Ninja Woodfire Professional XL: Introduction

In the event you’re already a fan of Ninja’s nice air fryers – such because the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer – and / otherwise you’re trying to dip your toes into the world of American-style BBQ smoking, then the Ninja Woodfire Professional XL could also be simply the gadget for you.

Not like a standard smoker, the place the smokey flavour is achieved by means of burning wooden that additionally acts as the principle gas for the warmth, the Ninja allows you to cheat by including pellets to the combination, that are infused to provide you a spread of smokey finishes, mixed with dependable digital heating parts and a convection fan for even cooking.

Competitively priced at across the $400 / £400 mark, and following up on the success of the non-XL Woodfire, the Professional XL is an absolute beast of an out of doors cooking machine, with a plethora of cooking choices accessible, and simple to make use of, for even probably the most unskilled cooks.

Learn on for my full Ninja Woodfire Professional XL assessment to search out out simply why it has scored an ideal 5-star assessment.

Design and construct

• Dimension: Cooking plate is 30 x 45cm
• In actual phrases: Can deal with two 3kg chickens
• Weatherproof: IPX4 rated with RCD plug

Getting technical earlier than we get into the main points, and the Ninja Woodfire Professional XL is on the market either side of the pond, albeit with very slight variations.

The mannequin I had on check for the needs of this assessment was the OG850UK mannequin, readers primarily based within the US will probably be wanting on the OG851HGY in the event that they’re going (nearly) like-for-like.

No matter variant you go for, you’re getting the largest Woodfire on provide. Nonetheless, though it’s 30% greater than its non-XL brethren, it has really misplaced a number of options from the smaller authentic, specifically dehydrating, reheating and baking.

I believe that’s as a result of Ninja sees the massive boy of the bunch as a meat first machine, particularly with the addition of a inbuilt temperature sensor probe on board.

The XL, because the identify suggests, is an absolute behemoth of an electrical cooker, weighing in at a whopping 18KG and measuring 41cm x 57cm x 51cm.

It’s in no-way a transportable machine; when you’ve discovered a spot for it in your backyard then you definately’ll wish to go away it there. And you’ll, protected within the information that it’s totally weatherproof, with its premium supplies designed to resist out of doors use and year-round cooking and it’s waterproof to ranking IPX4.

Ninja does promote a canopy for it in case you do wish to preserve it a bit safer and there are additionally leg and desk equipment that flip it right into a extra conventional wanting grill.

As talked about, it’s fully protected to prepare dinner open air with it in all parts; the plug itself is an RCD one, that has its personal weatherproofing and shut-down capabilities inbuilt. There’s additionally a bodily energy button on the again of the Professional XL, with a water-proof rubber cowl.

That massive bulk of the XL permits for loads of cooking; Ninja informs us that the 45cm x 30cm grill plate is able to dealing with as much as 10 burgers, 40 hotdogs, 2 full racks of ribs, 6 steaks, or two 3kg chickens. The crisper basket can air fry as much as 1.8kg of meals.

Options

• Smoke field and pellets present smokey flavour
• Grill, smoker, air-fry and roast modes
• Constructed-in BBQ thermometer

On the aspect you’ll discover a smoker field that burns pure hardwood pellets, which is what offers the meals you prepare dinner that BBQ smoke style.

Ninja gives a few baggage of pellets within the field, and a scoop to pour them in, and suggests you solely use Ninja-branded pellets with the Woodfire. A fast Google suggests some customers have taken that recommendation flippantly, with no ill-effects.

The bottom, with all of the controls, feels very Ninja-ish with the totally different cooking modes – grill, smoker, air-fry and roast – all accessible to decide on by way of a dial.

There’s additionally a Woodfire Flavour button which implies that it’s not simply the smoker mode that advantages from the pellet infusion.

By default, the smoker mode will ignite the pellets and create a smoke-based prepare dinner, however all the different modes don’t – until you press this button. Meaning you’re in full management of precisely what meals you wish to smoke when cooking on different modes.

For longer cooks, the smoker could be refilled twice, you simply want to recollect to press the Woodfire Flavour button whenever you prime up, to restart the ignition course of.

A brand new addition to the Professional XL is the built-in BBQ thermometer; a digital probe you insert into your meals to maintain monitor of ingredient temperatures. Conveniently saved on a tray that slides beneath the entrance panel, the probe plugs in like a pair of headphones when it’s essential to use it.

You possibly can clearly manually prepare dinner with this probe, serving to you to attain precise goal temperatures however you too can use Ninja’s Good Prepare dinner System to select from pre-set meals sorts, and choose your good end from uncommon to nicely performed.

Each the interior cooking temperature, and the temperature of the meals is displayed on the LED on the entrance and also you’ll additionally get messages when the prepare dinner is completed.

