Purchased this grill using the 10% off coupon they send you if you give them your email address. Shipping was free and fast. I ordered on a Friday and received it on Wednesday.
It arrived undamaged and boxed up nicely. There were no assembly instructions included in the crate, instead there was a paper saying to download the manual at a URL. The URL was wrong, but the manual is linked to on the product page for the grill so it was easy to find. A paper manual would have been nice, I don’t have a printer.
Installation was straightforward however a couple of snags. I had to drill out a couple of holes because the burrs were so bad I couldn’t get the bolt through. More significantly one of the threaded holes on the bottom of the bottom shelf that the caster wheel gets attached to was bad. Misthreaded or whatever but a bolt would not screw in. So one of my 4 caster wheels only has three bolts holding it on (instead of 4). That’s OK for me as this grill will stay on my stamped concrete patio and only be rolled 4′ under the gazebo when it’s both in use and it’s raining out (I live in the pacific north west, it rains a lot). Otherwise it will be used/stored on the part of the patio that’s uncovered. (I’ll include a pic) However this would be horrible if I had planned to load it in a pick up truck occasionally, or roll it over dirt/rocks, and I couldn’t trust the structural integrity of it.
Note that it’s a two man lift to put the fire box (called the toaster in the manual) on the base, plan on having help.
The stainless steel v-channel grates came with a ton of chemicals still on them from manufacturing. I cleaned most of it off and then made a fire to do the initial burn off.
The couple of spots of chemicals that I didn’t get off the stainless steel burned into the grate so badly that I had to take the grate and soak it in a baking soda/vinegar mix over night and then I needed to scrub for over an hour to get it all off. So make sure you thoroughly clean before you do a burn off! (If they had included instructions they could mention that!)
While I had the fire going the smell was horrible because the paint in the fire box where you set your charcoal/wood burned off immediately, the paint on the ash catching drawers directly under the coals burned off (they are designed too close to the fire imo), and a spot of the grate carrier (that connects to the cables that lifts the grate up and down) burned off too, I think I missed a spot of chemicals there.I bought some high temp paint from the hardware store and touched up the spot on the carrier were the paint burned off. I didn’t touch up the other spots because I’m sure the paint would just blister off again and I don’t want it to contaminate my food while cooking. Guess I’ll just have rust in the future in those spots.
The v-channel grates are nice and they are slightly tipped so that fats and juices run into a drip tray. However a design flaw imo is that the drip tray has no easy way to remove it, to clean it, and there are no liners avaliable (they sell no accessories). So you’ll need to line it with aluminum foil every use it, if you want to keep it clean.
While the v-channel grates are very nice I’d also like a more regular grill grate as well, and since they don’t sell accessories I assumed I could just set a regular grill gate on top, but no, it’s not designed in any way to accommodate that. I noticed the stainless steel grate is just attached to the carrier for it by 4 screws and would be easy to remove. If I had an additional carrier I could have some expanded metal (used in many grills) welded to the additional carrier and just swap them out as needed. So I called Ash and Ember to see about buying the carrier and they said no, they only have the part including the stainless steel grate, not just the carrier. I realized this would likely be too pricey but I asked the price anyhow and they told me it’s out of stock and they don’t know when they will have it, and that I should call back in 3-4 weeks and ask. Since they couldn’t tell me a price I have serious doubts if they will ever have it.
The grill does have some really good points, it’s actually very solid and well built. The free shipping saves a ton of money. Exempting the two design flaws I’ve pointed out (drip tray and the too close to the charcoal, ash trays) it has a lot of great features built right into it, e.g. Fire bricks for heat retention, swing out drawers for fire access, vents to control the fire, etc.
I’m disabled and assembling it was a very long and very painful process for me and it took me days to physically recover after. It’s an easy assembly, I’m just a broken old vet, and outside of lifting the toaster I did it all (over time) myself and was proud of myself lol. The only reason I mention this is that I’ve debated on using the warranty (due to the paint and the caster wheel) to get my money back, but it’s all too much work for me, I’m not going to ship it out and get a new one. I’m just going to keep it. I might just be having purchase regrets right now and it might be my favorite grill down the road, time will tell.
I usually stick to gas/pellets since my legs don’t work well anymore and they are easier but I really miss my old stick burners. Can’t do the all night tend anymore and my YS640S smokes well enough but sometimes a guy just has to play with a live fire!
All right, that’s my long winged review. If anyone read all this and asks in a few weeks/month I’ll be happy to update my review with my experiences using it to actually grill.
Macked3434
Keep us updated! Wishing you lots of good times, cooking and great food!
funin2022
Thanks! As I was curious about the V Channel grates. Aside from the drip tray you seam happy with the style & that’s great to know. I’d guess they’re a 1/2” per fin/side with a 1/4” gap for smoke/flame. Wonder if you see a fire line , grill line & inside V line on foods? Is cleaning the inside V any issue? Do you prefer it over solid bar grates? Again, thanks for posting!
