Product Description
Kamado style cooking comes from ancient cooking methods that used large clay ovens for insulation. Kamados of recent years are made of heavy ceramics. King-Griller by Char-Griller has developed this product for Kamado style cooking using innovative technology to make it more durable, convenient, affordable and lighter weight than traditional ceramic Kamados. This Kamado Kooker can cook anything from burgers to fish to ribs to pizza. Truly the best food you will ever cook on a grill.
| List Price: | $399.00 |
| Price: | $349.98 |
| as of Tue, 05 Mar 2013 07:15:30 GMT ***Remember, deals price on this item for sale just for limited time*** | |
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1047 in Lawn & Patio
- Size: 43" L x 29" W x 47" H
- Color: Red
- Brand: Char-Griller
- Model: 06619
- Dimensions: 47.20" h x 28.70" w x 43.30" l, 90.00 pounds
Features
- Cooking space is 306-inch and a warm rack of 165-inch
- Insulated design means more heat uses less charcoal and less airflow means insulated heat for juicy meat
- Cooking surface is cast iron and will hold up to 23 burgers; body is constructed of 22 gauge steel; exterior finish is powder coated steel; interior finish is porcelain coated steel; easy to assemble
- Cart is constructed of tubular steel with rubber wheels, locking caster on front; indexed damper is numbered so you can note the position of the damper when you cook your favorite meals - this adds to the consistence of your cooking experience
- Features locking lid, 2 folding wood shelves; easy dump ash pan; double wall insulation, heat gauge
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
81 of 82 people found the following review helpful.
By Ben M. Van Ord
I have had this grill for a week. I absolutely love it. Its ability to QUICKLY climb to high heat or to HOLD heat and bake in a moist sealed environment puts it into a different category than a gas grill or a Weber Kettle grill.
I have cooked a pork rib roast at 350 that came out great. With a moist and smoky environment.
I have had it up to 650 and did fabulous burgers. They had a brown and crispy surface with out being dried out.
The problem comes in when I want to get it below 300.
There is too much air coming in from the bottom vent. I was going to seal the back of the vent where it seals to the ash pan. When I removed the ash trap to work on the vent-- I found that the entire round ash trap bottom is just tacked to the top in a butt joint and there is already a gap at one place where it is separating from the flat top part that butts up against the sealing gasket for the ash trap. The metal is deformed in another area directly behind where the vent attaches. Said another way the metal had already deformed behind the vent slot.
I question the long term air tightness with this construction detail.What use is a sealing gasket on the ash trap when the whole area below it is just butt jointed and tack welded in several places?
The photos are available on the customer images when you are viewing the product. Take a look it is quite startling.
This detail is on the removable ash trap and in theory this small part of an otherwise great grill could easily be improved. It looks like this joint may become more and more leaky over time.
The photos for what I am describing are the customer photos when you are viewing the product page.
UPDATE 4-25-2012
I contacted CharGriller about this problem. They say they will replace the ash trap as a warranty item.
The thing is you MUST HAVE YOUR RECEIPT. So if you buy this Akorn Kooker save your receipt. Thank goodness that Lowe's is great about issuing a new one. Just as Amazon is great at letting you go into your history and print a receipt.
They also had no word about if the replacement ash trap will be made the same way. This is absolutely a design created problem.
UP DATE 5-22-12
Char-Griller did sent a new ash trap and it had the same defects and developed leaks only not as bad. This unit cooks much better when it is air tight.
Here is a link to the KAMADO GURU forum in which they cover fixing the air leaks.
[...]
In addition some people have used theirs extensively and feel it is holding up well.
[...]
UPDATE: 6-2-2012
There is an element to the design of this AKORN that people should be aware of. This unit is egg shaped. The result is that the top over hangs the more narrow bottom. Any fat that renders out will either be caught in a drip pan on top of the smoke stone diffuser or it will run down the sides. Any grease that reaches the ash trap area will either drip into the ash pan or run under the top flange and soak the gasket on the ash trap seal.
Cleaning the ash trap will remove the oil that has collected there. The sealing gasket should also be checked and DE-greased if it is wet with grease.
I put a grill grate on the smoking stone position and built a fire to get more intense heat to do burgers. I filled the outside edge of the grate with 20% fat burgers. I got nice crispy burgers. When I closed the lid and shut the top and bottom vents----the dome temp gage shot up to 650F.
The next cook was going to be three pork butts a couple days later. Except I could not get the ash pan off to clean it. To make a long story short---the ash trap gasket was glued on to the separating surface with carbon. I had to pry it off and scrape the carbon crystals off both the mating surface and the gasket. A new gasket is available from Char-Grill. To install it just pry with a plastic object between the gasket and the flange it is attached to. The gasket is held in with metal attachments that snap out. The new one just snaps in. This takes about five minutes.
