Does anyone cook with the big green egg? http://www.biggreenegg.com/eggs/ How do you like it and is it worth it's price?
I've used one twice and they work well. However they are expensive. If I was buying something for my outdoor kitchen I would probably spend the money other places. I cook quite a bit and not everyone wants a outdoor kitchen like I want though.
Yeah I built a nice pergola at my house and now I'm wanting to add an outdoor kitchen to my place....it does indeed get expensive fast.
I just purchased a Akorn grill from Lowes. I've used it several times for everything from 600 degree steak cooking to 250 degree 6-hour boston butt cooking. Seems to work as good as my neighbors BGE and I spent $700 less!!! Google Akorn Grill and watch the first couple youtube videos that come up. A very good review of them.
Kamado type grills/smokers are awesome- I will have another one in my future when I have a place to use one. I had a Primo branded one, but the key ingredient is heavy clay/ceramic and use natural wood charcoal. I like the feature Primo has on their oval ones where you can easily direct the heat.... cooking indirect is beneficial for quite a few instances. Headquarted in Tucker and made in USA. http://primogrill.com/ "worth the price"? It's a matter of personal preference.... I've used one and think yes.
The Primo stuff looks nice and it appears that its about half the price of the BGE. I might have to take a look at those. I've always wanted one of these. http://www.norcalovenworks.com/Argentine-Grills-s/63.htm When we build the next house a large outdoor kitchen will be going in. Its just so much easier to cook outside on the grill. It seems like clean up takes about 1\4 of the time.
When I'm home, I cook just about every meal on my Primo Oval XL ceramic cooker. Just wait until you try a ribeye seared at 650+ degrees for a couple minutes. I will never NOT own a ceramic cooker for as long as I live. Might be worth it to go to the Primo factory (local) and pick up a blemished Oval. The Ovals have a larger cooking area and the blemished models are priced much lower than the BGE equivalent and in some cases, aren't even blemished. I picked up the largest model for slightly north of $500 but I had a friend give me a deal. Whatever you go with, you'll definitely want: drip pan racks d plates rib roast rack chicken sitters ash tool grate lifter extended cooking racks firebox divider pizza stone Mine w/ the Primo Cypress Table and BBQ Guru DigiQ DX2:
chimney starter and newspaper or a blowtorch http://www.amazon.com/Weber-7416-Rapidfire-Chimney-Starter/dp/B000WEOQV8 just put 8 pounds of wings on my smoker to be deep fried tomorrow just prior to serving
I have a large BGE and love it. I actually won it in a cooking contest a few years ago. Before I won it, I laughed at people that spent the $$$ on a ceramic cooker, now that I have one, I can't believe I didnt spend the money sooner. They are great to cook on but there is a learning curve. Make sure and get yourself a DigiQ with whatever you decide on. It does wonders when wanting to cook something at 225 degrees for 12+ hours. This is what I use to light my BGE.
Used to have one of those to shrink wrap boats for the season when I was in the great lakes region.... mad fun.
watch out for flashbacks. 1200 degrees can hurt. all of my buddies have picked up BGE's and they love them. i am int he market for a cooker, but I don't know if I want to invest in a BGE. I have a bullet smoker and pressure smoker. All i really need is a grill. I will say pizzas on a BGE are awesome! Joe
After reading so many good things, and reviews about it, I'm very interested in this BGE. Only thing is, seems like everyone is shy about their prices, what gives. I assume they run around a grand or so? I was more interested in the Large BGE.
Yeah they run around $700-1200 it seems. Look into the Primo grilles. Same thing and I think it's cheaper and local to Atlanta.
That's before you start adding all the extras too. Really want one, but I'm a cheap bastard. Still smoking on the grill.
BGE is local in Atlanta. The large runs around $749 with the stand. Or at least it did last year. To become a dealer for BGE, you must sell everything at MSRP, if you get caught selling below, they will no longer sell it to you. There are some stores that will sell a little lower but dont expect to get any huge discount on it. The Primo Grilles are nice and I am actually considering getting one just for the fact you can set two different temperatures in the oval model. Need to read up more on them. They are just as much as a BGE.
I get along fine so far with my stamped steel webber and flower pots to smoke in. Not that I wouldn't use a BGE if I had one. Just can't bring myself to justify the cost.
Cmon folks, you live once. I bet both of you fellas spent that much on a single part for your car, well I know CoolRex did/does. This is a good burgeon for the buck.
For 299.99 I may add this to my outdoor kitchen. Will be my third grill if I do decide to pull the trigger. So what makes these grills so special? Is there a specific way to cooking with these? My experience with grilling thus far is, prepare the meet, throw it on the grill, and flip here and there.
They hold heat extremely well and don't waste it. Regular grilles are so inefficient that you don't get a lot of time with heat. These are porcelain and hold heat. Also if you do it right it's indirect heat so you don't have flames burning and drying out the meat. They are designed mostly to slow cook. A whole 5 lb chicken would cook for about 1.25 hrs at 375* F. You can cook virtually anything on them and they taste so freaking good due to all the moisture that is kept in the food. LOTS of youtube vids on cooking. Look up Akorn Grill on youtube. Also Kamado cooking. I ate some beef that came off a BGE this weekend.....OMG!
we have this exact unit at the mtn house and use it every day we go there. Keep that cypress table sealed as the weather will warp it badly as ours is. I really need to bring this puppy home but its too damn heavy. I agree I will never not own a ceramic grill they simply rock
OMG... After that post I am def. getting one. I have a propane grill (ewwww), and charcoal (WalMart)grill(blahh). I been looking to impress my wife, and myself with grilling, and this just might be what I need.
You won't be disappointed. I'm getting one once I finish building my outdoor kitchen. At the moment I don't really have sufficient shelter to keep the Akorn out of the elements.
I saw that Akorn grill at Kroger the other day but noticed it wasnt ceramic and looked like it was made out of Aluminum? I could have been wrong.....If it is made out of ceramic, I might pick one up myself I am actually looking at getting another one because I find myself running out of room on my BGE or wanting to cook two different meats and different temps.
I think is ceramic on the inside? Didn't feel like metal to me but I didn't look too hard due to time constraints.
Just went by my local Kroger and they had the Akorn grill on sale for $197 but only had the display left. I was tempted to buy it but it was missing some of the accessories. Also, the unit is NOT ceramic or porcelain. Looks to be made out of aluminum or some sort of metal. Either way, reviews seem to be pretty good on it and at $200, who cares what it is made out of.
It is not ceramic but works just as good as one. Plus side is....it won't break. There's a lot of horror stories about busted BGE's.
I wasnt knocking it that it wasnt ceramic, I was just informing you that it wasnt made out of ceramic. Like I said, for $200 it seems like a great deal on a proven method of cooking.
the insert in the prestige broke as well but they are replacing it for free. I am looking to get the smaller unit for the new open/covered patio we just had put in. Found out my inlaw invested 40K in their startup and will get a "smoking" deal.