Loving our new 270BN!

[Luv2gowalkabout58]

Just finished our shakedown cruise of our new 270BN. Traded in a Durango2500 318 RLT with 3 slides. Loved that camper but wanted to go under 30 feet. I was a little worried about storage but there are cabinets I haven’t used! We love this floor plan. Love the kitchen area. It is just designed so well. The breakfast nook is so much easier to sit in and works great for the two of us. The bathroom is larger than it seems although tall men watch your head when lifting! haha. The bedroom is fine. We just need to streamline what we take and how to store it, but will be fine I like the airflow with the windows on each side.
The few things we are working on:
leveling the camper-auto level didn’t work,no drop front jacks. We were spoiled with our older Lippert. End up doing everything manually. Which was fine but not the point!
Also, figuring out how to cook on the griddle. We are grill people. Any suggestions would be helpful. The AC. Not much air coming out of the vents but do you want to block the main vents for always as it is over the kitchen and it might be important to be able to switch. And it is SO NOISY. Not a fan of the instant hot water as the kitchen is far from the heater and it takes a lot of water to get up to any kind of heat. The bathroom is fine.
All in all we LOVE IT.

 

[Soundsailor]

Welcome to the forum, it sounds like you are pretty experienced. But sometimes things come up, let us know if you need any help.

 

[troutbum619]

The griddle is pretty straight forward. The first step is to get it seasoned properly. There are a bunch of Blackstone forums, Youtube channels, and Facebook groups that can explain that process. The Blackstone resources will also help you with recipe ideas and cooking techniques. Once you get used to it I think you'll like it.

Good Luck

 

[Luv2gowalkabout58]

Thanks so much for the help. I am going to work on seasoning this weekend. After watching some YouTube videos, I think if I can get it seasoned properly we just need a learning curve of cooking on it. What do you do for back splash?

 

[lineman1234]

Welcome. Your hot water to the kitchen might be normal. I have a 273mk 5ver rear kitchen, 6 gallon hot water tank. It takes a wile to get hot water to the rear faucet, not a big deal, just its nature.

 

[troutbum619]

The griddle is pretty straight forward. The first step is to get it seasoned properly. There are a bunch of Blackstone forums, Youtube channels, and Facebook groups that can explain that process. The Blackstone resources will also help you with recipe ideas and cooking techniques. Once you get used to it I think you'll like it.

Good Luck

My wife and I just purchased a 270bn and are prepping for a maiden voyage/shake down. I removed the capital grill and replaced it with a 2 burner stove. My 22 inch Blackstone will be stored on top of the griddle area on that shelf. I use a 5 ft table and keep it at least a foot away from the side of the RV. It never gets too hot.

In your case, the factory griddle platform extends out far enough heat won't be a problem. Spatter on a griddle is considerably less than a cast iron skillet frying chicken so I don't think it will be an issue either. If you need a backspash, see what the Blackstone community has to offer.

When you season, use a really light coat of oil. I use canola oil and I mean a really light coat. Better to put on 4 light coats than 2 heavy ones and have it come out sticky. I've found those blue shop towels on a roll are pretty lint free and work well. Lastly, when you season the center will come out nice and black. Don't be surprised if about a 1 border around the edge isn't black. The edges are cooler. After a few gourmet meals (or a few rounds of burnt bacon) the edges will season and turn black.
enjoy,

Mick

 

[Luv2gowalkabout58]

Thanks. We are going to give this grill a try. If we don’t like it. We will probably replace with a 2 burner stove like we had on the last camper. We used that all the time with a separate grill. I would prefer to get the griddle to work as we have a butane burner if needed and everything fits so well in the space.
Has anyone done an extension from the quick connect under the camper so you don’t always have to reach under to put the griddle away?

 

[Boomer58]

I just came upon your post about your 270BN and I'm glad you like it. Our 270BN is our 4th Grand Design trailer and we absolutely love it. I removed the griddle as we never use it and I prefer the space that it took up. We took a 13,000 mile road trip with ours last summer and the layout was perfect for us. It tows easy and has plenty of room for all of our stuff. Unfortunately we experienced a lot of problems with the trailer but after I e-mailed Don Clark at Grand Design, everything was taken care of. I plan on posting a thread on the forum here to explain everything and how it was handled when I get a chance. A couple of things that I added to our trailer was a 120 volt outlet by the back of where your legs go so we could plug in our computers while sitting at the dinette. I did not like the cords going up into the outlet above your head where you sit with your back to the bathroom wall. The other thing that I did was install a couple of 12 volt lights under the shelf where you sit at the dinette. I really did not like the overhead lights while sitting at the table and we felt that the smaller lights were better for us. Both of these projects were very easy to do and we are very happy with them. Aside from the problems that we had with the trailer, we love the layout and are looking forward to some trips this summer with it. Good luck with yours, Boomer

 

[troutbum619]

Boomer58,

Glad you’re loving your fifth wheel. We continue to have a lot of fun in ours. I would love to see what issues you had and how you resolved them. I would like to be proactive and fix things now rather than break down on the road. As soon as you post that thread, I’ll be watching for it or if you could let me know I would appreciate it. I like to get out of front of issues like that. Thank you for all the great information. I’ll be adding the outlet under my nook like you did. Great idea.

Mick