Grills & Smokers

Big Green Egg Medium All-in-One Grill / Smoker Big Green Egg Medium All-in-One Grill / Smoker Product Technical DetailsTechnical Details:Me...

Big Green Egg SHDA All-in-One Grill / Smoker Big Green Egg SHDA All-in-One Grill / Smoker Product Technical DetailsTechnical Details:SHDA...

The Big Green Egg is a ceramic cooker that is green and shaped like, well, a big egg. The fact that it is made of thick ceramic means that it contains and retains heat very well. I’ve had mine for close to 10 years. The Big Green Egg is great as a smoker and for true BBQ, which, contrary to common usage of the term, means cooking food at low temperature over a long period of time. In this capacity I use it to make the best ribs around, and I love it for that.

Now, here’s the rub (pun intended…). The Big Green Egg is advertised as the world’s best smoker AND griller. Well, it’s NOT, and here’s why:

Grilling is a completely different cooking method from BBQing/smoking. While BBQing/smoking is low-temp, slow cooking in a closed environment (think low temp oven), grilling is fast-to-medium cooking of food over VARIOUS TEMPERATURES of heat, mostly in an OPEN environment. When you GRILL food, as opposed to BBQing it, you typically want to be able to control the heat of your fire in ways you just can’t in the Big Green Egg, at least not very easily. Want to cook steak? You’re going to want to SEAR it over VERY HOT coals, and then finish it over MEDIUM HOT coals. Want to cook vegetables? A hot fire will burn them before they’re cooked. Better do them over a medium fire, and maybe even have a low fire area to move them to if they start to get a little too charred before cooking through, etc., etc.

OK, you say, can’t you control the intensity of heat in the Big Green Egg? Sure you can! Just by adjusting the amount of coal, and the amount of airflow (with the vents top and bottom). But here’s why the Big Green Egg makes a lousy grill. After you sear that steak, you’ll want to move it to a cooler part of the grill. If you want to sear steaks AND grill vegetables, you’re going to want to create different levels of heat in different parts of your grill. In the Big Green Egg any of this is very difficult for several reasons. First, the shape of the egg means that the circumference of the space where the coals sit (at the bottom of the egg) is really narrow, making it next to impossible to “stack” coals on one side or in several different levels across the grate. Second, unless you want to pay $700 an up for a large Big Green Egg, you’ll be grilling on a grate that is puny (this is a review of the Medium).

Now compare this to what just might be the perfect grill for GRILLING, the Weber Kettle. You can get one with a 22.5 inch cooking grate for about $160 (the $450 medium Big Green Egg grate is only 15 inches!). The grate that the charcoal sits on is not that much narrower. Now we’re talking. The first thing you decide when you grill food is 1) just how hot you need your fire to be, and 2) whether you need the ENTIRE surface of the grate to be that temp, or if you need 2 levels of heat, or even 3. This is CRUCIAL to grilling - it’s what grilling is all about. On something like the Weber Kettle, you can easily create 1, 2, and 3 zone fires by controlling the amount of coals you use AND the way you pile them on the charcoal grate. Need high heat to sear, and medium to finish cooking? No problem - stack your coals 3 high on one side, and 1 high in the middle. Just cooking vegetables? Lay your coals out evenly across the grate for a medium fire. Want to sear steaks, cook chicken and vegetables all at the same time? No problem - create 3 zones of different heat level and you’re on your way. Or maybe you need to cook your food over INDIRECT heat (the one exception to OPEN grilling - you cook your food NOT over the coals and with the lid closed). No problem - place all your coals on one side of the grate, put the food on the other, and close the lid. You get the picture… Tons of versatility with the Weber Kettle. With the Big Green Egg all of this is next to impossible, which makes it a LOUSY griller. On the Weber Kettle the grate even has hinges on either side making it easy to add coals as you cook.

OK, bottom line. If you want a great smoker/BBQer, then get the Big Green Egg, but if you want to GRILL food, then don’t fall for the Big Green Egg claim about being “the worlds best griller” - it ain’t. Get the Weber Kettle. If you want to be able to do both, then buy one of each, which is what I did. In that case I would definitely not recommend getting anything bigger than the medium Big Green Egg (unless you’ve got lots of money to burn), and definitely get the Weber Kettle for grilling. I should add that you CAN BBQ/smoke foods in the Weber Kettle, too, but I’ve never tried it. Typically BBQing/smoking takes hours at low temp, and I think the Weber would not be nearly as good as the Big Green Egg for this use because 1) It has no temperature gauge and 2) it is made of relatively thin metal which cannot possibly retain heat the way the ceramic Big Green Egg does.

Personally, I do a lot more grilling than I do BBQing, so if I had to only pick one, I’d go for the Weber Kettle. I find it so versatile, I use it for everything I cook except ribs, which I only cook very occasionally.

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