Potjie King Stainless Steel Cooker & BBQ Review
Potjie King stainless steel cooker review.
In this post we review and show you our Potjie King portable stainless-steel BBQ and cooker. Potjie is pronounced poy-key (like boy with a “p”). We have had our Potjie King for well over 5 years now, so this review is based on many years of use. We bought this product; this is not a sponsored post but our honest feedback after many years of use.
Now let’s get into our Potjie King stainless steel cooker review.
What Is a Potjie?
Potjie is a South Africa or Afrikaans word for a cast iron camp oven that has 3 legs. Here in Australia it’s just an Aussie camp oven and ours don’t have any legs. Aussie camp ovens can be cast iron or spun steel; we use a 12-inch spun steel camp oven. The notches on the side of the Potjie King are there for the three legs of a potjie. Anyway, let’s get into how this works and our review of our Potjie King cooker and BBQ.
Potjie = “a three legged cast iron camp oven”
Australia = “an Aussie camp oven mate!”
Versatile & Compact
The Potjie King is a versatile and compact stainless-steel BBQ and cooker. See the pics below to see what it looks like. We’ve had ours for some time now and don’t have anything bad to say about it. It is super versatile and is more than just a BBQ. We use it mainly as a grill cooking with charcoal. You can also use it as a cooker by sitting a frying pan on top of it. Our camp oven fits perfectly on top, hence the name Potjie King – see above description of potjie. You can also use it as a small fire pit; we have never used it as one as we have a separate fire pit.
What You Get
The Potjie King comes in a strong canvas bag with a large heavy-duty zip. Inside the bag you get the Potjie King packed away with the three legs folded up. You also get a steel mesh or coal grid that is removable and sits in the middle of the Potjie King. There is a steel grill that sits on top of the Potjie King when using it as a BBQ. It also comes with a small hand tool with a wooden handle and hook at the end. This little hand tool is awesome. You use it to open and close the sliding doors when the Potjie King is hot. You can also use the hand tool to move the Potjie King around if you need to when the handle on the cooker is too hot – this is great if it starts to rain and you need to move it under cover for example. We also use the hand tool when cleaning up afterwards, as you can use it to remove the coal grid without getting your hands dirty.
All packed away in the canvas bag it is approximately 300mm high and wide and weighs around 4 kgs. It is made with 304 grade stainless-steel, so you don’t need to worry about anything rusting. We did lose our coal grid during a camping trip at Double Island a while back (by lose we mean left behind by mistake) so we have replaced this with an 8-inch camp oven roasting trivet that fits perfectly inside the Potjie King.
Setting Up
Setting the Potjie King up is simple. It has three legs that fold down. Each leg has as pin that needs to be removed, you then fold the leg down and replace the pin to stop the leg folding back up. You do this for each leg and now the Potjie King can stand with about 120mm of space between the bottom of the cooker and the ground.
Once you have folded the legs out, you then remove the steel coal grid that sits in the middle of the cooker. Then place a piece of aluminium foil on the bottom of the cooker first. This makes cleaning at the end far easier as any fats and oils will sit on the aluminium foil within the charcoal ash rather than on the bottom of the Potjie King. After adding the aluminium foil to the bottom, you then put the coal grid back inside the cooker and close the top sliding door. This coal grid is where you place your charcoal or heat beads. Usually we use charcoal when cooking over the grill or using our rotisserie. We only ever use heat beads if we are using our camp oven as we do not like the taste when grilling with heat beads and prefer the flavour you get with charcoal. You simply just pour your charcoal into the cooker on top of the steel mesh or coal grid. You do not place the grill on top of the cooker now, you only do this once your charcoal or heat beads have stopped flaming.
Then you open the bottom sliding door and place three to four firelighters on top of the aluminium foil. Light the firelighters, and then using the hand tool that comes with the cooker, push the firelighters into the cooker spreading them out evenly. This ensures your charcoal burns evenly. Leave the bottom door open and the top door closed for maximum air flow. Your charcoal will start to burn and should be ready in 10-15 minutes. Once your charcoal has stopped flaming, you can then place the grill on top of the Potjie King and let this heat up. You should be ready to grill your meat when the grill is nice and hot. You don’t want to have your grill on top at the start as this blackens it out when the charcoal is burning.
How it Works
The nifty thing about this cooker is the two sliding doors. These doors allow you great temperature control. Having the bottom door fully open, increases the air flow for maximum heat. You would have the bottom door fully open when grilling a steak for example and starting your charcoal or heat beads. Fully closing the bottom door will give you the lowest temperature possible and the best efficiency. What we mean here regarding efficiency is how quickly the charcoal burns – so high efficiency meaning that the charcoal burns slowly at a lower temperature and vice versa. We have the door fully closed or close to closed when we are cooking with our rotisserie and want to cook low and slow. If we are using our camp oven, we would also keep the bottom door closed for maximum efficiency. When cooking low and slow with charcoal for say two to three hours, you will need to top up your charcoal every 45 minutes or so. We just throw in a few chunky pieces of charcoal, open the bottom door for 5 minutes or so until the newly added charcoal starts to burn.
The two sliding doors are the best feature of the Potjie King. It makes it easy to control your temperatures and when you are in a windy location, like the beach, it allows you to close the doors and stop your charcoal burning out too quickly. There are little gaps in the doors that still allow some air flow when fully closed. Having the temperature control becomes even better when you want to cook low and slow, which we do when we cook a pork roast with our rotisserie for example (check out our pork roast on the rotisserie recipe here).
