Side by Side Comparison of: King Kooker vs Bayou Classic vs Winco

A little larger than I needed, but works really great

Held my first annual shrimp boil and it was a HUGE success. We filled this pot to the RIM and had enough for about 50 people. Before the boil was over we were already talking about the 2nd annual boil in 2018. Water heated up fast, food was amazing, clean up was easy. The pot had a couple dents in it upon arrival as others noted. But I figure it's aluminum (I didn't want to splurge on more expensive options) and it will get dented during storage or use anyway. We had this thing so full we had to manually scoop some off the top to get to the basket. The price was right, the reviews were good and I'll update if we use it again in the near future. Again, only used it once but it performed like a champ.

I bought two of these to replace others I lost in a move.They arrived quickly and packaged well.The pots are well constructed but a bit too light for boiling oils.The burners are great. After setting things up for a Crawfish boiland filling both pots the burners had both pots at a rolling boil in minutes

This product is the perfect size for a large turkey and great for crab boils. The shipping was fast.

DUDE!!! This sucker cranked out the best crab pot dinner ever!!! 18 people fed with no heat slow down. I actually sold one of these sets to my neighbor who attended our meal!!!

Love this! I use it for brewing beer. The size is great for doing full boil batches and is large enough to do larger batches. The burner stand was easy to assemble and although it seems a little flimsy, it holds 7 gallons of liquid and brings it to a boil quickly (takes about 10-20 minutes). The price was unbeatable - I have seen the pot alone go for more than the whole kit cost me. The aluminum pot is fairly light gauge but that has not been an issue but I can see it denting if you bang it around or knock it off a table.

Use in large frying pots to skim or remove how food from oil. Work perfectly. Very strong and great workmanship

The length of this is perfect for the deep frying and the quality of the material seems to be very durable. Very pleased.

This is so long, and the spoon is big enough to scoop a lot at once. It feels very durable, and I would certainly recommend.

I had bought a setup for frying a turkey for Thanksgiving and picked this up along the way. I fried up a turkey and the oil was still usable so I decided to try some other things since I never fry anything inside my house and the oil is expensive. I love wing chips, fries, etc. so I tried my own and experimented (practice makes perfect but they turned out great). This was long enough to go to the bottom of the pot and not burn my arm off, its extremely durable, thick, high quality, even the handle didn't get warm. The basket area is large enough to scoop out a lot at a time, so you're not spending a ton of time overcooking your food fishing around for things. Since it's such high quality, the basket part can be scrubbed and not fall apart. Its big and weird to store so i hang it off of a nail in the side of a closet and don't have to worry about it taking up unnecessary space. I know this will be awesome for seafood boils. This is a nice piece that will be around for awhile.

This skimmer is the real deal. It is large, sturdy and stainless so clean up is easy. It can scoop a large amount of wings or an entire bag of fries with one pass. No more picking individual pieces up with tongs. Long enough to keep your hand away from the hot oil. Get it, you won't be disappointed.

Great size and easy to handle. Tried it for the first time yesterday in a cheap made "King Kooker" that I bought at the same time. If the cooker were this good, I'd be in great shape

Bought to use as a dungeness crab cooker. Works well for that purpose. Not the most robust construction and the instructions were a little sketchy/sparse.Easy to light and control. Heats up quickly too.

As advertised and am very pleased with the quality of the product. The wind shroud would benefit from being a bit deeper.

Works great for Fish boils. Safe and easy to work with and clean.

