Kettle or Kamado?

[WaWaZat]

I’m a longtime charcoal kettle grill user. Time to replace my 20 year old stainless steel top Weber Performer with propane start.

Gas igniting my lump charcoal quickly is by far my favorite feature of the Performer with my purist taste combined with obnoxiously busy schedule.

I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Kamado style grills… moisture retention in poultry, beef and fish sounding the most enticing.

I’m hoping to get opinions about which to choose as a replacement… another Weber Performer kettle or Kamado?

[michaelmilitello]

The Weber Kamado with table has gas assist.  Best of both worlds.


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[watkinsb87]

If you are willing to spend the money, the Weber Summit Charcoal is amazing. I don’t have one but I have cooked on one and it’s impressive.

That being said you can’t go wrong with a performer.


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[WaWaZat]

If you are willing to spend the money, the Weber Summit Charcoal is amazing. I don’t have one but I have cooked on one and it’s impressive.

That being said you can’t go wrong with a performer.


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What are the advantages you’ve found of the Summit over a kettle?

[LightningBoldtz]

AS a former Kamado owner and current summit owner I will say the summit is the best of all worlds.  I have been very critical of a lot of Weber's new products and innovations but this is not one of them.

when I had my kamado, I used it for 1 thing and it was REALLY good at it.  smoking, I never fired it up for grilling.  Why, it was kinda of a pain to do for a simple grilling session, doing indirect was a project if I wanted to do it.

The summit, with the ability to move the charcoal grate from lower to upper allows for the kamado style smoking and the kettle style grilling.  The gas assist in the summit is rather worthless as it is so low in the kettle if you are grilling you would like your coals and need to figure out how to get that hot grate to the upper rack.

My only know on the summit was price, they over priced it initially, the Kamado 6 or whatever the new version is, is more in line with what the initial summit should have been.

If I could only have 1 grill, it would be the summit charcoal grill.

[JEBIV]

that guy up there ^ is as honest as they come, he makes me want to buy one LOL

[Kneab]

I love my Summit and could not have worded it better. Whether smoking overnight, cooking direct, indirect or cranking it up over 700° for pizzas I have thoroughly enjoyed owning one. I just wish it fit in the back of my Odyssey without having to remove the lid.

AS a former Kamado owner and current summit owner I will say the summit is the best of all worlds.  I have been very critical of a lot of Weber's new products and innovations but this is not one of them.

when I had my kamado, I used it for 1 thing and it was REALLY good at it.  smoking, I never fired it up for grilling.  Why, it was kinda of a pain to do for a simple grilling session, doing indirect was a project if I wanted to do it.

The summit, with the ability to move the charcoal grate from lower to upper allows for the kamado style smoking and the kettle style grilling.  The gas assist in the summit is rather worthless as it is so low in the kettle if you are grilling you would like your coals and need to figure out how to get that hot grate to the upper rack.

My only know on the summit was price, they over priced it initially, the Kamado 6 or whatever the new version is, is more in line with what the initial summit should have been.

If I could only have 1 grill, it would be the summit charcoal grill.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Weber Kettle Club mobile app

[WaWaZat]

Thanx for all the info guys!

Let me ask this…

I do mostly quick, basic grilling. Is there something the Summit does over the what a Performer Deluxe that makes basic grilling better?

Are you somehow able to change the charcoal rack height on the fly?

[Kneab]

Basic grilling is similar to a regular kettle. The height of the charcoal is not adjustable on the fly. But it is very fast to heat up thanks to the top vent design. I lit my leftover lump with the gas start for about 2 minutes then closed the lid and flipped open the top vent and it preheated up to 650 in about 10 minutes on Sunday.

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[AD18]

I have a large BGE and Weber kettle.  For long low and slow the BGE wins hands down.  Get to temp, leave it alone, it goes for hours, rock solid control.  Hot and fast, I'd take the kettle simply because in my opinion they are both the same performance wise.  If you want a more versatile machine the ceramic is a better choice.  If you are specializing as stated the price of the kettle wins for high and fast.  Plus if you want to go low and slow with kettle you can certainly do it, it just involves a bit more hands on effort on your part.  Lastly I like the ability to move the coals to one side of kettle to better control indirect cooking. 

