Finish looks to be raw metal. It has a kind of faded hue to it, like a weathered aluminum stock pot, and it may have been cleaned with an acid before,
@brewtownbeatdown , got me thinking about that. I'm not sure. the lighting in these pics kinda sucks.
the internal ash pan was sitting all the way to the bottom, blocking airflow. I raised it a bit with some McGuyvered spacers and did a test run last night. Held 300ish with a compact chimney full of briqs. Super lightweight, pretty darned cool.