You’ve decided that it’s time to step up to a Primo Grill, or maybe this is the year you give one to that special someone as a gift. Now the hard part: which one do you choose?

All the Primo Grills give amazing results, all give a satisfying cooking experience, and all have the wow! factor. So how do you choose among them?

At left you can see the Primo Oval XL Grill and Smoker. It has 400 square inches of cooking surface, 680 inches with optional upper racks. The Primo Junior looks the same, but has 370 square inches of cooking space.

Below right is the Primo Kamado Grill, which has 280 square inches of cooking surface, in a round rather than an oval shape.

As you can see, there are two main variables: size and shape.

Let’s talk about size first. That’s a simple decision, really. Buy the largest grill you can afford. None of these grills will really fit in your backpack anyway, and once you get started with the Primo, you’ll want to have cookouts and smoke turkeys and generally show off what your grill can do.

Since Primo Grills are very efficient, you won’t feel like you have too much grill, or that you’re having to use a lot of fuel to cook a small amount of food. With a larger grill, you can cook more at one time. Not only will that come in handy for parties, but it also lets you grill chicken for tomorrow’s salad alongside tonight’s steaks — a serious time saver.

So check the budget and buy the largest that you comfortably can (check out our sale, too, and see how much your budget will cover right now!).

That brings us to shape. The oval shape lets you cook meat on one side and veggies on the other. You can even add a firebox divider and smoke on one side while you grill on the other. The round shape takes a little less patio space.

Here’s where you have to think about your lifestyle. Do you grill on a tiny city balcony where space is at a premium? Do you like to cook the whole meal on your grill, or do you have a kitchen maven doing the sides while you stick to the meat? Is it important to you to have a variety of meats at one meal?

Fortunately, this is one choice where either way you go, you’ll be happy with your outcome. Any Primo Grill will be the most exciting gift of the season, and any Primo Grill that you buy for yourself will make you happy.

Check out the Primo Grills and Smokers at Massi Decor.

If you have a new grill (and our Primo Kamado is on sale, so this is a great time for one), take the time to oil the metal parts before you use it. It’ll be much easier to clean afterwards.

And you should clean it afterwards, every time you use it. Use hot soapy water and a grill brush and give it a good scrubbing, just the way you wash pans in the kitchen. Once a year, take it apart and wash anything you missed during the year.

Too late for that advice? Don’t despair. Take any removable parts off the grill. Sweep out any ash and brush off as much of the baked-on gunk as possible with a stiff wire brush.

Put washable parts to soak in hot soapy water. You might need to use the bathtub for this. Scrub the parts clean once the gunk has softened up.

Now, rub the metal parts with olive oil and reserve not to let your grill get into that state again.

If your attempt to clean that old grill of yours has made you feel that it might be time to get a new one, can we just remind you that we have a wonderful selection of Primo grills? Go over and browse through them, and we bet you’ll see something you’ll love.

Can you grill in winter? Well, let’s see. Do you eat steaks, ribs, burgers, or brats in winter?

If you like to eat grilled food in winter (and who doesn’t?) then you can grill in winter. As cool weather approaches, you can still grill and eat outdoors, but you might want to add a patio heater or a fire pit to keep your guests comfortable. Sweaters and hot drinks make cookouts in the crisp fall air as pleasurable as they were in teh spring and summer.

If it’s raining or if getting out onto the patio makes your teeth chatter, it’s time to take the party indoors. You can still cook the meat outside, though. Make sure your grill is protected from the elements, for the sake of the grill. An umbrella is an obvious choice if you don’t have a canopy or roof overhang. Close the cover of the grill, too. If you live in a place with ice or snow, be sure to clear away all frozen stuff before you use the grill, in order to avoid cracking caused by a sudden temperature shift as well as to reduce the amount of fuel you use.

Make sure you’re dressed warmly, too, for the sake of the cook’s comfort, but watch out for fire dangers. If you have long sleeves or a scarf dangling near the flame, you may end up getting more involved in the cooking than you really intended to.

The essential thing is to limit the time you have to spend outdoors. You can do this by getting your meats ready inside and carrying them out ready to go. A quality grill requires less babying and less watching. Our Primo grills and smokers are designed to work well in any weather, and they’re great for long slow cooking. You can get your steaks on the grill and leave them alone, confident that they’ll cook evenly and predictably. A cart with a side table lets you bring out a platter when your meat is ready and get the tasty morsels efficiently onto the serving platter.

If you’re not a stalwart griller and you want to put your Primo grill away for the winter, be sure to clean it well before you do. You’ll be so happy in spring that it’s absolutely worth the trouble now.

