What Makes The Big Green Egg So Special
In 2019, we brought the Big Green Egg into all of our stores. We stocked our shelves with Big Green products and added Big Green logos and signs all around our grill sections. We raved about what we said called the ultimate game changer on how to cook food outdoors. But what exactly makes the Big Green Egg so special? Well, Im glad you asked.
How Precise Is The Temperature Control On A Big Green Egg
Temperature control is essential to the success of a grilled meal. The more precise you can be, the better the outcome. The health of your food is critical, and understanding the safe way to prepare and cook your food is made even easier with the Big Green Eggs versatile cooking methods and temperature control. The Big Green Egg allows you to roast, smoke, grill, and bake at the exact temperature that your recipe requires. With the BGEs patented air flow controls, controlling the temperature has never been easier or more accurate. Multiple air vents help the grill reach and maintain your desired temperature. The grills metal top is equipped to ensure the proper air flow into and through the cooking chamber. The Big Green Eggs precision flow draft door on the grills bottom mitigates the amount of air that is allowed to enter the fire box.
What Can You Make With Traeger Grills
On a Traeger grill, you can cook a wide variety of meats, poultry, seafood, vegetables, and wild game. The Traeger grill lets you cook all of these foods in addition to frozen chicken right from the freezer!
Choosing a Traeger grill that doubles as an oven can allow more cooking options, including baking whole casseroles or even a chicken pot pie.
Some people prefer the classic barbecue style of flipping burgers and cooking ribs on their Traeger grills. Traeger grills let you cook a wide range of dishes, unlike any other grill.
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What Size Big Green Egg Is Best
Large Egg: Most favored and optimum size Egg. Heats up fast and large enough to handle everyday use as well as neighborhood parties. According to the company, Large Egg can cook 20-pound turkeys, 12 burgers, 6 chickens vertically, 8 steaks, or 7 racks of ribs vertically. Medium Egg: Great for city dwellers.
What Are The Best Kamado Grills
Kamado grills can be a big investment, so there are a few things you should consider when looking for your next grill. We looked at the following criteria when compiling our list of the best kamado grills on the market.
Material: Ceramic is the gold standard of kamado grills for a reason, thanks to its durability and heat retention for both high-temp and low-temp cooking. One downside to having those thick walls can be weight, so youll have to find a place you really want to park it for the season . Steel models tend to be lighter and less expensive, but are more prone to weather damage and corrosion.
Size: Most upright kamado grills make great cooking solutions for small backyard spaces and patios, but that also means less surface area to actually grill on. The size of the grill refers to the diameter of the cooking space, so if you want to be able to have enough space to whip up burgers for an entire pool party, or smoke a whole pork shoulder, youre going to want an 18-24 inch grill .
Accessories: Some grill brands will provide add-on accessories like expanding side tables, a larger grill grate, electric thermometer, etc. Most of the time you can buy the basic grill body and then add on all the other perks to create your ultimate grill, but watch out for hidden costs.
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What Type Of Charcoal Does A Big Green Egg Use
Natural lump charcoalis the best source of fuel for the Big Green Egg. You should start each session with a full load of natural lump charcoal. A full load is considered 5 lbs. and it can be lit with an electric lighter or a paraffin fire starter cube, no charcoal chimney is needed. You should also soak your wood chips, chunks, or cooking planks before use.
What Makes Big Green Egg Grills So Unique
East Asia’s Big Green Egg paved the way for the popularity of a particular type of grill. The “kamado” grill was discovered by American soldiers in World War II, and they became enamored with its unique features.
Unlike traditional charcoal grills that require more maintenance at certain temperatures, the Big Green Egg’s predecessors were commonly used for several types of cooking.
Instead of cooking meat inside the grill, the grill was capable of cooking rice inside while simultaneously grilling the person’s choice of food.
Ceramic grills aren’t just versatile, as they can reach impressive heat levels with whole-body stability and remain there. In fact, the meat turns out to be much more flavorful and tender thanks to charcoal.
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Kamado Joe Classic Iii Grill
BEST OVERALL
Amazon
The Kamado Joe Classic III is a splurge-worthy Green Egg contender, and is absolutely worth every penny. Whats most impressive is its serious temperature rangethe top vent is designed to maintain consistent airflow, even when youre opening and closing often, which allows the ceramic grill smoke from 225 degrees all the way to a searing at 750 degrees.
While other kamado grills can start blazing and get difficult to control, Kamado Joes patented SlRoller insert distributes both the smoke and heat in rolling, recirculating waves, making it great for low and slow cooking without creating hot pockets that charr up the edges of say, your brisket, while undercooking the middle.
The 18-inch grill also offers an impressive three-tier cooking system, which lets you cook in layers on the half-moon grates depending on if you want your food closer or further away from the hot coals, making sure that your steak gets a hard sear without sacrificing the integrity of tender vegetables.
With a well-built, durable cart and a few key premium features, the Kamado Joe Classic III delivers on top-notch grilling and smoking for anyone looking to start barbecuing seriously.
