The Best Kamado Grill for Smoking and Grilling, Tested and Reviewed

Jul 21, 2023

By Emily Farris

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Kamado grills are versatile cookers that allow you to grill, smoke meat, and even bake outside. And if you ask a passionate charcoal griller to recommend the best kamado grill money can buy, there's a good chance they’ll tell you to invest in a Big Green Egg. I happen to be married to one such "Egghead," and until we ended up with a backyard full of kamado grills, I might have given you a similar answer. After testing several popular models with that Egghead, there's still no doubt in my mind that Big Green Egg makes an amazing high-end kamado grill. It's just not the best kamado grill for everybody.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of which kamados I recommend and why, a note about this review: It's formatted a little differently than our other product reviews. After testing four of the most popular models, I decided each kamado grill is good for somebody—though not every grill is good for everybody and my recommendations reflect that. Keep reading for my top pick overall and to find out why the other three kamado grills are great too. For more about how I evaluated the grills and what to look for when buying one, scroll down.

Table of contents

What is a kamado grill?The best kamado grill overallAnother great kamado grillThe most versatile kamado grillThe best kamado grill for beginners How we testedWhat we looked forWhat else to consider when buying a kamado grillThe takeaway

Kamado grills are insulated charcoal grills inspired by a traditional Japanese method of cooking over coals in a ceramic vessel. Their egg-shaped bodies allow warm air to move above and below the cooking grates, and dampers on the top and bottom control the temperature. The Big Green Egg was the first modern-day kamado grill manufactured in the United States in the 1970s and since then many brands have entered the market with their own take on kamado-style cooking. The most popular, and usually most expensive, kamados are still made of ceramic, though some are made of double-walled steel or other metals.

While they are first and foremost charcoal grills, kamados offer incredible versatility. Once you learn how to properly control the airflow, it's easy to set and maintain both high and low temperatures, which is why they’re so often used to smoke meat. Some people use them for slow cooking, and others, who get them hot enough, use a kamado as a pizza oven. Pretty much anything that can be cooked in a conventional oven can be cooked on a kamado grill—we even use ours for Thanksgiving turkey and baked desserts (I highly recommend a brownie-s’mores hybrid on a cedar plank).

A high-quality ceramic kamado grill that comes with every accessory you need to start grilling or smoking.

It's nearly impossible to write about Kamado Joe without mentioning the Big Green Egg because in many ways they’re similar. Both are high-quality thick ceramic kamado grills and both have enthusiastic loyalists, easily found online, who associate themselves with one brand or the other, the way some people do with brands like Apple or Nike. But if you strip away the brand identity to just compare their ceramic bodies, you’d find that the biggest differences are color (Big Green Egg is, of course, green while Kamado Joe's signature color is a bold red), and the firebox construction: Big Green Egg has a single-piece ceramic firebox that sits inside the bottom section of the grill while Kamado Joe's is a multi-piece ceramic firebox to help prevent breakage. After testing them, the biggest differences actually aren't in performance—both handled our tasks comparably well—but in what you get with your purchase and how you go about buying each grill.

Looking just at the topline price tags, you might think Kamado Joe is more expensive than the Big Green Egg. But when you buy a Kamado Joe, you get nearly everything you need to start grilling and smoking right out of the box. All Kamado Joes come with a stand or feet on the bottom, because you don't want to just plop your expensive ceramic grill down in your yard. Then there are the heat deflectors; some sort of heat deflection between the coals and cooking grate is necessary to turn a grill into a smoker and the Kamado Joe Classic Joe II comes with two half-moon ceramic plates for this purpose. You can use both for smoking, or just use one to cover half of the coals for two-zone cooking when using the Joe as a charcoal grill. (The newer Classic III and Big Joe III models include the SlōRoller, a fancier "hyperbolic" heat deflector which supposedly does a better job of circulating smoke, though we haven't tested it yet.) Every Kamado Joe also comes with foldable side tables and the brand's Divide & Conquer Flexible Cooking System, a multi-level cooking grate that lets you cook different foods at different temperatures by keeping some items close to the coals and positioning others further away from the heat. All those, including a stand, are considered add-ons to a Big Green Egg and need to be purchased a la carte, which raises the price higher than a Kamado Joe depending on what size and features you choose.

Updates get released as Kamado Joe improves upon its flagship ceramic cooker and so far there are three series (I, II, and III). The Classic Joe II, which we tested, is right in the middle of the brand's offerings. While it lacks a few of the upgrades offered in Series III, I didn't feel like this grill was missing anything at all. Even the basic fixtures are really nice. For example, ceramic kamado grills need some sort of mechanism to make lifting the heavy lid easier, and Kamado Joe's Air Lift Hinge makes opening the big red dome on the Classic Joe II a breeze. Getting a super tight seal on the fiberglass gasket is nearly as easy with the built-in lid latch and adjusting the airflow is user friendly thanks to the markings on the top vent cover. An included ash tool makes cleaning the Joe fairly easy too (though it would be even easier with the ash drawer, an add-on you need to buy separately).

