Kamato Joe

[Clif Kincaid]

I have an xl BGE for 7 years its nice buy bought my son a K J and its twice as nice , BGE are going to have to upgrade their product are gonna loose the base .

The green will always be fine...if they were worried they would change something.

[DixieChicken]

The green will always be fine...if they were worried they would change something.

That they will.

What I find interesting is that THREE of the Kamado type cookers are based in Atlanta. Well, at least in the surround areas outside I-285.
We have Kamado Joe, Big Green Egg, and Primo.

I'd held off on the cooker because honestly, I wanted a Primo. But the Costco road show deal, getting the Joe 'classic' for $899 was a no brainer. I'd still much prefer the Primo because you can setup dual-zone cooking which helps a lot when everything you're cooking isn't the SAME.

The way I get around that is I put two grates on the lowest area, and a half grate above. While not near as good as being able to have a *real* area where you can move food to the side.... at least it allows you to have a grate that's not quite as hot as the lower one. Another thing I can do is put a half heat diffusor and use that to make a cooler area. Problem with that is space is tight unless you have the monster sized round cooker (no matter who makes it).

With that in mind I'll build a tall, hot, ready to go fire and work from there. By 'tall' I'm saying literally fill the fire bowl up to the top with your lump.
I also start two charcoal chimney starters on the side burners of my big stainless grill. Put some BIG *unlit* lumps in the bottom of the Kamado cooker then dump the two chimneys on them, then sprinkle used coals on top of those.

No worries with the heat diffusor getting stupid hot as long as you don't put it in cold, and let it heat unevenly. What I'll do while the grill is heating is put the diffusor(s) in the oven at 400° and once I get the grill running I can place it over the coals without worry.


I can say that even with the first cook on 'Joe' we knew it was a keeper. I like burgers, big fat burgers. I'm OCD about my timing on the grill, and have it down to a science. (Learning a new science with this one though.) That day my wife made up a batch of fat 1½" burgers, I pushed the divot into the middle so they'd not ball up, ran it up to 450°~500° and put them on and closed the lid. Then 2 minutes and rotate (for grill marks), 2 more then flip, sear for grill marks, rotate, apply copious amounts of cheese, then pull them off.

OMG were they the best burgers I had EVER COOKED! Nice sear with a little bit of crisp on the outside, and amazingly juicy inside. First thing my wife said was I did something different.

I told her yes WE did, we bought 'Joe'.

Since then she'll complain about how long it takes to get it up and running, but.... she'll happily wait, because it's that good.
Only other way I grill is sprinkle hickory charcoal lumps and wood chips on the 472 pound, 7 foot long 5 burner gas grill, which cooks good mind you, really good. But not 'Joe' good!

[rangerskeeter]

Local Walmart has the large pit boss ceramic cooker on sale for 349 plus tax...

[Cray]

I bought a Visions large professional series from Home Depot for around 700.00 Sams has one called a Bseries for 549.00 compare very well to GE and joe. Actually much cheaper because it comes with heavy duty stand, 2 side trays that are heavier than those for GE. Actually built a little heavier than other 2.

[fishing66]

Customer Service from Big Green Egg is outstanding. Several years ago, I left the Egg uncovered after a cook and it snowed that night. The snow melted and the Egg top had an ice buildup....I tried to knock some of the ice off and it took off a piece of the green ceramic about the size of a quarter. I called BGE to try and order a touchup paint kit and they said no, they were sending me a brand new upper dome.

FYI, I just replaced a worn-out Nomex gasket with the Gold Standard High Heat Gasket. Man, what a difference this thing makes! Prep is of course the key to a successful job and I took my time. The gasket is very thick so some adjustment of the retaining bands was needed so that the upper and lower domes fit tightly. However, this gasket has actually changed the cooking characteristics of the Egg. It forms a 100% seal between the upper and lower domes so that the only airflow is in through the bottom door and out through the top. They give you a second pieces to wrap around the exhaust neck....at first that seemed gimmicky, but after having installed it, man, it increased the ability to control temperatures.