Tiki Brand is all about creating a cool evening atmosphere, and the Tiki Brand Fire Pit is no exception. It's a low-smoke wood burner designed to really set the mood. And realistically, atmosphere should be a key consideration when you're choosing from the best fire pits.
That's because your pit can generate all the heat it likes, but if it doesn't look good while doing so, you may as well consider a patio heater instead.
The Tiki Brand Fire Pit is a good looking burner, but given that it faces some fairly stiff competition from some very attractive rivals, can it really call itself one of the best, or is it a case of style over substance? Let's check it out...
Tiki Brand Fire Pit review: Overview
The Tiki Brand Fire Pit is a medium-sized stainless steel fire pit suitable for burning wood. Tiki Brand will happily sell you its own easy-light compressed sawdust wood pellet packs, or you can supply your own firewood if you prefer things a little more DIY.
It's not a cooker, unlike the best gas grills, but grills aren't the kind of thing you sit around and while away the small hours with beer and good conversation.
The Tiki Brand Fire Pit is meant to be easy, with assembly being a two-step process, and a whole host of features incorporated to make cleaning straightforward. Crucially, it's designed to produce little smoke, and it should be rugged enough to stand up to the elements even without a cover - though a cloth cover is included, along with a stand.
Tiki Brand Fire Pit review: Spec
- MSRP: $350
- Type: Wood burning
- Dimensions: 24.75" x 18.75"
- Weight: 45lbs
- Material: Stainless steel
- What’s included: Fire Pit, Wood Pack, Cloth Cover, Stand
Tiki Brand Fire Pit review: Design
Tiki Brand seems to have struck a great balance with the design of its Fire Pit. This will fit a modern patio or a more rustic one just as well, with its black powder-coated outer interspersed with large vent lines which reveal the stainless inner underneath, and plenty of flames allowed to lick above the burn chamber for an impressive blaze.
Wood sits on a well-perforated burn plate with a slide-out ash catcher underneath; when you're burning Tiki Brand's wood packs you place a large dome in its center, which helps to distribute the heat outward and feed it with fresh oxygen, though this is optional. If you want to fire up some larger logs, you can open up the burn plate and (as long as they're within the 16-inch diameter and kept within the 16-inch depth) use whatever you like. It'll also work with pellet stove pellets.
The fire pit itself sits on the included stand, which attaches with three screws; while it's technically portable, at 45lbs it's far from the lightest pit we've seen, and even with the stand, Tiki Brand doesn't recommend you use it anywhere other than a heat-resistant surface. The fully double-layered design of the Solo Stove Yukon may be more awkward to clean than this, but it's much more versatile in terms of where you can place it.
Tiki Brand Fire Pit review: Features
The Tiki Brand Fire Pit's air flow is designed to produce as smokeless and large a fire as possible both by pulling warm, oxygenated air in through holes around the rim to reignite smoke, and dragging pair up through the perforations on its burn deck to give your wood plenty of fuel for a strong burn.
Again we need to draw comparisons to the Solo Stove Yukon, which doubles down on this air-pulling technique; the Yukon perhaps gets stronger results, but it's also a whole lot more expensive than this, with a closed-off design that may not radiate quite as much heat as this ventilated one.
Indeed this is built for radiant heat, meaning you can feel the warmth from a few feet away without necessarily needing to hover above it. It is not, though, made for cooking and not built for safety either - the outside gets very hot, which is entirely the point, but there's also no spark/ember screen available as we write.
Tiki Brand Fire Pit review: How could it benefit you?
If you're looking for a fire pit to set the tone of your evening, you could certainly do a lot worse than the Tiki Brand Fire Pit. It has the looks and the clean burn to give your guests evening warmth without the face full of smoke - and there are plenty of other reasons it might fit right in:
- Tiki Brand's wood packs make for a quick and easy fire within 30 minutes - without needing to tend to it while it gets burning
- You can build your own fire if you can't do without poking at logs, and keep it going for a long time
- This isn't a system that needs to be built on to get the best out of it; it's all here, and basically ready to go out of the box
Tiki Brand Fire Pit review: User reviews
In general, purchasers are very happy with the Tiki Brand Fire Pit, praising its depth, the amount of heat it radiates, and (mostly) speaking highly of its low-smoke nature. We suspect certain reviewers didn't use enough wood, which will stop the secondary heating through its top vents from working, as this is an uncommon user complaint. It'll certainly produce less smoke than the Bali Outdoors Wood Burning Fire Pit, though Tiki Brand's offering is a lot more expensive.
In many of its Amazon reviews, which average out at 4.8 out of 5 stars, there's a common thread of people mentioning that it is smaller than they were expecting, then immediately recanting when they realize just how warm it gets.
People love the ease of cleaning, which is just a case of pulling out the ash pan when you're done, and a number of reviewers say it survived the rain when left uncovered. All in all, the Tiki Brand Fire Pit gets a very positive reception.
Should you buy the Tiki Brand Fire Pit?
If you love to use your outdoor space and it's suitable for a fire pit that'll get a little warm underneath, there's no reason the Tiki Brand Fire Pit shouldn't be top of your list to gather around on an evening.
Admittedly we are, at the time of writing, patiently awaiting the release of Tiki Brand's redesigned spark guard, and there are larger fire pits out there (some of which are even suitable for cooking more than just s'mores). But this has the combination of looks that'll fit in anywhere and clever heating that knocks down the amount of smoke. It also comes in at a price far below many of its competitors.
If you live in a place that has strict rules on open fires, you may wish to consider an alternative like the Outland Living Mega Fire Pit, which burns propane instead.
