GEAR | Cooking Up A Feast On The New Summit B&Co Alfresco Smokeless BBQ

May 29, 2018 Shell Robshaw-Bryan

Home & Garden, Homepage Feature, Outdoor Gear Reviews, Reviews, Sponsored Product/Stay

Like it? Help us by sharing it!

Our new Summit International Smokeless Barbecue arrived just ahead of National BBQ week, (which started on 28^th May and runs until 3^rd June 2018) providing us with the ideal excuse to have even more barbecues than usual! Read on to find out what we thought when we put it to the test.

What is it?

Summit B&Co Alfresco Smokeless Grill RRP. £79.99

Features

Ready to cook on in under 5 minutes
Fully portable
Cool to the touch
85% less smoke than conventional charcoal barbecues

Stockists

The Verdict

I am a huge fan of barbecues and I cook outdoors every chance I get. From big family bashes using my fancy 4-burner gas beast to campsite cooking on my little folding charcoal barbecue. I also have a lot of after-work barbecues as soon as the weather allows, and for speed and convenience have been happily using my Lotus Grill which is ideal for cooking outdoors for 2 quickly. Using the Lotus Grill also means I have a great basis for comparison when it comes to similarly sized BBQs as the B&CO barbecue works in the same way.

The pull out battery compartment (extras like lighter gel and batteries are not included)

There’s a small metal container that you place the charcoal inside – we find that the small broken up bits of charcoal that you get inside the self-lighting bags works best. Underneath this is a round metal plate, and to ignite you’ll need some barbecue lighter gel. Squirt a circle of gel onto the plate and then light it. Let it burn for a few seconds and make sure all of it is alight, before carefully placing the metal container with the charcoal inside on top of it.

Setting alight the ring of lighter gel in the base

The barbecue is fan assisted which means the coals are ready to cook on in just a few minutes and before we put food on, we put the fan on low to help get the charcoal going. You will need 4 AA batteries to power the fan as they are not included with the barbecue.

How does it cook?

We find that the size of the barbecue is ideal for the two of us, and due to the speed at which the charcoal lights and is ready to cook on, it’s perfect for after-work barbecues in particular due to the speed of the B&CO grill. After lighting the gel and letting the flames die down, it only takes just over 5 minutes for the grill to be ready to cook on.

Once the lighter gel had burned off, there was very little smoke during cooking

As you can see from the photos the food cooked well on the B&CO barbecue. We challenged it with some pretty big kebabs and were able to just about fit on 5 at a time, or 3 kebabs and 2 chicken breasts.

The food cooked pretty evenly and any burnt bits you can see in the photos are more down to the mis-matched sizes of the vegetables, chicken and halloumi on the kebab sticks, rather than a problem with the grill being too hot.

Clean up

I found the cast iron grill particularly easy to clean. Once the barbecue had cooled down (I left it for just over an hour), I removed the top grill section and just soaked it in hot soapy water for a while and used a scrub brush on it, whilst the inside wiped clean easily with a hot soapy cloth.

Final say

This is a great little barbecue that’s both sturdy and capable. We think it’s perfect for camping and weekday summer evenings when time is at a premium but you still fancy cooking and dining outdoors. Whilst it’s not totally smokeless, there is less smoke generated by this compared to regular charcoal barbecues. It’s easy to use, a doddle to clean and because it’s ready to cook on so fast, a great time saver too. Well worth considering if you’re after a compact barbecue that’s also travel friendly.

Best bits

This is a really high quality looking and feeling portable barbecue
Ideal size to cook on for 2 people
Comes complete with a carry bag making this great for taking camping
I love the weighty cast iron grill
Easy to use and perfect for those times when you don’t want to wait for a regular charcoal barbecue

Thank you to Summit International who provided the featured product for us to test. We were not paid for this review.

Follow Shell

Shell Robshaw-Bryan

Editor & Owner at Camping with Style

Shell loves all things travel and outdoors and is a nature-loving, comfy-camping kinda girl. Shell started the Camping with Style blog after a serious snowboarding accident which left her with a broken back. Despite this she used the outdoors and healing power of nature to aid her recovery and she continues to spend time outdoors whenever she can.

From open water swimming, snowboarding and kayaking to hill walks and meditation, Shell shares her travels and microadventures here on the blog and in various publications she's written for, Shell has a particular interest in promoting wellbeing and the many benefits of nature therapy.

Follow Shell

Latest posts by Shell Robshaw-Bryan (see all)