Users should check the gasket for oil when they empty the ash pan. There is not likely much chance for a grease fire while doing a low and slow cook. It can happen the next time you take it up to 600. A drip pan should be used for low and slow to catch as much grease as possible.
This probably is not a good grill to use for direct high heat grilling of fatty things like 80% burgers or sausage. The high heat and the abundant oil are what caused mine to catch fire.
As I inspected the design more I did notice that the very out side edge ot the grate extends over a gap between the inner fire bowl and the outer insulated shell. Any grease that gets into this gap will run down to the ash trap with no chance to burn off. I believe that this is what contributed to my grease fire. i now keep any thing that I cook back from the edge and over the inner fire bowl.
DESIGN MODIFICATION---- If a metal flange were installed above the ash trap area and sloped to the back. A pipe could be run out the back and the grease caught in a bucket.
UPDATE 10-2-2012
I have used this CharGriiler Kamado since April about 3 times a week. If you are interested in Kamado style cooking this is a good place to start. The AKORN gets the same results as the more expensive Kamado style cookers that start around $900 and quickly end up in the $1500 to $2,000 range.
You can grill at 650 degrees or do true BBQ at around 250 degrees. I have done nine pork butts for pulled pork with great results. I have done ribs, chicken thighs, chicken breasts, steaks, hamburgs, WOKED vegetables,ETC and all were great.
You can cook chicken with the skin on without getting the typical huge flare up. In fact there is no fire at grill level at all. I do find that slashing the skin on the thighs and cooking them skin side up works best.
I have not had a grease fire since the one noted above. I now take it up to 600 and do a burn off immediately after I cook something fatty and I keep what I cook over the inside of the fire bowl.
To get good performance you will need to put felt behind the vent slide, seal behind the vent to the ash trap area, and any gaps in the seam between the top of the ash trap and the outer bowl. I have had to replace the felt behind the slide three times so far. There is a lot of information about these mods at the Kamado Guru forum--in the Char-Griller AKORN Kamado/ King Griller group and in the topic section Mods and Fixes. This is a must visit site if you own one of these.
This cooker heats up fast and is slow to cool down so the techniques needed are different from other grills. They are not difficult just different. There is a lot of info about this in the AKORN section at Kamado Guru.com in the ----starting a fire low and slow definitive. I find a dual temp digital thermometer ( grate temp and meat temp ) to be extremely helpful. I find the dome thermometer to be slow to respond.
I love the taste of lump charcoal and wood chunks on my food.
In my opinion this grill is a bargain but you will need to take an active and on going approach to keeping it air tight to get the best results. Yes I would buy it again---but be warned you will want one of the pricey Kamados in a few years down the road. Do notice that I said want. This grill will last for many years if you keep it coved and out of the weather and the food will taste the same coming out of the AKORN or a $1,000 ceramic kamado.
101 of 105 people found the following review helpful.
By M. Frank
We compared the Big Red with Big Green Egg, Primo, Kamado Joe, and the Big Keg. The price differential was substantial and we doubted whether it could perform up to the competition. However, for $300 vs $1,000 how could we go wrong?
Since our recent purchase, we have smoked pork back ribs twice, pot roast, smoked salmon, and a pork roast (we only missed one weekend for grilling). The results have been wonderful. There is a learning curve in shifting from a traditional gas grill. We had to gain experience utilizing the right proportion of fuel and the proper air flow on the Big Red through the vents at top and bottom. But we are having great success and learning quickly. Now, we really crave the slow cooking/smoking of the ribs (210 degrees for 6 to 7 hours with a Kansas City style rub and the last hour with Sweet Baby Rays.)
The slow cooking is a very easy and low-attention cooking process. This is in sharp contrast to the higher temp cooking on a gas grill coupled with the very irregular hot spots. The cooking on the Kamado is warm, moist (less air), and uniform heat.
The quality of the Big Red unit is high, it is easy to assemble, easy to clean, easy to start with electric starter ($8 at Menards). Big Red will get up to temp in a about 10-15 minute for low-temp cooking. For low temperature cooking, we do not ignite all the fuel at once and keep the temperature low. Creating a high temperature and scaling back can take 45 minutes. The unit is incredibly well insulated and the only way to reduce the temperature is to suffocate the embers.
High temperatures can be obtained in about 10 minutes. This is quicker than the low temp. cooking since there is no concern for slow steady heat. Just open the air supply vent at the bottom and the vent at the top, and you have an intense cooker of 600 degrees. This is great for cleaning the grill and searing.
