This is going to have to be a long review...so bear with me. First and foremost this is a large roaster. Most are 18 quart. This one is 22 quart. The reason I wanted a roaster so large? Small turkeys (sub 20lb) have a low meat to bone ratio. Once your get over 20lbs you get a LOT more meat. No one eats the bone so why pay for bone? You can freeze the leftover meat and have turkey without having to cook another one - for a long time. :-)

As roasters go, this one is well made. I like the stainless sides and all porcelain insert and interior. The lid is 'nice' and fully functional, but if I could make a suggestion to Hamilton Beach it would be design the lid underside with some other material. After a single use it is permanently stained and oxidized. I guess it doesn't really hurt anything BUT, it kept the turkey smell no matter how or how many times we cleaned it. Other roasters aren't any better.

The rack that goes in the black porcelain insert works very well. I was able to lift the turkey out of the roaster with it and place it on the cutting tray without problem. First, of course since the roaster was cooking the turkey in another room, I lifted the insert out and carried it to the kitchen counter where I sat it on one of two adjacent white plastic cutting boards The other one was for the "cutting tray".

Actual measured dimensions:
EXTERNAL: The longest side of the insert (which extends out over the base) is 22". The handles on the base each extend almost an inch beyond that for a total length just shy of 24". The width of the insert (slightly wider than the base) is 15.25" with the temperature control knob sticking out exactly 1" beyond that for a total width of 16.25" However, the 2 foot long cord come out of the center of the other side so you would need a minimum of 16.5" for storage. Also for storage, you can flip the lid upside down for a total storage height of 8.5". With the lid right side up the total height is 12.25" including the lid handle. The lid itself is actually 4" but sits in a 0.25" recess lip in the insert. That lip is important because it prevents juices from "escaping" (running out over the edge).
INTERNAL: How much room there is for a large turkey is determined by the Inside length and width of the insert. Length is 17.25" and the inside width is 11.75". Of course with large birds the 'head' matters as well. The lid adds 2.25" to the 6.25" of height in the insert for a total space of 8.5" for the height of the bird. In other words, you can comfortably fit a 16"L x 11"W x 8"H turkey in this roaster. I cooked a 23 lb turkey for Christmas and there was plenty of room. Should be able to fit at least a 25lb and probably a 26 lb turkey in this roaster. Is that great or what?!!!

And yes, of course, you use either ALL cotton string or stainless wire to tie the birds legs and wings to keep them from falling against the wall and burning.

Most of our experience was cooking turkeys in an oven. We were having company and needed the oven space for cooking other things. So this was a first. I called my son and my sister who have both used roasters for cooking turkeys for years to find out what the temperatures and times should be. WELL! Talk about two totally different sets of numbers! So, I just used a little common sense and boiled down all their numbers to what I thought made sense. I'm telling you this because the instructions for cooking a turkey that came with the roaster are all wrong. It says you can cook a 20 lb turkey in 2 to 3 hrs at 325°. No way. It would NOT be adequately cooked!

Preheat for 15 minutes at 400°F.
Put in the turkey and cook for 45 minutes at 400°F. The turkey is thawed but cold so you need to jump start the cooking process.
Then drop the temperature to 340°F for the remaining cooking time.
Now, I inserted three small dial cooking thermometers into the bird at 3 hours. One inserted in the meat behind the thigh, one in the breast meat and one in the filling that went right into the center. That's the same time I coated the bird with butter for browning. Then at 3 1/2 hours I checked the thermometers and coated the bird with butter a second time.
turkey label 3.5 hrs 4 hrs
stuffing 165°F 170°F 180°F
breast 170°F 175°F 185°F
behind thigh 180°F 160°F* 180°F

* Behind the thigh is always the most difficult to get up to temperature.

I did notice that throughout the cooking process the turkey was being constantly basted by the steam condensing and dripping from the lid all over the turkey!

Bottom line is that we cooked a 23 lb turkey in 4 hrs flat! Then I turned it down to 200°F to hold it until our company arrived (late) almost an hour later. The bird was perfect. It was tender, juicy, AND perfectly browned! And you can see from the temps at 4hrs it was thoroughly and properly cooked. This roaster did a great job! I should have taken a picture of it.

I love this roaster for holiday turkeys. There's a lot more you can do with it, but for the holiday turkey alone it's completely worth the purchase. Last year I made two turkeys in it and both turned out great. One turkey had to travel 1/2 hour to a lunch work and did so without issue and was nice and hot/juice when we ate. The other turkey went about 10 minutes for the dinner so we took it with about 1 hour left to cook and it was great. Having my oven open for other items was wonderful! It's always difficult to prepare a whole meal when the turkey is monopolizing the oven.

One general complaint is that the turkey isn't brown when you take it out. To get a browned turkey just cook it on 450ish for about 1/2 hour and then decrease to the normal cooking temperature. I looked online and found a bunch of advice for how to get a browned turkey while using a roaster. Before we bought the roaster we attempted to do this high temp, right temperature in our regular oven (no oven bag). That was a HUGE mistake and even after two years the grease splatter that was baked on has not come clean. DO NOT do that method in your regular oven.

