After 53 years of service, my Imperial Kamado (wedding gift to my parents in 1961) finally had a catastrophic failure a couple weeks ago. To put it mildly, I was really bummed out and figured I would be without a ceramic cooker for a while. Yesterday, I was driving by a hardware store that is going out of business and had to stop in. I was able to pick up a replacement for nearly 50% of retail. It was crated and we managed to get it in my Honda Fit, but I had to un-box it in order to get it out of my car. To celebrate the new grill and to test it making sure I could hold temps I wanted, I smoked a couple butterflied chickens. I ended up taking a plate of food to 3 of my neighbors. After 2 hours of cooking, I opened it up and had it at 600F in a matter of minutes and spent 60 seconds per side to grill a very nice rare rib steak. I think this new guy is going to be alright.
The ribs will still take hours, a nice rib steak though will be done in just a couple minutes. The Fit is surprisingly roomy for such a small car. With the rear seats down, it has almost as much storage room as the Grand Cherokee I used to have. While it has a lot of room, it cannot handle as much weight. The most weight I have had in it was about 1/3 cu yard of soil (9 cu ft). When I picked it up yesterday, I asked the guy if he thought it would fit and he said no way. He brought it out on the fork lift and it fit with room to spare. The shipping crate was considerably larger.
Better is subjective. End result is the food will be the same. The BGE is made in mexico, has a lifetime of original owner on ceramic warranty, community, and more local dealers. Like most ceramic cookers, you have to buy all the accessories separately. The Kamado Joe is made in China, has a 20 yr warranty, a smaller community and less local dealers. They are a much newer company, but top notch in my book. It came with a broken deflector plate and when I called yesterday, the owner of the company answered the phone. I explained everything and he took my information and has one in the mail to me already. The KJ comes with the added accessories and is less expensive in the long run. That was just a long winded way of saying they are about the same quality, but Kamado Joe is a little less expensive and comes with a few added bits.
