Napoleon SIZZLE ZONE Burner Windshield and Skewer Rack - Large - 71301

Full disclosure, I received this product for free from Napoleon as part of their Tester Team program. Now that that's out of the way, I own a Napoleon Prestige 500. I live in Arizona and it does get quite windy here, but I don't normally grill during these times because it also gets very dusty, so I can't really speak to the main purpose of the product. Go figure. That being said, I do like the skewers and the design of the skewers themselves. As designed, the product has 3 sides all connected and a fourth, smaller front side that has tabs that you work into the front to make it all come together. This front portion has spaces for the skewers (it comes with 4). The skewers are large and can hold quite a bit of food, so that's great. What I really like about the skewer design is that it has flat sides so you can easily flip your food without it rolling around and staying in the highest weighted part like you would on a cylindrical skewer. Additionally, that front portion has two cutouts for the skewers, one for laying it horizontally and the other a bit deeper so you can rotate it and lay it vertically into the slot, which assures that you can get all four sides cooked evenly which is a very nice bit of design. In addition to this, the whole design seems nice and sturdy, made of a pretty heavy duty stainless steel so everything is easy to clean as well. There are tabs on two levels which I did not understand until I read the box (there are unfortunately no instructions provided in the box itself, so if you're someone who just tosses the box immediately, you'll probably struggle to figure out what they are for as well). There are some pictures on the box, but these pictures do nothing to show you what the tabs are for, either, as they just show the product with steaks on the cooking grate. In reading the steps (yep, you have to read, ugh), you realize that you can actually move the grate up and put it on the tabs at the two levels, thus creating a higher cooking surface (than the two you get by moving the grate directly on the sizzle zone itself) and a warming rack if you move it all the way up to the third (highest) level. Nice touch, but I wish the instructions had pictures of that, or, at the least, pictures of it somewhere on the box. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. This thing gets hot if you're cooking on high temperatures on the sizzle zone, so obviously just be careful when using it and don't touch it. Other than not clearly specifying what the tabs on the design are for, my main issues with the product are as follows: 1. If you've got a big family, chance are you're not really going to be able to take advantage of the skewers because there are only 4, so this will limit the use of this product. You're more than likely going to be cooking them on the main grill area, but at least you get 4 more skewers to use, I suppose. 2. While this does have one open end so you can store other things inside of it easily, it is quite bulky. If, like me, you already have a bunch of other accessories and items stored in the storage compartment under your grill, you'll be hard pressed to find where to put this. Since I mentioned the tabs on the front portion where the skewers sit and how that connects to the rest of the body, I really don't see why the engineers couldn't have done the same treatment to all of the remaining 3 sides and made a tab system that locks everything together, thus allowing you to break it down and store it horizontally (yes, you'd still have the larger grate tabs to deal with, but it would still be a lot smaller to store, and honestly, I'd love to see those have some sort of tab system on them as well. Heck, they should just generally be optional cuz I probably won't use them much so leaving them off and using a tab system to attach them would actually be preferred). 3. By being able to break this down to a more horizontal storage solution, this would also unlock the ability to throw all of the parts in the dishwasher and have them be cleaned for you. A huge bonus! Overall, I do like the product, but with the above storage improvements, I'd have given it a full 5 stars. As it stands now, I'd probably say more like 3.5 stars as I feel like I'm going to store this away somewhere that I have space and mostly forget about it until it pops into my head at some point again.