There's a lot of talk about using an oven bag inside the roaster. The manufacturer says do not do that. From my research I learned that one can, but the bag cannot touch any part of the roaster itself. I'm not sure how one would ensure it didn't touch the roaster, so I don't recommend that bag. The cleanup was very easy after both turkeys, so I don't see the need for trying to get an oven bag to work.

The most confusing part of the roaster is the insert rack the turkey sits on. From the pictures it looks like it stands up nicely by itself. From experience it does not. The handles on the rack will fall in on turkey if you move the roaster around. I tried flipping the handles around, but then the rack doesn't fit in the roaster. Since we travel around with turkeys that's a bit annoying, but easy enough to fix when we arrive at the destination.

This is a large item to store and I don't have room in my kitchen to store it. Since I only used for special occasions/large item I saved the box and have it stored in my attic for easy access.

I highly recommend this item!!!

I must preface this review. I have been an Amazon customer for many years, and recently became a Prime customer. I have never written a review. I didn't feel anything that I had purchased really needed a review... Until this.

This is amazing. I bought this to help increase my oven space for my next Thanksgiving, as trying to roast a turkey and bake stuffing, potatoes, biscuits, and green beans in the same conventional oven is a little overwhelming, even for the new powerful has oven we have.

I went ahead and did a test run on a whole roasted chicken to compare times, juiciness, and overall see how the product would work. As the title of the review suggests, I am very impressed with the roaster. My chicken turned out incredible. Slightly browned on the outside, super, super juicy on the inside. Cooking time is about the same, slightly less.

Some tips:
-If cooking a turkey or a chicken, brush the outside with some melted butter. It'll help the skin brown and crisp.
-If using a thermometer meant to stay in the meat and have the temp unit outside, be aware the lid won't be flush. I used some tinfoil wrapped on the edge to keep the heat in.
-The lid and the outside of the machine get HOT. I have a pair of Ov-Gloves that work wonders.
-The roasting pan that comes inside is large and can be used for large soups/stews and turkeys. If you are cooking something smaller, definitely use a 10x14 or 9x13 pan (I use glass Pyrex and they work wonders.

Overall this is a really good produce and a perfect size. I'm very pleased with my purchase.

I needed a way to cook a turkey for 20 people in my new house where the oven doesn't work (yet). So we settled on this particular roaster and we are soooo glad we chose it! My 21-lb. turkey came out beautifully in about 3-1/4 hours at 375 degrees. The skin on the top of the breasts was not crispy, but I did not expect it to be; other areas, where there was more room for the warm air to circulate around the bird sufficiently, were nice a crisp, so everyone was happy with the finished product.

Several people have mentioned how hot the outside of the roaster gets; I took this to heart and placed it on top of a sturdy cart in a corner next to the fridge. We also had 3 other crock pots on the 2 shelves below. This was a great solution to keep everything warm and little hands away from all the hot equipment. Personally, I was expecting the outside of the roaster to be hotter than it was, but once you wrap your head around the fact that it's going to be as hot as the setting, it's just like realizing the oven door gets that hot, too, so you shouldn't be too surprised. I'm looking forward to making soups and chili in the roaster for big parties in the future.

This was money well-spent. I'd highly recommend this roaster to anyone looking for one.

Bought this roaster after a lot of research and reading all the reviews. I expected it to be a dedicated "turkey" roaster for Thanksgiving but am very pleasantly surprised. First I received this 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. I read through the "prep" and did wash and heat it up to burn off the "original" smell. Very glad I did that, as it didn't smell good and I would not want that to be on my turkey. They were right - it only smelled that one time, as I have used this 4 times since. No more "new" smell. Second, I tested out the roasting ability by cooking a big fryer (chicken). As many reviews said, it was very moist, and not at all crisp. I used this "trial" to proceed with plans for Thanksgiving turkey in the roaster, but tackle the "wet skin" issue. Come Thanksgiving, I bought a 25 pound turkey. When thawed, it fit very nicely in the roaster - on the rack. Using a Martha Stewart recipe, I added a halved lemon inside, and generously coated the outer skin with Paprika and Seasoned Salt. Then I covered the bird, and told everyone not to look. The roaster did get hot on the outside (as advertised) but the handle stayed cool. As it cooked, it smelled incredible. I peaked at the bird after 2.5 hours and was very pleased with the overall browning. I looked to see if the "done" stick was up. The 25 pound bird ended up cooking (i mean, meat falling off the bone) in 4.5 hours. The skin was incredible - nicely browned and crisped. The juice in the roaster was the most i have ever gotten from a turkey. After letting it sit for about 45 mins (waiting for the rest of the dinner to get prepared) - we cut it and it was by far the juiciest turkey any of us (there were 15) had ever had. Several of my guests swore they were going to buy this roaster to repeat this perfection. While the turkey was sitting, I put the dressing inthe roaster and let that cook. I am amazed at the flexibility of this thing - it really is a "portable oven." I am so glad I bought this. I have used it now 4 times and not just for cooking birds. It makes casseroles good - and not everything comes out "wet." This is a wonderful purchase. I will use it forever for my roasting needs.