YOU ARE HERE >> AmazingRibs » Ratings & Reviews » Louisiana Grills Country Smokers CS-450 Pellet Smoker Review
By: Max Good
The CS-450 is one of Louisiana Grill’s smaller smokers. The controller toggles between set temp and meat probe temp. Set it and forget it, the thermostat will maintain cooking temperature just like your indoor kitchen stove. As a safety feature the meat probe can be set for your desired target temp. When internal meat temp rises within 10⁰ of the target, the controller automatically drops the smoker down to 170⁰ to avoid overcooking. So if you’re cooking at 225⁰ and looking for an internal meat temp of 200⁰, when the meat hits 190⁰ the controller switches to the holding temp of 170⁰.
The Arched Flavor Guard (above) is unique to LGs. Unlike flat diffuser/drip plates found under the grates of most pellet smokers, the Flavor Guard with sliding broiler plate is a 14 gauge curved metal sheet that conforms loosely to the shape of the hood, cresting in the middle of the cook surface and dropping off in the front and back of the cook box. LG feels this design presents a larger surface for meat drippings to sizzle and enhance BBQ flavor. The Flavor Guard has a section over the fire pot which can slide out of the way to expose large, slotted openings that allow meats to sear over open flame. This feature, previously optional, is now standard for all Louisiana CS smokers. Some other pellet manufacturers have their own versions of this “sear zone”. They kinda-sorta work, but fire pots are small and don’t crank enough intense radiant heat over a large enough area to do serious searing. They will, however heat up griddles, cast iron pans, or cast aluminum GrillGrates for conductive searing. You can do a nice reverse sear using the flat side of a GrillGrate on this system.
Instead of a chimney, Louisiana Grills uses a row of holes at the back located several inches above the cook surface. The Grease bucket hooks underneath the smoker rather than off to the side like most other brands. Options include a cold smoking box, hopper extension, upper cooking rack and shelves that attach to the front or side. All Louisiana Grills have porcelain coated steel grates.
Manufacturer:
Louisiana Grills is headquartered in Alberta, Canada. Along with Traeger, they were one of the early entrants to the pellet smoker market. Among pellet cooking enthusiasts, Louisiana is an established name with some history to it. Their Country Smokers are standard, horizontal smokers made of black, powder coated steel. They also make Colonial smokers available in black or stainless steel. Colonials look like gas grills on enclosed carts with doors and side shelves. Lastly they offer the Estate line which consists of three drop-in smoker heads for permanent installations. Colonial and Estate are in process of being upgraded.
Parent company, Dansons, also owns Kentucky Komfort animal bedding and IBT Industrial Bulk Lubricants. Louisiana Grills are available in the USA online and at a limited selection of independent hearth and patio stores.
Published On: 1/22/2013 Last Modified: 3/3/2021
These are products we have tested, won our top awards, and are highly recommend. Click here to read how we test, about our medals, and what they mean.
A big part of this site is our unbiased equipment and product reviews. We love playing with toys and we have no problem calling them the way we see them. Some companies pay a finder’s fee if a reader clicks a link on AmazingRibs.com and buys a product. It has zero impact on our reviews, zero impact on the price you pay, and the sites never tell us what you bought, but it has a major impact on our ability to keep this site alive! So before you buy, please click our links. Here’s a link that takes you to a page on Amazon that has some of our favorite tools and toys: https://tinyurl.com/amazingribs
The Broil King Signet 320 is a modestly priced, 3-burner gas grill that packs a lot of value and power under the hood. Broil King’s proprietary, dual-tube burners get hot fast and are able to achieve high, searing temps that rival most comparatively priced gas grills. The quality cast aluminum housing carries a Limited Lifetime Warranty.
The amazing Karubecue is the most innovative smoker in the world. The quality of meat from this machine is astonishing. At its crux is a patented firebox that burns logs above the cooking chamber and sucks heat and extremely clean blue smoke into the thermostat controlled oven. It is our favorite smoker, period.
Click here for our review of this superb smoker
Napoleon’s 22″ Pro Cart Charcoal Kettle Grill puts a few spins on the familiar kettle design. In fact, the hinged lid with a handle on the front, spins in a rotary motion 180 degrees. It’s hard to beat a Weber kettle, but Napoleon holds its own and adds some unique features to make the 22″ Pro Cart a viable alternative.
This is the first propane smoker with a thermostat, making this baby foolproof. Set ThermoTemp’s dial from 175° to 350°F and the thermostat inside will adjust the burner just like an indoor kitchen oven. All you need to do is add wood to the tray above the burner to start smokin’.
Winner of the National BBQ Association’s product of the year award. This 8.5″ x 11″ magnet contains more that 80 benchmark temperatures for meats (both USDA recommended temps as well as the temps chefs recommend), fats and oils, sugars, sous vide, eggs, collagens, wood combustion, breads, and more. Although it is not certified as all-weather, we have tested it outdoors in Chicago weather and it has not delaminated in three years, but there is minor fading.
Char-Broil’s Grill2Go x200 is a super-portable, fun little sizzler made of heavy, rust-proof cast aluminum. The lid snaps shut. Grab the handle and you’re off to the party! Char-Broil’s TRU-Infrared design produces searing heat while reducing fuel consumption. A 16 ounce LP gas canister is enough to keep you flipping burgers for hours.
The PK-360, with 360 square inches of cooking space, this rust free, cast aluminum charcoal grill is durable and easy to use. Four-way venting means it’s easy to set up for two zone cooking with more control than single vent Kamado grills. It is beautifully designed, completely portable, and much easier to set up for 2-zone cooking than any round kamado.
High quality websites are expensive to run. If you help us, we’ll pay you back bigtime with an ad-free experience and a lot of freebies!
Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for high quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 2,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner to subsidize us.
Our most important source of sustenance is people who join our Pitmaster Club. But please don’t think of it as a donation. Members get MANY great benefits. We block all third-party ads, we give members free ebooks, magazines, interviews, webinars, more recipes, a monthly sweepstakes with prizes worth up to $2,000, discounts on products, and best of all a community of like-minded cooks free of flame wars. Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial, and help keep this site alive.
Post comments and questions below
1) Please try the search box at the top of every page before you ask for help.
2) Try to post your question to the appropriate page.
3) Tell us everything we need to know to help such as the type of cooker and thermometer. Dial thermometers are often off by as much as 50°F so if you are not using a good digital thermometer we probably can’t help you with time and temp questions. Please read this article about thermometers.
4) If you are a member of the Pitmaster Club, your comments login is probably different.
5) Posts with links in them may not appear immediately.
Moderators