After realising I'm unwilling to pay the price for one of the major brands, I've just pulled the trigger on Pit Boss Kamado from Costco. Details here: http://www.costco.co.uk/view/p/pit-boss-24-kamado-grill-ceramic-bbq-cover-1031588
If you get it in store it's £480 (£399+VAT), though you need a Costco card, or know someone with one.
I picked mine up yesterday, it's a heavy beast, I took a friend to give me a hand with it, but it turns out that Costco will send one of their employees to help you get it into your vehicle. The box only just fitted in my Mondeo Estate. I had borrowed a heavy duty sack barrow to get it from the car to BBQ Corner at the end of the garden, which made things easier.
It took about 30 minutes to put together. The demo model in Costco had been somewhat wobbly and the lid wasn't sealing properly, so I had been a bit wary, but mine went together easily and sturdily and the lid seems to be sealing quite well though I won't know until I've had a chance to fire it up with some wood chips in it.
The unit does have some flaws, mainly to do with the vents. There is nowhere near enough felt gasket under the top vent to seal the join between the top vent and the kamado body. The sliders in the bottom vent are pretty loose. I shall see how bad these are when I do the first smoke producing burn in it. Both issues should be easily fixable, either a bead of high temperature silicone gasket between the kamado and the bottom of the top vent assembly or another layer of felt/nomex gasket under the top vent. For the bottom vent I made some little aluminium shims to hold the sliders tightly closed.
It's not really a 24" Kamado like the Kamado Joe Big Joe, it's only about 20" across the grates. The unit comes with 2 folding grates that stack on top of each other, a ceramic diffuser plate for indirect cooking, a cover and a tool for removing ash. The unusual size means that there are very few accessories that will fit it, but tbh the only accessory I needed was the diffuser plate so I can do low and slow.
Here's some photos
Here are the aluminium shims I made
This is them in action
I may need to put a bead of high temperature silicone gasket over the join between top vent and kamado
Here's the diffuser plate
I also made a plate to fit the bottom vent so I can use my Auberins temperature controller for long unattended cooks
I have been doing a low temperature run today with a small amount of charcoal to "cure" the unit as instructed by the manual.
My impressions so far are: It seems quite easy to dial in a temperature, and the temperature gauge is nowhere near as inaccurate as I thought it would be
Hopefully I'll be running a leak test tomorrow, and doing a cook on Friday. I'll keep you informed.
So far my first impressions are good. I know it's not going be as easy to use as a BGE, KJ or Monolith or as good quality but it's between 1/2 and 1/3 the price and I'm happy to work with the shortcomings. I'll write a review after I've lived with it for a while.
Piers
If you get it in store it's £480 (£399+VAT), though you need a Costco card, or know someone with one.
I picked mine up yesterday, it's a heavy beast, I took a friend to give me a hand with it, but it turns out that Costco will send one of their employees to help you get it into your vehicle. The box only just fitted in my Mondeo Estate. I had borrowed a heavy duty sack barrow to get it from the car to BBQ Corner at the end of the garden, which made things easier.
It took about 30 minutes to put together. The demo model in Costco had been somewhat wobbly and the lid wasn't sealing properly, so I had been a bit wary, but mine went together easily and sturdily and the lid seems to be sealing quite well though I won't know until I've had a chance to fire it up with some wood chips in it.
The unit does have some flaws, mainly to do with the vents. There is nowhere near enough felt gasket under the top vent to seal the join between the top vent and the kamado body. The sliders in the bottom vent are pretty loose. I shall see how bad these are when I do the first smoke producing burn in it. Both issues should be easily fixable, either a bead of high temperature silicone gasket between the kamado and the bottom of the top vent assembly or another layer of felt/nomex gasket under the top vent. For the bottom vent I made some little aluminium shims to hold the sliders tightly closed.
It's not really a 24" Kamado like the Kamado Joe Big Joe, it's only about 20" across the grates. The unit comes with 2 folding grates that stack on top of each other, a ceramic diffuser plate for indirect cooking, a cover and a tool for removing ash. The unusual size means that there are very few accessories that will fit it, but tbh the only accessory I needed was the diffuser plate so I can do low and slow.
Here's some photos
Here are the aluminium shims I made
This is them in action
I may need to put a bead of high temperature silicone gasket over the join between top vent and kamado
Here's the diffuser plate
I also made a plate to fit the bottom vent so I can use my Auberins temperature controller for long unattended cooks
I have been doing a low temperature run today with a small amount of charcoal to "cure" the unit as instructed by the manual.
My impressions so far are: It seems quite easy to dial in a temperature, and the temperature gauge is nowhere near as inaccurate as I thought it would be
Hopefully I'll be running a leak test tomorrow, and doing a cook on Friday. I'll keep you informed.
So far my first impressions are good. I know it's not going be as easy to use as a BGE, KJ or Monolith or as good quality but it's between 1/2 and 1/3 the price and I'm happy to work with the shortcomings. I'll write a review after I've lived with it for a while.
Piers
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