Southwest Disk
I know what you’re thinking…
A full two-foot-wide cooking disk – is that even necessary?
I admit that when I’m solo camping or even with just a couple of friends, the 24-inch Roswell Discada from Southwest Disk might be a little overkill.
But after taking it with me last weekend on a big group outing (22 people in total!), it’s the only way to get food cooked for a lot of people, fast.
And to be honest, after having an incredibly pleasant cooking experience with the Roswell, it’s something I’ll definitely use on trips with fewer people too. It’s that good!
So, I’ve let the cat out of the bag here – the Roswell is a fantastic addition to your camping or overlanding kitchen. Let’s get to the specifics of why this is the case.
Southwest Disk Roswell Specs
Southwest Disk
Before we get to the nitty-gritty of the review, let’s first get some specifications and features out of the way.
As noted earlier, this is a 24-inch discada. It tips the scales at 30 pounds, so it’s a big boy! If you do a lot of backpacking, this is not the cooking device for you. But if you’re like me and you have a trailer with storage, it’s easy as pie to slide this sucker into the storage compartment and take it on your adventures.
The disk is about 1/4-inch thick and has a semi-flat bottom at about 10 inches across. It cones up to a height of four inches, which gives you 27 inches of cooking space from one side to the other.
Southwest Disk
The Roswell comes with 12-inch steel legs that quickly and easily attach and detach so you can set up your cooking station and tear it down with ease. And since they’re made of steel, you can set the disk up over the campfire without worry of causing damage to the legs.
As an option, you can get a portable, height-adjustable burner and leg set so you don’t have to rely on cooking over a campfire (or bend over to cook!).
The optional legs adjust from 18-36 inches in height so you can have the cooking surface at whatever height is comfortable for you. The patented 65,000 BTU burner comes with a high-pressure regulator and they burn 75 percent cleaner than CSA standards. To say that this burner puts out heat is an understatement!
Southwest Disk
Another option to consider is the type of handle that comes on the Roswell. Mine has the BBQ spring handles, which I like because they offer a thicker and rounder surface for grabbing the discada. Other options include the Santa Fe handle (which is a horseshoe design), the Angel Fire handle (which is a circle design), or the Trinity handle (which is an oval design).
But best of all is that the Southwest Disk Roswell comes prepped and seasoned. That means you don’t have to mess about with firing the disk or seasoning it yourself. Instead, it’s ready to cook right out of the box.
My Hands-On Review
Now, for the good stuff…
As I mentioned earlier, I used the Roswell discada on my group trip last weekend.
With so many people (hungry people!) on hand, I needed a much larger cooking surface than I normally have. The Roswell filled that need quite well.
Though the sheer size of the cooking surface is what you immediately notice, there are so many other nice features about this disk that impressed me over the weekend.
For starters, I like how this discada is a little deeper than other cooking devices I’ve used in the past. In fact, this is easily the largest cooking surface I’ve ever used while camping. You can really cook an incredible amount of food! With other cooking implements, I would have been stacked sky-high with food (and I would have been cooking in batches for a very long time).
But because there’s so much space in the Roswell disk, and because it does such a phenomenal job of distributing the heat from the burner, it did a fantastic job of cooking the food I was preparing quickly and evenly.
I found the optional burner and leg kit to be a hugely beneficial addition to the setup. Though I love cooking over the campfire, it just wasn’t practical for this trip. So, I attached the legs, adjusted them to the desired height, hooked up the burner, and voila – I was ready to cook!
All the way around, the Roswell discada truly impressed me. This thing is beautifully made, but more than that, it’s smartly designed to give you the most functional cooking surface possible.
The leg kit is equally as impressive from a build quality standpoint. Sometimes, add-on legs don’t quite fit or they feel unstable. That was not the case with the Roswell. The cooking surface and the legs worked together as though they were forged at the same time. I had a safe, sturdy surface for cooking all weekend long.
So, in short, my experience with the Southwest Disk Roswell was nothing but awesome. Not only do you get a huge cooking space and great heat distribution, but you get those benefits at a much lower price than similar products.
This 24-inch discada is just $110, and based on my experience with it out in the field, the Roswell disk is absolutely worth every penny! In fact, when my friends asked about the price of the Roswell, they were shocked that the price was so low. Even with adding the optional burner and leg kit, this setup is still only $215.
If you do a lot of group trips and you’re the resident chef, I highly recommend the Southwest Disk Roswell. Talk about a way to cook in style!