker box burner ( recall the knob for the burner is all the way on the right) are connected to a button on the left. Weird concept in design. I suspect this arrangement made sense to someone in manufacturing and design, but not to the consumer, like me. All in all, a pretty good performing grill, better than my Vermont Castings I've had for 10 years, maybe not as good as the high end Webers, but very pricey for what you get. Construction is solid, though, probably better than most. Could have some improvements, as noted above.

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