4 Comments
Warning – long winded review, don’t read it if that bothers you 😉
I’m reviewing [this grill](https://www.ashandemberoutdoors.com/collections/outdoor-bbq-charcoal-grills/live-fire-santa-maria-grill/899756.html)
Purchased this grill using the 10% off coupon they send you if you give them your email address. Shipping was free and fast. I ordered on a Friday and received it on Wednesday.
It arrived undamaged and boxed up nicely. There were no assembly instructions included in the crate, instead there was a paper saying to download the manual at a URL. The URL was wrong, but the manual is linked to on the product page for the grill so it was easy to find. A paper manual would have been nice, I don’t have a printer.
Installation was straightforward however a couple of snags. I had to drill out a couple of holes because the burrs were so bad I couldn’t get the bolt through. More significantly one of the threaded holes on the bottom of the bottom shelf that the caster wheel gets attached to was bad. Misthreaded or whatever but a bolt would not screw in. So one of my 4 caster wheels only has three bolts holding it on (instead of 4). That’s OK for me as this grill will stay on my stamped concrete patio and only be rolled 4′ under the gazebo when it’s both in use and it’s raining out (I live in the pacific north west, it rains a lot). Otherwise it will be used/stored on the part of the patio that’s uncovered. (I’ll include a pic) However this would be horrible if I had planned to load it in a pick up truck occasionally, or roll it over dirt/rocks, and I couldn’t trust the structural integrity of it.
Note that it’s a two man lift to put the fire box (called the toaster in the manual) on the base, plan on having help.
The stainless steel v-channel grates came with a ton of chemicals still on them from manufacturing. I cleaned most of it off and then made a fire to do the initial burn off.
The couple of spots of chemicals that I didn’t get off the stainless steel burned into the grate so badly that I had to take the grate and soak it in a baking soda/vinegar mix over night and then I needed to scrub for over an hour to get it all off. So make sure you thoroughly clean before you do a burn off! (If they had included instructions they could mention that!)
While I had the fire going the smell was horrible because the paint in the fire box where you set your charcoal/wood burned off immediately, the paint on the ash catching drawers directly under the coals burned off (they are designed too close to the fire imo), and a spot of the grate carrier (that connects to the cables that lifts the grate up and down) burned off too, I think I missed a spot of chemicals there.I bought some high temp paint from the hardware store and touched up the spot on the carrier were the paint burned off. I didn’t touch up the other spots because I’m sure the paint would just blister off again and I don’t want it to contaminate my food while cooking. Guess I’ll just have rust in the future in those spots.
The v-channel grates are nice and they are slightly tipped so that fats and juices run into a drip tray. However a design flaw imo is that the drip tray has no easy way to remove it, to clean it, and there are no liners avaliable (they sell no accessories). So you’ll need to line it with aluminum foil every use it, if you want to keep it clean.
While the v-channel grates are very nice I’d also like a more regular grill grate as well, and since they don’t sell accessories I assumed I could just set a regular grill gate on top, but no, it’s not designed in any way to accommodate that. I noticed the stainless steel grate is just attached to the carrier for it by 4 screws and would be easy to remove. If I had an additional carrier I could have some expanded metal (used in many grills) welded to the additional carrier and just swap them out as needed. So I called Ash and Ember to see about buying the carrier and they said no, they only have the part including the stainless steel grate, not just the carrier. I realized this would likely be too pricey but I asked the price anyhow and they told me it’s out of stock and they don’t know when they will have it, and that I should call back in 3-4 weeks and ask. Since they couldn’t tell me a price I have serious doubts if they will ever have it.
The grill does have some really good points, it’s actually very solid and well built. The free shipping saves a ton of money. Exempting the two design flaws I’ve pointed out (drip tray and the too close to the charcoal, ash trays) it has a lot of great features built right into it, e.g. Fire bricks for heat retention, swing out drawers for fire access, vents to control the fire, etc.
I’m disabled and assembling it was a very long and very painful process for me and it took me days to physically recover after. It’s an easy assembly, I’m just a broken old vet, and outside of lifting the toaster I did it all (over time) myself and was proud of myself lol. The only reason I mention this is that I’ve debated on using the warranty (due to the paint and the caster wheel) to get my money back, but it’s all too much work for me, I’m not going to ship it out and get a new one. I’m just going to keep it. I might just be having purchase regrets right now and it might be my favorite grill down the road, time will tell.
I usually stick to gas/pellets since my legs don’t work well anymore and they are easier but I really miss my old stick burners. Can’t do the all night tend anymore and my YS640S smokes well enough but sometimes a guy just has to play with a live fire!
All right, that’s my long winged review. If anyone read all this and asks in a few weeks/month I’ll be happy to update my review with my experiences using it to actually grill.
Keep us updated! Wishing you lots of good times, cooking and great food!
Thanks! As I was curious about the V Channel grates. Aside from the drip tray you seam happy with the style & that’s great to know. I’d guess they’re a 1/2” per fin/side with a 1/4” gap for smoke/flame. Wonder if you see a fire line , grill line & inside V line on foods? Is cleaning the inside V any issue? Do you prefer it over solid bar grates?
Again, thanks for posting!
Nice setup