At the end of May, the Fornetto team met up with videographers, photographers, distributors, retailers and friends to get some imagery for our new products in development, and to get feedback from everyone on what they thought of the products. It was a great day, full of laughter with plenty of unique insights into the best ways to cook outside, bringing together different regional perspectives from a truly international group of people!
This blog gives a sneak preview of the products under development with images of the prototypes, as well as new videos and photographs of some of our old favourites from the existing Fornetto range. All the images were taken against the beautiful backdrop of rural Asturias in Northern Spain, where the team got to try the local cuisine as well as consume the grilled food from the day.
The first product to get all the attention was the Razzo Pro, our top-of-the-range 18” smoker for the true professional. The team lit the smoker and smoked some seasoned prawns, with occasional bastings of butter. We made the most of the stackable baskets, grill trays and hanging hooks, and proved the product was easy to push around and light using the large access door and Binchotan charcoal. The prawns didn´t take long!
Next up were the Endeavour 3 Burner and the Endeavour 4 Burner Pro, new prototypes which everyone agreed looked sleek and stylish. The Endeavour models come with the GrillSmart™ Oil Management System and cast-iron grills as standard, a system which channels fats and oils away from food during the cooking process into a conveniently placed collection cup at the front of the barbecue. The result is healthier, great-tasting food, reduced flare-ups and less time wasted cleaning up! Additional features include Insultouch™ (the double skinned roasting hood which keeps the heat in), powerful burners, precise control knobs, and the Jet Force ignition system.
While we were testing the Endeavour models, we fired up the Conquest 410, one of our most popular high-quality gas barbecues, with the aim of cooking some serious quantities of food! Throughout the day, the Conquest was a work horse, grilling a whole host of different vegetables, steaks, ribs, a leg of lamb, Hasselbeck potatoes, and chickens on the rotisserie.
Kamados are becoming increasingly popular, because of their huge versatility and a very broad temperature range. Fornetto unveiled its new Lento Pro prototype, which combines everything you could possibly want from a kamado with the high quality you’d expect from Fornetto. The result has beauty, clever design, precise control, optimised space, ease of use and a tough exterior.
We also took the opportunity to fire up the old faithful Lento Medium Red and roast some ribs and potatoes nice and slow over Binchotan charcoal. Our expert guests were only too happy to give a hand and show some of the novices how it should be done!
Fornetto showed the Rapido prototype, a bespoke gas table-top pizza oven, which despite its compact size, is able to quickly grill large pizzas. We should take the opportunity to thank our Italian guests from Il Mondo, who offered invaluable insight into pizza ovens and the best ways to grill a pizza using gas. Once finalised, we know the Rapido will be a best-seller; what can honestly be better than sitting outside around the table watching your own pizza cook?
Finally, we moved down to the water´s edge where we tried out our last product under development, our firepit – the Inferno. The product was easy to light and we piled in the logs to make the grill surface incredibly hot. We then proceeded to grill paella using the support ring at the top, and on the grill surface around the edge we grilled salmon fillets, burgers, whole small sardines, spears of asparagus and beef ribs. The grill surface was hot and the food cooked quickly. I think it is safe to say everyone loved it; it really is the perfect way to enjoy the flames and the heat whilst grilling dinner with friends.
Watch our video promotional video with highlights from the day, by clicking here.
Thanks to everyone who helped on the day, including Il Mondo del Barbecue from Italy, United Brands Group from the Netherlands, and Barbecue World, Estudio Lima, and Musgo Photography from Spain.