What Makes Kamado Grills Special
Kamado grills are known for allowing the userto keep a sustained temperature for a long period of time. Thats due to thembeing built out of clay or ceramic , depending on the manufacturer. While traditionally theywere built out of clay, the Big Green Egg is built out of thick ceramic.
This is one of the reasons why they are somuch more expensive than traditional charcoal barbeque grills. Whereas acharcoal grill is a fairly simple thing, it isnt as easy to build large grills made out of ceramic.
Yet, the benefit is obvious: ceramic is abetter insulator, which means that kamado grills typically perform better thancharcoal ones built from metal. A kamado grill can hold a steady temperaturewithout finicking with coals or fancy igniters.
Typically, these grills are also larger andheavier while Big Green Egg makes smaller grills, chances are if youve seenone before, youve probably seen one in their Large or XL sizes. These grillsarent just large in size, theyre also heavy: so much so that you typicallyneed a special stand to accommodate them. You wouldnt just want to lift onearound by yourself, or just stick one on a typical outdoor table.
A simple look into the fanatical communitiesrevolving around kamado style grills will yield a staggering number of obsesseddevotees who claim nothing comes close to their performance. Barbecuers fromall skill levels seem capable of wielding a control over their final productsthat leaves the mouth watering.
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Grill Heat Aid 1472 Extreme Heat Resistant Bbq Gloves
Why youll love this:
Similar to the last Kamado Joe grill, this Kamado Joe Classic II Freestanding Grill has a freestanding design that comes with its own attached cart for using the grill anywhere around your lawn or on a patio or deck.
That cart has four wheels that help you move the grill while its in use or still hot without burning your hands, but each of those wheels has its own mechanism for locking down the wheels too. The air lift hinge that Kamado Joe designed reduces the overall weight of the grills domed lid to help you more easily lift that lid to check on your food.
Included with this grill is a stainless-steel grill grate that is the same size as the grill and two half-size grates. The full grate is perfect for cooking a rack of ribs, a few burgers or other dishes that cook at the same temperature. When you want to cook foods at different temperatures, you can use the half-racks at different levels inside the grill.
The top vent, which Kamado Joe calls a tower vent, is aluminum and resistant to both water and rust, and this vent lets you adjust the airflow inside the grill to better regulate the flow of smoke as well as the temperature.
It comes with two small wood panels that attach to each side of the cart that serve as prep areas and give you extra storage with hooks for hanging tools. The grill has a fiberglass gasket that will last up to 10 times as long as other gaskets to prevent air loss.
Is A Big Green Egg Portable
There are different stands and tables that are made for the Big Green Egg. These stands can make it easier to move your grill. Whether it is back and forth from where you store it, or repositioning it around your patio or deck. If you would prefer to bring your Big Green Egg tailgating, camping, or on a picnic, the Mini Big Green Egg is the perfect solution.
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What Is The Big Green Egg Like To Use
Ive cooked on the Big Green Egg many times and have made everything from steak to pork chops, salmon, shrimp, jalapeno-wrapped bacon, squash, and elote . All of the food turned out delicious, but I wouldnt have been able to accomplish these delightful dishes without utilizing the Big Green Egg website.
My Large Big Green Egg didnt come with a grilling instructional pamphlet . Even though the delivery guys provided some instructions on how to light the grill and what I could cook with the Big Green Egg, I made sure to read the instructional pages on the grills website. If I hadnt, I wouldnt have known that the first time you use the grill , you shouldnt go above 350 degrees Fahrenheit, because doing so could damage the gasket which would then need to be replaced.
Traeger Vs Big Green Egg: Which Grill You Should Use
Both Traeger Grill and Big Green Egg have different grill machines that are great for barbequing. They share a fair few similarities, but there are many striking differences between the two brands and their designed products.
To understand which one is better for you, let us give you a quick comparison between their different features.
Disclaimer: Since there are many different models out there, it can be hard to pit them up against each other head-to-head. To help you understand the brands easier, we chose the Traeger Grill Ironwood 650 and the Big Green Egg 2XL.
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Cooking On The Big Green Egg
As I mentioned, I received a few different accessories to assist in my grilling endeavors, such as the convEGGtor. Its a ceramic piece that I can choose to place in the grill when I want to cook something with indirect heat. It basically turns the grill into an outdoor convection oven. This is nice because I can use the grill as a pizza oven, bake cinnamon rolls, or slow cook meats to achieve that fall-off-the-bone effect with barbecue.
I have used the convEGGtor quite a bit, such as with appetizers like bacon wrapped salmon or bacon wrapped jalapenos. For these recipes, I wanted the bacon to thoroughly cook and the smoke from the grill to infuse into the cream cheese and the jalapenos and salmon. The convEGGtor prevented the appetizers from being scorched by an open fire. Using this accessory does mean that the food takes a bit longer to cook, but the results were well worth it.
Overall, the Large Big Green Egg is a lot easier to use than I expected. While there is a little bit of a learning curve to using this grill , every single meal that Ive prepared with my Large Big Green Egg has come out nicely and Im beyond enthused to use this grill for many summers to come.
