I had a barbecue with my extended family recently and my friend coincidentally sent me a link about Casusgrill just before it. At first I was like, what is this? And as I read on, I was intrigued.
Casusgrill is an innovative bio-degradable single use and portable BBQ grill. That is actually a lot of adjectives in one sentence but that is exactly what it is.
Disclaimer: this is not a sponsored post or anything. It is a genuine personal experience.
Buying Process
As I am always up to try something new/interesting, I decided to buy the grills and give it a go. However, if I were to buy it off Lazada, given that the delivery was going to take 5~7 working days, it wasn’t going to arrive in time for my BBQ event. So I decided to take a trip down to the distributor’s office to buy directly from them.
I gave them a call and they said there is no need to order in advance or anything as they have ready stock but I’d still recommend to give them a call before you head down so it won’t be a wasted trip; especially if you are nowhere near 1 Kim Chuan Terrace.
If you are planning to head down to the distributor’s office for whatsoever reason, know that the guy who brought the Casusgrill in actually runs an auto repair company. So imagine my confusion when I arrived at 1 Kim Chuan Terrace to see a car repair shop and no mention of Casusgrill or Colour Creative Pte Ltd. There’s a staircase up to the office on the 2nd level. There’s a Casusgrill banner there inside the office, so just go in and ask the staff for it.
You can also buy the grill online at Lazada and Shopee and have it delivered to you.
Since each grill had only about 1 hour of effective cooking heat, I decided to buy the bundle of 3 grills at S$48. They are usually priced at S$18 each. At this point in writing, they also had a bundle promotion of 5 grills at S$75.
Casusgrill Size & Weight
I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised when the guy handed the 3 boxes to me. It was way lighter than I expected.
Also, each box was about the size of 1 A4 rim of paper and just so you know, each box is lighter than 1 rim of 80gsm A4 rim of paper. It was quite literally no sweat for me to carry all 3 grills in the reusable shopping bag.
Take note that they do not provide any carrier so do bring your own carrier if you are buying direct from the distributor.
Starting Up The Grill
It was really very easy to assemble the grill together. Takes probably 2~3 minutes to get it sorted.
Getting the grill ignited was also super easy. You can light one corner with a lighter and wait for the mini sparks to spread across the whole box over the course of 5 minutes or so. You can also light up 4 corners so the grill will be ready for use under 5 minutes.
The guy was telling me to not to put the grill in such a position where there is direct wind blowing into the charcoal. The wind would cause the charcoal to burn faster and the heat to get higher.
Also, grills are made of bamboo so you can’t put aluminium foil or anything metallic on top of the grill. The aluminium foil/metallic item would retain heat and cause the bamboo to burn and then break. This warning is on the yellow sticker on the packaging as well.
Up to this point, it is all good. The grill is easy to assemble and light up. I must say that there is definitely less smoke generated, no open fire and the charcoal doesn’t smell. The smoke from the charcoal did sting my eyes a bit so take note of that and avoid having the smoke blow into your eyes too much.
Grilling Experience
We started one grill at first as we didn’t know what to expect.
As the food cooked, we started to notice some differences:
- We didn’t have to put any extra oil/butter on the food at all.
- The food didn’t stick on the bamboo grill at all. The bamboo grills did get charred towards the end yes and at that point, some food did get a little stuck but it was really, really minor.
- It did take a bit more time to cook the food than a traditional charcoal BBQ grill.
When the food was cooked, it did have the BBQ smoky taste albeit no open fire and less smoke and all. Also, the chicken wings was nicely grilled on the outside and the meat was still juicy inside. The food didn’t dry up during the BBQ process. Pretty amazing if you ask me.
Also, during the course of BBQ-ing, there was a downpour and we had to move the Casusgrill. The edges of the box was still cool enough to carry with our bare hands.
By then, we were completely sold on the Casusgrill. We opened the second Casusgrill box and started to BBQ like a pro:
I’m not sure if it’s anything we did differently but we did get almost 1.5 hours of effective cooking time per Casusgrill box. We opened all 3 boxes in the end as we had about 15 people but for the last 30~45 minutes of effective cooking time on the last box, we had to pull the handbrake coz everyone was very full by then.
Cleaning Up
It was really, really very easy to clean up. The box was still hot enough to keep food warm by then time we called it a night so I poured water into the charcoal. I was quite surprised when the charcoal literally melted away. Also, all water was absorbed by the white lava stone and none of the water seeped through the box.
When the box was cooled to room temperature, I just dismantled it and put the cardboard only parts into the recycling bin. Zero mess.
Conclusion
I would highly recommend this product because it’s convenient, portable, environmentally friendly, child safe AND you get healthier and juicier tasting food! What is there not to like about it really? Do consider using the Casusgrill instead of the traditional charcoal BBQ because of the environmental impact.
We only have one planet to call home. And we could be the first generation to realise that we are destroying the Earth and also the last generation that can do something about it before the point of no return for the environment. Even if not about the Casusgrill, please do whatever you can to protect and conserve the environment.