Whether for Thanksgiving, game day parties, or just for a change of pace with meals on ordinary days, fixing veggies on the grill is a quick and delicious way to get your vitamins and minerals.

Grilling vegetables isn’t difficult, but it takes a little more than just chopping a carrot up and throwing it on the grill. Here are some tips to make it work:

• Choose vegetables with some substance to them: potatoes, carrots, eggplant, and squash are all great choices. Smaller veggies like green beans can be grilled, but you may want a grill basket or wok to get the best results.
• Cut the vegetables into uniform pieces. Otherwise, your think slices will be ready before your thick ones.
• If you want to make a melange of different vegetables, put the hard ones (like carrots) on before the soft ones (like zucchini). Add the quicker-cooking ones toward the end of the cooking time.
• Vegetables with a bit of sugar, like carrots, Vidalia onions, and tomatoes, will caramelize nicely as they grill. Use the upper rack of your grill to get them further away from the heat to let this simple and tasty chemical reaction take place.

Add some flavor to your vegetables:

• Brush your veggies with a bit of olive oil before you grill.
• Garlic, herb blends, and pepper give nice flavor without salt, if you’re trying to cut down.
• Sharp-flavored or acidic tastes like soy sauce, lemon juice, and balsamic vinegar are great additions to grilled vegetables.

Grill meat on the lower rack of your grill and put the vegetables on the upper rack. We use Primo grills, which have a well-placed upper rack in just the right spot. Keep an eye on your veggies so they don’t overcook, especially if you don’t have an upper rack. Most vegetables will be perfect when they’re slightly tender and have nice grill marks. Serve them hot with your meats, but make enough to have some leftovers — they’re flavorful for salads, soups, and sandwiches the next day.

Thanksgiving is a time for tradition, for gathering the family over the traditional turkey dinner and keeping up all those old family traditions that we all hold so dear — and woe betide anyone who tries to add something new. We all remember the year that new sister in law tried to replace the mashed potatoes with Roasted Parsnips with Caramelized Onions and Pine Nuts, don’t we?

But smoking the turkey has the makings of a truly wonderful new tradition, rather than a rejection of the favorite ways of the past. We use a Primo Grill to cook the turkey low and slow, keeping the juicy flavor in the bird and creating a masterpiece of turkey perfection. Choose a bird that fits well in the grill and take advantage of the high tech temperature controls to free up your time to spend with the family.

If it’s the first time you’ve smoked the turkey for Thanksgiving and you anticipate some resistance from people who just don’t care for change, there are some steps you can take:

• Smoke your turkey, and let another family member bring a roast turkey as well. Notice how few leftovers you have. Don’t gloat over how your kitchen didn’t get heated up and how good the Primo looks on your patio.
• Don’t change any of the side dishes even a little bit. Having identical dressing, vegetables, rolls, and desserts alongside the new style of turkey will calm people who find change stressful. Fortunately, the smoky flavor meshes well with traditional Thanksgiving tastes.
• Don’t get carried away with new flavors. Fruity glazes, bourbon-soaked wood, and daring spice rubs may form part of your Thanksgiving cooking in the future. The first time, go with the flavors you usually use for your roasted turkey.

Smoked turkey is a favorite in plenty of households, and we bet it will be in yours, too.

I have an intense interest in Primo Grills because of this whole ceramic grill revolution. There is something so elegant and perfect about them that you just have to dream what it would be like to have one. Right now, I’m thinking about how nice it would be to replace my Char-griller. Not because it doesn’t do the job, it’s just doesn’t run on auto-pilot.

The key question you want to ask yourself is whether you have a deep rooted need to be a hardcore barbecue dude, or whether you’ll take the same results from a much easier, albeit more expensive, process. I like learning how to make my smoker get the best results, but sometimes it would be nice to set it and forget it. That’s possible with grills like the Big Green Egg (BGE) or a Primo Grill.

In my personal quest to own a ceramic cooker, I will now have to decide between an XL Primo Oval, or the venerable XL Big Green Egg. I’m not sure what the differences are, not having personally compared the two side by side.

Highlights of Primo Cookers

• This product, as with other similar brands is designed to last. That’s why they can offer a 20 year warranty on the ceramic parts. The metal parts are covered for 5 years
• Highly efficient use of fuel because the ceramic is such a good insulator.
• Very easy to control temperature because it’s so well insulated.
• If you want to be different, you will definitely WOW your neighbors.
• These cookers are all season in all climates. Cold weather will not affect your cooking at all.
• All kinds of cool accessories are available if you like to spend money and have cool gadgets.
• You can set a long smoke up and pretty much forget about it. Unlike traditional smokers, you won’t have to tend to your fuel as much, or not at all.