Great size and pot for the occasional crawfish boil. I can fit about 15 lbs of crawfish with potatoes and the fixings. It took a while to put together the stand, though, but once it's together, it's all good

After alot of research, I bought this kit for an upcoming Low Country Boil I had scheduled with my extended family. I am happy to say that everything went well, and this pot and burner got the job done. Its not the nicest pot out there, but its a solid performer and for the price, its a great deal. Here are a few things you will need to keep in mind that I wish somebody had already said.1. Its aluminum, If you drop it, or even bump it hard, its going to dent a little.Its nothing you cant handle, but if that's a showstopper for you, expect to spend twice as much for a stainless steel pot.2. I found that this 50 quart pot allowed me to make enough low country boil for 25 people per batch. Anything more than that would overflow the pot.3. The 54,000 BTU burner took about 30 minutes to get 25 quarts of water to a boil. That's alot of water, and I was happy with this performance.4. The burner stand took me about 20 minutes to assemble. Its not perfect, but I was confident that it wasn't going to collapse under the weight of the full pot.5. The strainer that is included with the pot is a lifesaver. It really makes cooking alot easier.6. I got a stainless steel paddle stirrer as well, and that turned out to be a good thing to have with this pot. The following link is for a 36" paddle, but something in the 24" range would have been sufficient. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012Z1YIY

perfect length for safety but wish the mesh was a little more of an angle

Probably 5 stars. I haven't used it yet... It's Big. It seems to be very well constructed... Heavy Duty.

use for outside deep fryer

Works great and I imagine those who complained about it rusting so easily may not have washed it immediately and allowed it to dry properly? I really like this thing and it works well where I would just like to see it a bit more sturdy. I would still recommend this to folks as it is far superior to the 'oar' type counterpart.

I like it, don't get me wrong. It's sturdy, long enough to keep me well away from whatever I'm skimming and it's probably going to last as long as I care to own it. The only hangup I have about it is the price. It seems like it's a fairly simple implement and it can't be all that expensive to produce, so I feel like the markup is worth knocking off a star for.

Works great and is strong enough to lift pretty much anything that will fit on the mesh. I cooked a huge crawfish boil and afterwards I worry about corrosion, as the nickel plating seems mighty thin and it looks slightly rusty deep in the grooves after I washed it. Better keep this thing dry and oiled, and watch the strength of the dish washing solvents you use.

Works well, but it rusted very quickly. Paint also burned off with first use, causing awful fumes.

This is my review before using it. I give it three stars based upon how I feel right now. The lid came dented, the basket does not fit properly. Now I have not used it yet but for the price these are two things that should not be a factor. I'm disappointed it's made in China and understand that Chinese products lack quality. The reason I'm posting this is to give people an idea of what they might expect. I am going to address these issues with the seller and I'm going to suck it up and deal with it. I will post another review down the road.

Soo, I didnt want to believe that this item could arrive so damaged after reviewing others' reviews, because I mean, there were so many great reviews afterall. BUT, as soon as I opened the box, I realized it was bent just like other people had wrote about. The lid was bent almost like a taco!!! WTH!!! I like the size of it, and I havent used it yet. I bent the lid back, but its not perfect, maybe I'll try out the stand and keep it just because the prize is reasonable. I'll decide later and update.

Just assembled and tested it the burner works well... The only issue I had was the instruction booklet was hard to understand ..

Get what u pay for... One of the legs broke and bent while boiling... But for the price not bad... Just be aware that you get what you pay for

I bought this to use for shrimp and crab leg boils. I like the size of the pot and the stand is OK but I was disappointed in the basket. I was planning to put the whole boil in the basket so I could pull out the basket and dump it on the table. But it looks like this is more of a steamer since when it is resting on the lip inside the pot it is still about 6 inches from the bottom of the pot. I had to add 3 gallons of water just to reach the bottom of the basket so it takes longer to boil and it requires more seasoning. I have already order another basket that will sit inside the pot.Lastly, I bought this for seafood boils but I thought I could use it to fry a turkey is I wanted to but the instructions have all kind of warnings about "This is not a turkey fryer". This would not have been a deal breaker but in case anyone else is planning to get it as a turkey fryer.Overall, even with buying an addition basket for $30 it is still probably one of the least expensive options and it you only want it as a steamer is would be fine.

rusting

Nice quality but the thing is huge and at an odd angle. It doesn't fit in my fryer.

Its a skimmer. For anyone who needs one, this one works.

