In the book he sticks with the PK grill as his tool of choice. He also devotes a few pages and a plan for what he calls a "hybrid hibachi". Basically a hibachi with an attached brasero. Maybe he'll sell those in addition to his smokers whenever that business actually starts selling.

For folks that wanted to know what all he said about kamados I snapped a pix then OCR'd that section. OCR is not always 100% so there may be some text output errors and I didn't bother to clean up the file. If there's more in this section that offends remember - I'm just the messenger, I didn't write the damn book. 😋

**************

Kamado Cookers: Hot and Heavy!

The luxury SUVs of outdoor cooking, those ovat-

shaped ceramic cookers known by the ubiqui-

tous brand Big Green Egg (BGE) have been the

biggest trend in outdoor cooking for the last

ten years or so. The BGE and other brands are

examples of kamado cookers, a style that orig-

inated in the Far East thousands of years ago.

These ovoid cookers are tiled on the outside,

have thick, smooth ceramic interiors, and lids

that hinge near the top and open like a Fabergé

egg. Air intake comes in through the bottom.

These grills have become badges of the bour-

geois, essential possessions for the suburban

backyard set. And all that's a good thing.

Kamado-style cookers are excellent devices for

cooking many things. Unfortunately, steak is

not one of them.

Yes, kamados, which are heated by placing char-

coal in the bottom, can sear steaks beautifully

at the incredibly high temperatures they are

capable of reaching (8000F to 9000F), but cook-

ing the steaks evenly and gently is the problem.

Because of their thick ceramic walls, these

cookers hold heat especially well, getting very

hot and maintaining the temperature easily for

a long time. That's a great feature in an oven

but not necessarily in a grill. Thus, the kamado

"grills" work best for processes with long cook

times, where holding a consistent temperature

is the name of the game, such as roasting, smok-

ing, and baking.

Kamado cooVers are awesome, rock solid.

almost indestructible pieces of equipment and

do any backyard proud. For smoking brisvets

and ribs or roasting chickens and pork shoul-

ders. they're amazing. If you want to bake a loaf

of bread in the dead of summer without turne

ing on the oven, the BGE is for you. Spareribs?

No problem. Even pizza! But the challenges in

cooking steaks on a kamado are legion. For

one. the circular shape of a kamado (especially

the smaller models) makes it difficult to have

a two-zone setup in which hot coals are placed

on only one-half of the grill (see page 147).

Especially important for cooking thicker cuts of

meat, a two-zone configuration permits you to

sear the outside of the meat directly over the

coals, but then move the meat of the coats to a

warm but not scorching spot where it can cook

more slowly, allowing the inside to come up to

temperature. In a conventional round grill like a

Weber kettle, this is easy to do, as its thin walls

don't retain a lot of heat, clearly dividing the hot

and cool sides and enabling real contrast. In a

kamado, the radiant heat can be so great that

even in a two-zone setup. the coot side will stilt

be really hot.

Heat in general can be a challenge in these

ovoid cookers. While they have a remarkable

ability to hold lower temperatures for tong peri-

ods, arriving at those desired temperatures can

be difficult. Experience has shown us that one

of the key skills in using a kamado is to keep it

from getting too hot. Once you overload it with

even just a little excess charcoal, it can get too

hot to use optimally. And kamados take forever

to cool down, especially in warm weather. (In

cold climates and in winter, however, they can

be great assets in outdoor cooking.) Grilling

well-marbled steaks in such heat over live

coals can cause a lot of fat to render and ignite

immediately, creating a flare-up fest and plenty

of bitterly charred, overdone meat.

Lastly, kamados are expensive. The smallest

Big Green Egg costs four hundred dollars with-

out accessories, and its grill only measures ten

inches in diameter, big enough for one good-

size ribeye or porterhouse cooked in a single

zone. The extra-large Big Green Egg, which has

a grill measuring twenty-nine inches, costs

around two thousand dollars.