There's honestly nothing not to like about the Kamado Joe Classic II. Even my Egghead husband was impressed. Just be aware that all ceramic grills are heavy and extremely top heavy when they’re on a cart, so they need to be handled with care (and preferably the help of another person or two). The ceramic can withstand high heat and bad weather, but it will absolutely break if dropped or knocked over.

A high-quality kamado grill capable of incredible heat retention, but it only comes with the most basic fixtures and can be hard to buy.

The Big Green Egg has a cult following and for good reason: It's extremely well-built, can produce high temperatures and maintain extremely low temperatures, even in freezing weather, and the ceramic body can last a lifetime if properly maintained. My husband and I have owned the XL (24-inch) for a decade and though we’ve cracked at least one ceramic heat deflector and we had to replace the gasket last year, the body of the Egg itself is still in perfect condition.

While many other brands, including Kamado Joe, have modernized the kamado grill, Big Green Egg has continued to embody the simplicity of traditional kamado-style cooking that originated in Japan, focusing on quality materials and craftsmanship above the latest technology. This doesn't mean the brand rejects innovation, though. Over the years, Big Green Egg has made tweaks to its signature offering, including improvements to its top vent cap, lid hinge, and gasket (the soft band between the base and the lid which helps to create a tight seal when the lid is closed). Considering that the ceramic body itself is made to last so long, it's nice that most of the new parts can be retrofitted on older Big Green Eggs. For those who do want smart features, there is the Egg Genius, an attachment that allows for remotely controlling and monitoring temperature. The temperature gauge suggests the Big Green Egg can reach a maximum temperature of 750ºF, but we’ve gotten it much hotter.

When you buy a Big Green Egg, you’re pretty much just buying the body, the grates, and a top vent cap. While some folks may enjoy picking the perfect add-ons, at the very least, Big Green Egg should include a plate setter/heat deflector and a basic stand. The other issue with Big Green Egg is accessibility. It's become somewhat easier to purchase a Big Green Egg over the past few years (the brand now offers packages on its website that are fulfilled by local retailers where available), but you can only get one through an authorized retailer. If you can't get into a store, you need to live within the delivery radius of an authorized supplier that happens to have the model you want in stock.

A porcelain-coated-steel kamado that comes with plenty of accessories for smoking, grilling, and so much more.

My first thought upon seeing the Summit S6, Weber's kamado grill, is that it's the biggest, fanciest Weber kettle grill you can buy. And after grilling and smoking on it, I feel the same way—though I was wrong about the biggest part because Weber does offer a 26-inch kettle grill as well as the behemoth 37-inch Ranch Kettle Charcoal Grill. Technically the Summit's 24-inch cooking area is only two inches bigger than the quintessential 22-inch Weber Kettle Grill (our recommendation for the best charcoal grill) but the Summit Kamado just feels so much bigger and those extra two inches of cooking grate diameter give 89 more square inches of cooking space. The Summit has a bigger footprint too, and the cooking surface area sits four inches higher than on the Weber Kettle.

The Summit is a Weber-quality (read: high-quality) kamado made of porcelain-enameled dual-walled steel. Steel doesn't retain heat as well as ceramic, but the double-walled design uses air for insulation, and air is actually a good thermal insulator. And once you learn how to control the airflow via the vents, the Summit can maintain low temperatures just as well as a ceramic kamado (even as experienced kamado smokers, it took us a couple of tries to get it just right but once we did, we were super impressed). It cools down more quickly than ceramic when you want it to as well.

Under the Summit's easy-open hinged lid is the stainless-steel cooking surface that's compatible with Weber's Gourmet BBQ System inserts. Those accessories are sold separately and include a sear grate, griddle, poultry roaster, wok, pizza stone, and more. The Summit does come with a set of Weber's char baskets—vented steel containers you can use to create grilling zones with hot coals when you want to do some traditional charcoal grilling. Also included: a stainless steel diffuser plate for smoking and Weber's One-Touch cleaning system which employs a lever outside the grill to push ashes into the vented ash catcher for easy clean up (a handle on the ash pan also controls the bottom vent). The grill sits on a sturdy black cart with three locking wheels, a somewhat useful bottom rack, and hooks for storing utensils.

As I mentioned in my charcoal grill review, Weber's ash catcher—which is also used to control the bottom vent—can be sticky until it's been broken in. And because of the enclosed ash catcher, the bottom vent is less accessible than it is on other kamados. At this price point it would be nice if side tables were included, but you can get a much pricier model with an attached stainless-steel prep table and a few additional features like an electric starter.

A compact steel kamado grill with an entry-level price tag and setup.

