Raclette is a meal that keeps everybody sitting down. Food goes on in small amounts, slowly. The table does its own cooking.
Hamilton Beach builds that evening into model 31612MN-MX. A 200 square inch plate stands on legs above eight personal pans. One element underneath is asked to heat both.
The sales page sells the top surface on high heat for meat. Then the Use and Care Guide says something else. Lower the setting for cheese, it warns, or the oil separates. So which half of the meal is this really built to cook?
200 sq inNonstick plate, ribbed across one half and flat across the other
8 traysPersonal pans that slot in underneath, one per guest
1 dialThe only heat control, shared by the plate and the pans
10 minutesPreheat at the top setting before any food goes on
First Impressions of the Hamilton Beach Raclette Portable Party Grill
Setup is two moves and no tools at all. The grid supports seat into the base. The plate then drops onto them. Hamilton Beach prints a diagram for that placement, presumably because people get it wrong.
It looks more like a serving dish than a kitchen machine. A long curved front carries the switch, the dial and a red light. A bright metal band runs round the rim. Eight black pans fan out from slots around the base.
The plate is the surprise. Ribs cover one half and a smooth griddle covers the other. Both sit on the same face, so nothing flips over. Food slides sideways from one texture to the next.
First evening: the dial at the top for 10 minutes. Then thin strips of pork and a heap of mushrooms. Both browned honestly. Neither seared.
Underneath, cheese over boiled potato went soft and glossy. The potato tasted like it had been waiting for exactly that.
The flat spatulas earn their place here. Pans come out hot and the cheese clings to them. Hamilton Beach counts the pans in its parts list and never counts these. Its own photography lays out a row of them anyway.
Key Features of the Hamilton Beach Raclette Portable Party Grill
Almost everything worth knowing is visible from a chair. A plate, eight pans, a dial. There is no display, no programme and no second zone. What the list below really describes is how those three parts depend on each other.
- A 200 square inch plate in two textures. Ribs on one half take chops and skewers. The flat half takes eggs, onions and anything loose.
- Eight pans under two different names. The parts list calls them Personal Cooking Trays. The sales page calls them warming trays. Hamilton Beach’s own recipes cook in them.
- A dial marked MIN, then 1 to 5. Those are positions, not degrees. No figure in degrees appears on the appliance or in the guide.
- A power switch separate from that dial. Heat can be cut without losing your setting. The cheese course stops and starts a lot.
- A red light with exactly one job. Hamilton Beach states its purpose plainly. It is there to remind you the grill is still on.
- PFAS-free nonstick. That claim sits in the listing title and on a badge in Hamilton Beach’s own photography. Coatings are rarely described that openly.
- Dishwasher safe, up to the base. Grid, pans and spatula are all cleared for it. The base is wiped by hand, never immersed.
- Indoors only, and deliberately manual. No external timer, no remote control, never left alone. This appliance expects somebody in the chair beside it.
- Pans that slot in around the base. Trays enter from more than one side, so guests reach their own without standing up.
The dial is the whole story. Take it to the top, give it 10 minutes, and thin food browns properly. That is where the searing claim lives, and it is a stretch. The same maker’s guide says to precook meat or cut it very small.
Now look underneath. Cheese wants the opposite of all that. Melt it slowly, the guide says, because speed makes the oil separate out. Turning the dial down for the cheese turns it down for the plate.
So the table trades. Run high and the grilling works while the cheese splits. Run low and the cheese is perfect while pork sits going pale. Most evenings settle in the middle and take a little of each.
The pans are not just a warming shelf. Hamilton Beach’s own guide has them browning marshmallows for s’mores. They sit close under the plate and take real heat. Treat them as eight small cookers and the thing makes sense.
That is design rather than defect. One element, one dial, two jobs that want different things from it. The fix is to cook in courses instead of all at once.
Build, handling and durability
Everything that takes punishment lifts out. Grid, pans and spatulas all go in the dishwasher. The nonstick surviving that treatment is the real wear item. Hamilton Beach excludes wear from normal use, so the coating is your problem.
The base is the fixed half. It is moulded plastic under that metal band. It gets a damp cloth and never goes in water. No removable drip tray is named anywhere in the parts list.
Size is the other plain limit. It runs 20.2 inches wide and 17.7 deep, so this is a dining table object. At 5.9 inches tall, the pans slide in and out at plate height.
Stability is better than that height suggests. The plate lifts straight off its supports once everything is cold. There are no hinges, no latches and no fasteners to work loose. That simplicity is most of why the coating should fail first.
Running costs, upkeep and value
Hamilton Beach asks $83.99 direct, with shipping free over $50. The Amazon price sat near $72.59 at the time of writing. After that, nothing. No fuel, no consumables, no parts on a schedule.
The warranty is the strange figure. One year in the United States, five years in Canada. Both are printed in the same guide for the same box. Nothing in the document explains why the border changes the answer.
Upkeep is a washing-up count. Eight pans, a grid, the spatulas, then the base. All of it except the base is dishwasher safe. That turns the worst of the job into loading a rack.
Value turns on how many people you are feeding. Eight places and eight pans at this price is the reason to buy a raclette. The money is going on places at the table, not on power.
Be clear with yourself about which of those two you wanted. The maker’s page for it sits empty: no reviews, no questions, nothing. Buying this one means buying it on the specification.
Get the model number straight before ordering anything. Hamilton Beach lists it as 31612MN-MX, and retailers often shorten that to 31612-MX. Two older catalogue numbers sit archived, and all three link the same guide, 840291702. The suffix is packaging and market, not a different cooker.
Possible Hamilton Beach Raclette Portable Party Grill Complaints
- One dial, pulled two ways. The plate wants heat and the cheese wants patience. One control sets both. You feel it when somebody’s cheese goes oily while somebody else’s pork is raw.
- Grease lands in the part you cannot wash. No removable drip tray is named, and the base never goes in water. A folded cloth after every meal is the entire maintenance plan.