Back to slow cooking/smoking: We use a mix of large Mesquite lump coal from Sam's and smaller lump coal of various blends of wood from Menards (we use smoking pellets for flavor). Once temperature is obtained, we can maintain the constant 200-220 for 7-plus hours. We really like the practicality and durability of the steel structure versus the ceramic. We live in Chicago and we don't worry about cracking a ceramic egg by the radical heat change. The lid on the BGE is extremely heavy to lift whereas the Big Red (BR) is light weight. The Big Red has stove gaskets that are held with clips. We liked the ease with which these can be replaced vs the scape-off/glue-on with BGE. It is simple and easy to remove the ashes from BR: release 2 levers, slide forward, and remove the bottom section and dump. With the BGE, you crouch down and scrape out the ashes through a vent.
The cast iron grate has a practical feature for bearing the overhead rack for extra capacity. We use this for smoking potatoes. We grill 3 full slabs of ribs using a inverted wire rack resting on the main grate (cut ribs in 2 equal sections and stacked upright in 6 slots).
Customer service is responsive and pleasant. I was not careful and dropped the cast-iron grate and cracked it in half. The replacement grate was shipped the same day and we received it in 2 days.
We used an Oneida large pizza stone and rack from Bed Bath and Beyond. The rack was a perfect fit for straddling the inside tabs and suspending the pizza stone to deflect the heat for indirect cooking. I learned that spilling cold water on a hot stone causes them to crack (my wife has great patience with my experiential learning.)
I was a committed gas griller for the practicality and convenience (we use natural gas rather than a refillable propane tank). However, the ease of use and wonderful smoked-cooking of the Kamado have shifted the gas-grill to the back burner (pun intended).
We follow a number of the recipes from Hi-tech barbecue on You Tube and BGE forums.
We use the Kansas City rub from Cabelas for the ribs and marinate over night.
This an absolutely great value and has dramatically changed our attitude toward grilling. Our whole family looks forward to the weekend meal from our smoker. At $300, this is a steal.
There are no draw backs on this one.
UPDATE 2-18-2013
I purchased the Auber Industries for Temperature Controller for Large Big Green Eggs Item #: SYL-1614SYS-G for $130. This accessory controls the temperature to within 5 degrees. It takes all of the challenge out of controlling the temperature. It is a fan-powered air supply that inserts into the channels of the lower air vent of the Kamado. It is not battery operated. Rather, the Auber plugs into an outlet. Auber makes precision controllers for industry and found a niche for the kamado cookers. This is a very reasonable price and does exactly as designed.
Required:
1. Place some felt on the metal flange of the controller to give it an air-tight seal.
2. Optional: Remove the spring attachment. This is required for other smokers. You can leave it in place.
3. Wrap the electric wire that runs to the temperature probe with aluminum foil to provide added protection from heat.
4. I prefer to bring the Kamado up to the set temperature, and then activate the controller. I feel the heat gain can be too aggressive with the controller and it will overshoot the targeted temperature. Then it is difficult to bring the temperature down.
5. Once the controller is in place and operational, close the top vent on the Kamado. Especially at low temperatures (200 degrees), the coals will suck air through the top vent and exceed the set temperature.
6. When opening the lid for more than a few seconds, unplug the air controller. Otherwise, it will sense a drop in temperature and pump in air and heat up the coals.
7. This is a powerful little air controller that works with great precision when following the above procedures.
8. The unit is NOT designed to operate at below 32 degree outdoor weather. I made a cardboard box and have a low-wattage incandescent light bulb (do not let it get close to the controller. It will melt it. It can also burn the box. !!!!!! Be CAREFUL !!!!!!!!) I have used this successfully at 2 degrees outdoor temperature.
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
By TJH1966
I bought this grill last month after moving into a new house. I was tired of eating out as of late and found this piece in Gander mountain. I have been looking at this type of grill for some time. The price of the Big Green Egg and others that are comparable were a bit much for me at this time. When I found this grill I decided to give it a try and got it on sale for $219. I have cooked on it for 4 continous nights with great success. Steaks, burgers, and ribs (slow smoked)all turned out very good. The grill went together very easy and all the parts seem to be of quality materials. I have been grilling and cooking for a long time. The only flaw I have discovered is the temperature gauge. It requires calibration in the oven. After I found that it was off by 40 degrees, I found that there is no way to adjust. The instructions say to use a crescent wrench, but there is no way of doing so.
I have only used lump charcoal and some Weber fire starters as suggested with great results. It holds heat for a very long time and does not require much depending on temp required and time of cooking desired. All in all a great buy!
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