[michaelmilitello]

I have a large BGE and Weber kettle.  For long low and slow the BGE wins hands down.  Get to temp, leave it alone, it goes for hours, rock solid control.  Hot and fast, I'd take the kettle simply because in my opinion they are both the same performance wise.  If you want a more versatile machine the ceramic is a better choice.  If you are specializing as stated the price of the kettle wins for high and fast.  Plus if you want to go low and slow with kettle you can certainly do it, it just involves a bit more hands on effort on your part.  Lastly I like the ability to move the coals to one side of kettle to better control indirect cooking.

Good, balanced review.  The other consideration is price and value.  A kettle is easily 10x less expensive.  The BGE does not necessarily provide a 10x better result.   The effort level to run a kettle lns is not too bad.  To me, it’s not fair to compare ceramic against single wall steel.


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[WaWaZat]

After much consideration, I’ve decided it would be better to get back into low & slow and smoking (the reason I stopped is because my single walled vertical smoker is not convenient and doesn’t do well in Winter when I have more time to cook), so I bit the bullet and am expecting my new Summit S6 to arrive before the weekend!


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[AD18]

The other thing is a ceramic is a long term investment.  Not much to wear out over time other than the sealing gaskets.  And even those last if you don't go nuclear temp wise.  That is easily changed, at least on the Egg.  Best of luck on your new ceramic, take your time to learn how it works, and enjoy the ride.   

[AD18]

I have a large BGE and Weber kettle.  For long low and slow the BGE wins hands down.  Get to temp, leave it alone, it goes for hours, rock solid control.  Hot and fast, I'd take the kettle simply because in my opinion they are both the same performance wise.  If you want a more versatile machine the ceramic is a better choice.  If you are specializing as stated the price of the kettle wins for high and fast.  Plus if you want to go low and slow with kettle you can certainly do it, it just involves a bit more hands on effort on your part.  Lastly I like the ability to move the coals to one side of kettle to better control indirect cooking.

Good, balanced review.  The other consideration is price and value.  A kettle is easily 10x less expensive.  The BGE does not necessarily provide a 10x better result.   The effort level to run a kettle lns is not too bad.  To me, it’s not fair to compare ceramic against single wall steel.


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Agreed, if I spend the time with the kettle I can get pretty much the same result, no major differences.  Cost of ceramic is a way higher, but with normal maintenance should last as long as you do.  Not much to rust, stick, or break.  Only issue I've had with Egg was going EXTREMELY high temp to clean it and melted the gasket between lid and base.  Not hard to change and pretty cheap.  I recently had to send the old kettle to the great recycling bin in the sky because the lower cleaning arms were all bent and the hardware was all rusted.  Could not get them off and ended up bending the bottom of kettle all out of shape.  I got 15 years out of it so it didn't owe me anything.  Ordered a new one and should have it in the next day or so.  Something soothing and mystical about watching a kettle chug along cooking something though.  All the little puffs of smoke here and there always makes me smile:)

[WaWaZat]

Agreed, if I spend the time with the kettle I can get pretty much the same result, no major differences.  Cost of ceramic is a way higher, but with normal maintenance should last as long as you do.  Not much to rust, stick, or break.  Only issue I've had with Egg was going EXTREMELY high temp to clean it and melted the gasket between lid and base.  Not hard to change and pretty cheap.  I recently had to send the old kettle to the great recycling bin in the sky because the lower cleaning arms were all bent and the hardware was all rusted.  Could not get them off and ended up bending the bottom of kettle all out of shape.  I got 15 years out of it so it didn't owe me anything.  Ordered a new one and should have it in the next day or so.  Something soothing and mystical about watching a kettle chug along cooking something though.  All the little puffs of smoke here and there always makes me smile:)

Good thing about Weber is you can repair/replace anything! I just replaced the one-touch cleaning blade system and the igniter on my old SS Performer, before selling it. The screws for both were rusted in. With some good penetrating oil, a drill and a Dremel tool, I was able to remove both cleanly. The new Weber replacement one-touch eliminates the screw... guess we weren't the only one having issue getting the old rusty ones off!... and I put little anti-seize on the new screw for the ignitor, so the next guy won't have issue with R&R.