This item was sent to me by Napoleon as part of the tester team. My family loves kebabs, I'm personally not a big fan of them and usually only grill them on occasion. When this item was sent my way, my family was really excited to have a kebab night. I would have never thought to purchase this on my own, but after using it, I really enjoyed the product and the process. I have the Napoleon Prestige grill with the larger sear burner on the side. We grill about 5 nights a week at our house so the grill is almost always in use. I tend to only use the sear station on occasion when grilling thicker larger cuts of meat or quick cooking a skirt steak or hangar steak. I was happy to have a reason to use the sear station to test this product out. The wind shield serves two purposes - blocking the wind from reducing the intensity of the sear station and holding four skewers for making kebabs. It worked admirable for each as I tested it on a day when we were exposed to wind from the remnants of a tropical storm. Cooking the kebabs was super fast, it took half the time in the windshield than it did on the regular grill. I learned a few things along the way: I overloaded the skewers which led to the pieces of meat on the ends not cooking as throughly as the middle. That was not a fault of the product, just a learning experience. Next time I will be sure to be mindful to only load the middle 7-8 inches of the skewer with meat. Turning the skewers so all sides were evenly cooked was easy since the product has a notch that allows the skewers to lay flat or on its side. One thing I noticed is that you have to be mindful of how hot the sear station gets compared to the regular grill and turn the kebabs purposefully so they don't over char. There is a space limitation due to the size of the sear station so since you can only fit 4 at a time, you do need to be conscious that you need to keep the cooked kebabs warm if cooking for a larger group (I used the main grill on indirect low heat for that). By keeping the wind screened my sear burner seemed to get much warmer than I expected which was a really nice result. I'm looking forward to searing a steak and seeing how the crust comes out. The product is well constructed with almost no assembly - just fit the front kebab holder into place and get grilling. All in all, I see the value in owning this item and will get more use than I expected out of it as time goes on. The skewers and the windscreen are well made and they serve their purpose exactly as described. That would be the main reason for a 5 star review from me. I have already decided to get a bit more creative with the types of kebabs to try on the sear station so it helped open up more possibilities for me thanks to the high heat that can be attained from the ceramic sear station. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to open up some more possibilities using their sear station

Received the Side Burner windshield about 3 weeks ago. Have used it twice, once for finishing off a Ribeye Steak (Reverse sear method) and once for cook Beef Kabobs. I have owned my Napolean for about a year and truly like having the side burner. I had cooked steaks directly on the cast iron grate, but found it messy and not the way I like to finish a steak. I think the Windshield provides extra control of the grease splashing and wind control. Personally, I like to have a cast iron pan to finish my steak off. For the Kabobs, the design of the unit makes a lot of sense. The ability to turn and lock the spit rods at different angles is great. Cooking in this manner was quick and easy clean up. My con to this is the spit rods are too wide to slide meat and especially vegetables on the rods. In most cases I found it split the peppers and onions in half. I also found putting four rods on the unit was very crowded. The two positions on the outside were slightly off the burner area. I would suggest having three positions. This would give you more room for the food to be spaced out. I liked the shipping box and how the unit arrived at the house. Very well packed. I would like to have a little more detail instructions with pictures or drawings. A simple page inserted in the box with step directions and same recipes.

Tried this tonight for the first time. It is built well and holds the skewers nicely. My grill does not have a side burner so I put it inside the grill. Fits the grill perfectly and makes turning the skewers a breeze. Just wish it was bigger, like for 6 or 8 skewers.

I am a member of the Napolean Tester program and received the above Product at no cost. I have a 525XT Rogue SIB burner. This product extends the versatility of my grill(vegetables/meats on the skewers and burgers on the big grill at the same time and consistency of the main grill box, and for that I am grateful. However, in my opinion, the product is not convenient to use, in the following respects. It comes shipped in a box with no instructions or illustrations on how to position and place it over the side burner. Not being mechanically adept, it took me 15+ minutes to figure out how to correctly place the box, and skewer hanger flap over the side burner. This caused scratches in the grill finish. In addition, if you wish to "elevate" the SIB grill grate, you have to remove it first and then "Giggle" the box to have the grate slide in. After the Box is used, The next issue I faced was storage. Since the Box comes as illustrated above, I found it hard to store. Possibly, Napolean can hinge the side flaps in the future, so the product can fold flat when not in use. Based on the issues discussed herein, I rated this product 3 stars.

I live in a very windy area and this works awesome.