Char-Griller's steel kamado is not the best kamado-style grill we tried for this review. In fact, it's the fourth-best grill we tested for this review. But it's still a good option for anyone who wants to test the waters of kamado grilling without making a big investment. For a kamado grill under $500 the Akorn does a good job retaining heat, even with its unconventional construction. The steel firebox rests in the main section of the grill—but the main section of the grill isn't the bottom part of it. Instead of a bottom and lid, the body of the Akorn is divided into three parts. The very bottom of this grill can be removed and houses what the brand calls an "easy-dump ash pan," but removing and replacing it with two clips is awkward, at least at first. It has a gasket and the clips create a tight seal, though I worry constantly replacing the bottom portion could eventually dislodge or damage the gasket. The Akorn is lightweight compared to the other kamados I tested and it's very easy to move and set in place on the included cart with three locking casters. It's also slightly smaller than the other grills, but the heavy-duty cast-iron grilling grate is actually an inch bigger than the 18-inch grate on the Classic Joe and Large Big Green Egg. An optional warming rack adds an additional 133 square inches of usable space, for a total of 447 square inches of cooking space. Two side shelves fold down easily and they each have hooks for grilling utensils.

When we fired it up for our first cook, it surpassed our target temperature very quickly, but because it's not ceramic, it didn't take too long to get the temp back to where we wanted it—and we were able to keep it within the desired range (250ºF–275ºF), even if we did burn through more charcoal than we intended in the process. It might take a little extra work to make the Akorn work for you but once you figure it out, it will do everything you need it to and you’ll be a better griller because of it.

In addition to its unusual body, the Akorn's materials are prone to rust and corrosion, so it's important to keep the grates oiled and protect the body from the elements with a cover. There's no heat deflector included, so if you want to use this kamado for serious smoking, you need to purchase one separately.

We assembled each grill (which was easier than assembling charcoal or gas grills, by the way!) and performed any high-heat burn-offs required by the manual before casually using the grills for a few weeknight dinners. Because it's easier and faster to get the temperature of a kamado grill up than down, when it was time for official testing, we smoked first. We arranged Fogo Lump Charcoal (most kamado grill manufacturers recommend using lump over briquettes) on each grill's fuel grate according to the manufacturer's instructions for a smoking setup, and used grilling fire starters and a lighter to light each grill. When the coals were sufficiently hot, we added a few chunks of hickory wood to each and used the dampers to get the grills to a temperature between 250ºF and 275ºF. When we were confident the temperatures were locked in, we oiled the grates and smoked a 16-ounce bone-in pork chop and two pork sausages on each kamado. We monitored the internal temperature of the pork as well as the ambient temperature of each kamado grill using the Meater Block smart meat thermometer connected to an iPad and kept an eye on the built-in lid thermometers too. To get the kamados hot enough to grill, we opened the top and bottom vents enough to set each grill's temperature between 450ºF and and 500F. We cooked a marinated boneless chicken breast and shrimp skewers directly over high heat, observing taste, texture, moisture, and grill marks. When we were done cooking we monitored the grills to see how long each stayed warm.

Is the grill made of quality materials? Ceramic is the most common material for a kamado grill. In addition to retaining heat extremely well, it can last indefinitely if well maintained. But ceramic is heavy and it can crack if you drop it, so some people may prefer a lighter-weight (though less durable) material like double-walled stainless steel. We tested both ceramic and steel kamado grills for this review.

Was it easy to get the grill to the desired cooking temperature and keep it within a desired temperature range for grilling and smoking?

How easy or hard was it to use each kamado grill? Did the manual provide enough instruction for set up and and use each for grilling and smoking.

What accessories are included? Which ones are missing? Some kamado grills come with nearly everything you need to start cooking while you need to buy accessories for others. I looked at what accessories were included with each grill, as well as what additional accessories are available to purchase.

Does the kamado grill have any features that enhance the cooking experience? Conversely, are there features that feel gimmicky and unnecessary?

How easy or hard is it to clean each grill? Does the manual include clear instructions for proper maintenance? Does the grill come with any tools to make cleaning easier or less messy?

A kamado grill is an investment, especially if you buy a high-end ceramic model. Trusted brands like Big Green Egg and Kamado Joe offer limited lifetime warranties on the ceramic parts but only for the original owner (something to keep in mind if you’re thinking of buying second hand). The Akorn comes with a limited five-year warranty and the Weber Summit has a 10-year limited warranty.

Like kettle charcoal grills, a kamado grill's listed size refers to the diameter of the grill grate. Size is a matter of need and personal preference, but the bigger the grill, the more it will weigh and cost. Even the lightest kamado grills are too heavy to take tailgating. (Some people have figured out clever ways to transport their kamado grills, but it's risky business. We recommend checking out our review of the best portable grills instead.)

Kamados are pricey, at least compared to standard charcoal grills, and more often than not, price is indicative of quality, materials, and size.

If you want a high-end ceramic kamado grill, you’ll be happy with either the Kamado Joe Classic II or the Big Green Egg, but if you want something that you can use right out of the box go with Kamado Joe. If you’re only going to have one grill, and you want the ability to easily switch between traditional charcoal grilling and low-and-slow smoking, consider the more versatile steel Weber Summit Kamado. For an entry-level kamado grill with a more accessible price tag, consider the Char-Griller Akorn Kamado, a compact steel kamado.