I can’t imagine how this would have worked without the deflector shields lucky I had some. Not included. The oven heated up perfect. My handle wasn’t long enough on pizza spatula opening very hot. Make sure you use corn breading or something so will slide off. Not much extra room. My only real gripe. No way to snuff out coals. What a waste. Especially since I use UL lump charcoal from KamadoJoe.