Kamado Joe Classic Iii 18
Why youll love this:
The Kamado Joe Classic III is everything youre looking for in a Kamado grill. The 18-inch grilling surface translates into ample space for multiple different foods, including up to 11 burgers at once.
This well-constructed grill features heat-resistant walls of thick ceramic. The domed design locks smoke and moisture into the interior of the grill to prevent heat loss during the cooking process. That means you can always rely on your Kamado Joe III to cook up tender meat that is never tough or dry.
Use the Divide and Conquer cooking system to add additional cooking area inside the grill. These unique half-moon shaped grates expand your options by varying how far your food sits from the flame. Put burgers closer to the flame, so theyre char-grilled or set them up higher to keep them on the rare side. Anything is possible with the Kamado Joe Classic III.
Control your interior temperatures with precision using the Kontrol Tower on your top vent. Even when you open and close your lid, the Kontrol Tower manages airflow to ensure that the temperature stays consistent. The lift hinge is spring-loaded, making this heavy ceramic lid a breeze to open and close.
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Additional Features For The Big Green Egg
If you plan to purchase a Large Big Green Egg, there are a few things to keep in mind. For instance, the Big Green Egg is like an egg, in that if it falls and hits the ground, its going to crack. This is why I highly suggest you purchase a package that includes a nest.
I store my Big Green Egg in the garage and when I want to grill, I pull the Large Big Green Egg outside. If you push the Big Green Egg and hit a rock or divot in the ground, its more likely to topple over and break the egg. Once Ive placed it in the spot I want, I lock the wheels and Im ready to grill.
Ordering And Setting Up The Big Green Egg
There are a lot of things to consider when ordering and setting up a Large Big Green Egg at your home. Those with a complete outdoor kitchen can order the Large egg itself for about $950. However, most people will probably require a base for the grill, and the best way to do that is to order your Big Green Egg as part of a package deal.
I received the Nest + Handler Package, which means my Large Big Green Egg was placed in a metal base that had a handle and wheels. The package also included a bag of natural lump charcoal, SpeediLight All Natural Charcoal Starters, an ash removal tool, and a Grid Gripper, a tool to safely remove the cooking grid when its hot. The best accessory in the package was a convEGGtor, a ceramic plate that you place under the cooking grid for indirect cooking or to bake, smoke, and roast.
- Do away with the base and see how to integrate your Big Green Egg with these outdoor kitchen ideas
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What We Dont Like
To clean the Big Green Egg, you have to use an ash tool to work the coals around the firebox, pushing the dust and ash through the holes at the bottom.
This grill is large, heavy, and takes a while to cool down. Although its easy to move with locking wheels, we wouldnt recommend buying an Egg if youre planning to store it in a shed or a garage. It stays hot to the touch long after the coals are extinguished and it shouldnt be moved while its hot.
Cleaning out the ashes was a bit of a pain. The coals are stored in the bottom half of the oval-shaped grills, and they sit on top of a plate with perforated holes. Those little holes let air in and allow the ashes to fall through when theyre spent, but they need a little coaxing with the Eggs proprietary ash tool. To remove them from the bottom of the grill, you have to open the bottom vent and use the tool to rake the ashes into a bowl or bucket. It would have been nice if they automatically fell into a removable bucket, speeding up the cleaning process quite a bit.
Buying one can get a bit pricey. The grill itself is significantly more expensive than your standard charcoal grill. In fact, it costs more than most gas grills. On top of that, there are a ton of optional Big Green Egg accessories . It would be really easy to rack up a hefty bill to customize the Egg to your liking.
Cooking With The Big Green Egg
The Big Green Egg Grill works greatl with standard smoker charcoal. Avoid the chemical impregnated junk. Charcoal consumption is miserly, only a few pounds of charcoal are needed per cook.
Owners report that what the Egg can accomplish with a few pounds of charcoal would take a Weber Smokey Mountain ten.
Over 24 hour cooks on one load of fuel are common. Its easy to see the high initial investment in this cooker is somewhat offset by its low fuel consumption. Users also recommend an electric charcoal starter for easy starts.
Temperature control is accomplished by use of a top vent and damper plus a lower draft door. There is a temperature gauge mounted in the top. I recommend a good Digital Thermometer also.
I feel the biggest drawback to the Big Green Egg is its cooking area size. The large unit will handle about a 15 pound turkey, or a full brisket. If you need to prepare more than that stick with a conventional smoker.
One of the greatest advantages of cooking on a Big Green Egg is how moist the food comes out. With little effort the Egg will put most smokers to shame when it comes to juicy meats.
Another great advantage is heat recovery and retention. The egg will quickly return to cooking temperature when open and closed, even repeatedly.
Bottom Line
I never tasted food prepared on a Big Green Egg Grill much less cooked on one. I am however intrigued by this ancient and interesting cooker. Surfing the net I saw a few Egg forums, this thing has quite a following.
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