The smaller size is perfect for a couple, heats up quite fast, and is also very easy to clean.

I had the 18 at Nesco first and decided I needed a smaller one so I got its mini-me. This little roaster so far is pretty great. The first meal I made was a slow cooker recipe so I kept the temperate around 200F to 225F degrees for Low. It came out great! I used the roaster the next day to reheat the meal and again, perfect, no scorching. Clean up was easy. I like that the insert is much lighter than a traditional slow cooker.

Cooking beef and pork roast's

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.

Had a nesco back in the nineties. Wanted a roaster that was more than a crock pot. Liked belting able to set various temperatures for cooking There is also a warm setting