What Can You Cook?
As we have briefly mentioned above, you can cook anything with the Potjie King in a variety of methods. The cooker comes with a grill that sits on top allowing you to use it as a normal BBQ cooking over charcoal. You can also sit a frying pan on top and use it as a general cooker. The other great option is using it with a camp oven. A 12-inch spun steel camp oven sits perfectly on top. The benefit of this cooker with a camp oven is in places where open fires are restricted, but you can cook with charcoal in an enclosed cooker like the Potjie King. This means that you can still cook with your camp oven when you don’t have a fire. Another benefit when using this with a spun steel camp oven, is you are not sitting the camp oven directly on the heat source. This can be great when cooking breads where you don’t want a lot of heat on the bottom, with more heat coming from the top. It is also great when you want to cook a roast low and slow. Having control of the temperature using the bottom door gives you a lot of flexibility here. When we cook with the camp oven on the Potjie King we always use heat beads as this makes the process a whole lot easier. You get the heat beads going first and then when they are ready, you can use a set of tongs to individually pick up and place the heat beads you want to place on top of the camp oven leaving the remaining heat beads on the steel mesh for your heat on the bottom of the camp oven.
You can see the below pictures showing you the different types of meals we have cooked with our Potjie King. Here is our lamb roast in the camp oven recipe where we have done this multiple times using our Potjie King. As highlighted above, here is our pork roast on the rotisserie recipe that we always cook using our Potjie King.
Overall Verdict
Here are our final thoughts on our review of the Potjie King cooker and BBQ.
We have had this cooker for years now. Used it many different conditions including strong winds at the beach. Overall, we have nothing negative to say about this unit. The handle on the Potjie King is great, allowing you to move the cooker around if you ever need to. We do this all the time when it starts to rain and we need to move it under cover, or we have finished cooking and want to move it out of the way. Another great feature is when you have finished cooking and you have put your coals out, it cools down within 15 minutes so that you can pack it away. This is great when using it while you are travelling or out on day trips and you aren’t staying in the one spot for too long. Cleaning the Potjie King is also super easy. You basically dig a hole and tip your coals out into the hole. If you place a piece of aluminium foil on the bottom you throw this in the bin. Wipe the grill down and pack away. As highlighted many times in this post, the best feature of all though are the two sliding doors for temperature control. Simple idea that gives you amazing control when cooking.
You will find that they Potjie King discolours over time and if this is an issue for you, you can clean it with a stainless-steel cleaner. Not that we have ever done this as we don’t really see the point. Overall, this has got to be one of our favourite bits of camping gear. It is so versatile, lightweight and packs away nicely. We have not had any issues with it for more than five years and there is little that can go wrong as it has been so well made. We take this everywhere we go, be it day trips or long camping adventures. These are made in South Africa (hence the name) and can be purchased through Facebook and several South African shops across Australia. The last time we looked they were around $140 but don’t quote us on that.
We have included a link to the Potjie King website here but be aware that this their South African site, so everything is listed in South African Rand. If you are interested in purchasing one, Google the name or look for a South African shop in your local area and give them a call to see if they have any. We know a couple of the South African shops on the Sunshine Coast (Crunch at Forest Glen and Zebra Crossing at Buderim/Maroochydore) stock them.
Hopefully you have enjoyed this post and review of our Potjie King stainless steel cooker and BBQ. If you have any questions or comments please comments below this post or send us a message on Instagram or Facebook. To keep up to date on future posts and what we have been up to, follow us on Instagram and Facebook as well as subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
Thanks for reading legends.
The thoughts of Peter.
07/11/2020 @ 7:38 AM
I did a mountain of research on portable stoves before I came across the pojie king. It is light,compact,rust resistant and efficient in all design areas. Ours is over 5 years old, have had no issues with it,have had it glowing red many times. Only replaced mesh inside due to excessive heat , that’s normal of course. Over 10 campers have noticed ours and ordered one. Absolutely love ours,thanks for a great product Potjie King. Cheers Dian and David
08/11/2020 @ 6:36 PM
G’day David,
Cheers for reading and your feedback.
Glad you’ve got many years use out of your Potjie King. It’s a great bit of gear. Agree with why you love yours. Awesome features for a compact stove and will last forever. If you ever need to replace your mesh again, the camp oven roasting trivets are a perfect fit and work really well as a replacement.
Thanks for reading and sharing, really appreciate it.
Cheers,
Peter
01/10/2020 @ 7:42 AM
I enjoyed your review of the PotjieKing. Have owned mine since 2013 when it was airmailed to me in Toowoomba Qld.
I use it with a Potjie Pot but also as a BBQ. The Ozpig cast iron Char Grill fits a PotjieKing and cooks a good steak.
A South African importer with office in Sydney, SAPRO, currently have a shipment of PotjieKings at sea and will arrive in Sydney end Oct/early Dec.
Currently SAPRO hold stocks of the PotjieKing Dome lids and griddles. They supply over 200 South African grocery stores in Australia.
Regards, David Cheetham.
01/10/2020 @ 4:52 PM
Hi David,
Thanks for your message. Good to hear how you use yours. They are an awesome bit of gear. Great to hear there is a lot of stock available in Aussie.
Cheers,
Peter