The LED show can be helpful throughout the ignition modes of the smoke field and pre-heating; which is important for all modes besides the smoker one.

Pre-heating is usually a bit gradual really however you’re knowledgeable of the progress on the LED show.

Efficiency

I’ve had the Ninja Woodfire Professional XL setup in my backyard for a number of weeks now and over the Easter weekend I actually acquired an opportunity to place it by means of its paces by testing all 4 cooking strategies.

Let’s begin with the smoker as I believe that’s the largest promoting level of the Woodfire vary.

Clearly, the extra conventional meats for this facet could be brisket, pork butt, ribs and the like however, it being Easter, I assumed I’d put it by means of its paces by smoking a shoulder of lamb.

Ninja does provide a short prepare dinner e-book with the XL however smoked lamb shoulder isn’t precisely mainstream so I needed to take to Google to search out somebody who’d smoked a shoulder of lamb and offered a recipe.

That was straightforward sufficient however that particular person – an American with a formidable beard and a lumberjack shirt, natch – had performed his smoking the normal manner.

Nonetheless, that didn’t matter as all I actually wanted was steerage on the cooking and goal temperatures to get the right prepare dinner.

The fantastic thing about the Woodfire Professional XL is that it’s so, really easy to each keep a gradual temperature and hit your goal temperature. For the lamb, I cooked at 120°C (248 Fahrenheit) to attain a goal meat temperature of 94°C (201 Fahrenheit).

If you’re cooking extra conventional cuts resembling brisket or ribs then there are literally pre-set modes on the gadget itself that you need to use, however for my prepare dinner I used to be simply in a position to set my prepare dinner temperature after which manually choose my goal temperature, with the sensor appropriately positioned within the meat.

My stereotypical American recipe information urged this prepare dinner would take round 4 hours and he was just about spot on.

And the consequence – a triumph. Smokey, tender, juicy meat with little or no effort on my components. I mainly rubbed some oil, seasoning, garlic and rosemary on the lamb, shut the lid and let the Ninja do its factor for 4 hours or so.

I didn’t open the lid as soon as, as I needed to maintain that smokey goodness locked in, with the arrogance that the meat wasn’t going to be overdone, due to the interior sensor probe protecting me up to date with the meat’s present temperature.

Whereas the lamb was resting I replicated a dish that the Ninja skilled cooks had really demoed for me again on the launch occasion.

It was a easy grilled courgette and prawn starter and I requested the cooks on the time in the event that they’d marinaded or performed something particular to the substances earlier than cooking they usually assured me it was merely the smoke infusion offering the additional flavours.

They usually weren’t mendacity, I merely used the grill mode, with the Woodfire Flavour button pressed, and inside about 5 minutes, I’d just about replicated the dish.

Subsequent up, I used the roast mode, once more with the Woodfire possibility chosen and a few pellets inserted, to prepare dinner some pigs-in-blankets and stomach of pork in a ‘oven’ model setup. Once more, I didn’t should do something and the extra-smokey flavour was current and actually added to the style.

My last check for the Easter prepare dinner out was the air-fryer mode, and a few candy potato wedges. As you’d count on from Ninja, the air-frying was very good and, once more, the additional infusion of the smoke flavour made an enormous distinction.

Throughout cooking – on all modes – the gadget makes a little bit of a hum, which might be most notable on air-fry mode, however it’s not precisely loud.

You additionally may panic in regards to the quantity of smoke popping out, particularly proper at first of a prepare dinner, however that’s completely regular.

One draw back is that, as soon as you’re performed cooking, both by the grill plate or the air fryer basket, then you’re going to have handy wash these components as they aren’t dishwasher protected.

All the fats pours out a gap behind the grill and right into a drip tray. Ninja really provides disposable drip trays that match into the principle one, so you’ll be able to preserve every part a bit cleaner; however I’ve simply been washing up the metal tray after each prepare dinner, and it’s not an enormous problem.

Last thoughs

The Ninja Woodfire Professional XL is an outstanding, all-in-one, out of doors cooking machine which means that you may obtain the prefect BBQ style in your meat, each time. But it surely goes past simply meat because the smoke infusion may also take grilled and roasted greens, and even air-fried meals, to the subsequent stage too.

How we check

Once we publish our critiques, you’ll be able to relaxation assured that they’re the results of “residing with” long run exams.

As a result of we’re testing new gadgets all day, on a regular basis, we all know what issues and the way a selected gadget compares to options that you may additionally be contemplating.

Our critiques are complete, goal and honest and, after all, we’re by no means paid on to assessment a tool.

Learn our information on how we check to study extra.

FAQs

Ninja Woodfire Professional XL: Specs