I bought this thinking I would use it in cooking. I tried to use it a couple of times but the handle was so long that it was clumsy. It is light weight and very well made. It is a great tool but I have not found a way that I can use it in the foods that I cook in large quantities.

missing assembly pieces, it only had one of the 13 bolts required but I used that one to go buy the parts needed and it works perfect

The entire burner has peeled after one boil! The Pot was ok but even after religious following install instructions, the burner seemed super unstable and flimsy.

the pot had dents in it it was usable but I was disappointed in it...Sorry

item showed up missing components so i could not use. had to return. quality was not that great but i couldn't expect too much for under $100. steamer basket had sharp edges where they punctured the holes. overall quality was poor. i'll wait till i can spend a little more and get something of better quality.

The price is right but the product is not exactly as advertised. The whole stand is easily assembled but it is not as solid as I would like. Also the product picture doesn't show all of the little nuts and bolts holding it together, but they are clearly visible after it's assembled since you are only provided with cheap silver nuts and bolts! I think the marketing picture is extremely deceptive since it does not show these parts connecting the stand together, instead the main pictures seems to show a solid-forged metal stand... don't be mistaken: this is not a solid stand! We've cooked on it 3 times and the main ring which holds the cooking pot is already rusted along most of the ring. It's not rusted through to the point of breaking but it already looks awful. Once again, it does not look as nice as the picture depicts. Overall, I give it 2 stars because it does work, but the overall quality of the product is very poor.

The propane line had a leak in it and ended up catching on fire and melting the tube while I was shutting it down. I contacted the company to see if they had a warranty but haven't heard back from them yet.

Was mistak to buy this

Strong. High quality. Long enough for our 44 quart pot. However, the bottom is not curved enough to easily scoop out crabs or other seafood. Wouldn't purchase again. Might work better is you're just trying to stir something. My husband says its most useful for lifting the strainer from the pot but we could have used a stick for that.

Sturdy construction but rusted after pre-washing it to use.. Returned..

Is much larger than I thought, and rusts easily.

It is 18 inches but you can find one from academy 36 inches with rubber on the handle much nicer for half the price. I think it was 7.99

I have purchased many Bayou Classic products. Fish fryers, burners, and utensils. This is by far my most disappointing purchase yet. The mesh is patched together in the middle creating sharp pointed wires sticking out in several places. Purchase this item in a store so you can do a quality inspection for yourself since they don't seem to care about the quality of of this item.

The product came extremely dented and damaged, plus the package was missing parts for assembly.

Cheaply constructed, but as noted by other reviewers, you get what you pay for. As with others who have reviewed this product, the lid and steamer bucket arrived bent, and it was short one bolt. All of this was fixable, but the leak in the hose on its first use was not. When I contacted the manufacturer, I was told that it would not send a new hose and that I'd have to "exchange" the unit through Amazon.It'll be a return for a refund.

We used our pot twice and it leaks and has small holes in it.

Very disappointed as the product came in a normal box that was undamaged. Unfortunately when we open it on the day of our crawfish boil the pot was bent so bad we couldn't even get the strainer out. Needless to say the top didn't fit either. We had to scramble to a local store for a cooker as we had 30 people coming over that day for a crawfish boil. Can't figure out how the pot was like that when neither the inside or outside box was damaged. This to me means, it was a damaged pot put back in a box for resale.

After reading all the positive reviews I decided it must be decent quality, and was excited to get it. I just opened it and its not.. Thin, softer than usual aluminum, so the lid was dented and the pot was crushed. Blame Metal Fusion Inc./ King Kooker for using poor grade, thin aluminum. Very disappointing

bent

awful - returned - only used to serve out of large pot with - and the next day it was rusted -

Rusted after 3 uses.

Used one time. Washed the item. Rust marks all over the place. There should not be rust after one use.

Crap used once washed 2 days later covered in rust

Though it was a long skimmer... When I received it I was pissed! Never used it too short!!!

I bought this at the same time as a Bayou Classic stainless steel turkey fryer set-up. The wire mesh basket was poorly attached to the frame leaving sharp, pointy ends that scratched me. I wouldn't purchase this item again.