I bought the large size mainly to use as a nice hot bread oven - I did not want a traditional fixed wood fired oven as i could not move it around . I love the egg - lights easily , bakes great bread with the convection attachment in - so far have used it every week ( and it's winter ) not done much else yet - except I did smoke a whole chicken which was fabulous For bread it seems to need about 45 mins to get everything seriously hot - I struggle to bake more than 1 large loaf ( 1.5 kg boule ) or two normal size tins at a time and after about 4 loads one load of charcoal struggles to keep the heat at the very temperatures ( i.e. it's down to the temperature of a hot domestic oven ) so half think the XL may have been better