My daughter's oven went out just before Thanksgiving. I initially ordered the 22qt size of another brand and kept seeing this beautiful red roaster pop up on every page. I switched my order to the red 18 qt Nesco and was informed that it would not arrive until mid-December. I went ahead and ordered both thinking we could cook Thanksgiving dinner in the other brand that I would gift to my daughter and I would then keep the red Nesco for myself. Right after ordering I was informed that Amazon was able to ship the Nesco and it was now on its way scheduled to arrive the day before Thanksgiving. Needless to say, my daughter and I both decided on the gorgeous Nesco (a little higher in price) and I am returning the other brand after barely looking at it. I have to order another one for myself. My daughter's place is small so we set it up in the garage which worked well for the initial burning off of any odors as well as keeping it away from children's fingers. I used the recommended roasting bags which definitely helped with cleanup, but some of the bag melted onto the side of the pan. I had to soak an almost-clean pan after dinner in order to peel off the plastic bag residue. There was no damage to the cookwell and I only used a sponge and my fingers. I could only think that perhaps the meat shifted when carrying the cookwell with the ham out to the garage and inadvertently ended up cooking the pan liner to the side of the cookwell. The ham turned out great, a pleasant surprise for first-time use of a new appliance and there was lots of room for veggies (10 lb ham). The next day we cooked a large casserole for breakfast and had NO cleanup of the cookwell at all. I got rid of all my larger crockpots and crowd serving appliances when the kids were grown, but I am looking forward to using this one for potlucks at work, church and holidays. It's also just a "feel-good" color. If my daughter lived closer I'd probably just borrow hers, but I am lookong forward to having my own. A side note is that the cook-well feels like baked-on enamel but without the threat of chipping. (I am not sure what the coating is called, but I liked it).

Love it but would be better with more features

Love my new oven

I was looking for at least an 18 quart roaster for a large turkey and a large slab of corned beef that I have. I chose the Nesco roaster because of the long-standing name and the many positive reviews. The first one that I got had a defective foot and it wobbled. It looked like the foot had been put on an angle. I returned that one to Amazon for replacement. The second one was better, but had a mark on the back that I couldn't remove. Oh well, perfection isn't something that comes will most new appliances. So I tried it.

My first use was a large slab of corned beef. I have cooked many corned beef dishes from the store, but this was one we got from a local farmer and it was larger than I could fit in any of my Dutch ovens. For the size, I figured 5-6 hours on slow cook high. I had no idea how long it would take to get the water to a boil. I put the corned beef into the roaster and not quite covered it with water. The water was not cold, but not boiling either. It took well over 2 hours to get the water to 200 degrees. This was my first disappointment because it pushed our dinner back a couple of hours. It did seem to hold the temperature well once it got there - even when I added the vegetables later. I had it set at 250 degrees to maintain a slow simmer. The meal came out well, but the corned beef was more stringy than others I have cooked in the past. At this point, I don't know if it was the cooker or the corned beef.

After the meal was done, there was the clean-up. I am a stickler about getting things clean with no marks from cooking. With only a water based dish, the porcelain surface was not easy to clean. It took multiple tries with scrubbies to get off the marks from the water .I was going to return the cooker until I took a closer look at other cooker of this size. Most don't even have a light to indicate the cooker is to temperature. Most of them also seem to have the same porcelain coating. At least this one has that has a light that indicates it is on and has reached the set temperature. I also bought the stainless cookwell, and hopefully this one is easier to clean. I opted to keep this roaster oven be cause of the indicator light that others don't have and, from feedback on other units, it isn't worse than any others. It is also possible that is didn't quite measure up to the Ninja 3-in-1 cooking system that I have. Unfortunately, that one doesn't come in larger capacities. It's very possible that my disappointment in this oven is because I used one with more bells and whistles first. Also, the amount of water added to cook the corned beef was quite a lot. Even so, I don't think it would have taken over 2 hours to heat to boiling on the stove top.

My next project with this roaster is to roast a large turkey. I will update this review after I do that. It may be much more effective for its roasting abilities.

Update:
I did purchase the stainless steel cookwell, and it made a world of difference in the cleanup. The stainless steel is so much easier to clean than the porcelain. I did roast a 17 pound turkey in this cooker following the instructions I found on a web site to roast at a higher temperature to brown and then turn the temperature down for the remainder of the cooking and not open the cover to check. I used a probe thermometer to monitor the temperature so I didn't have to open the cooker. When it was done, the turkey tasted excellent and moist, but it was not at all browned. Maybe some of the newer self-basting lids on other oven cooker work better for browning.

Cooking beef and pork roast's