- What's up guys, it's Trevor with Embers
Fireplaces and Outdoor Living. We are doing a video that
you guys have been asking for for quite a while. We did our top five Kamados. You guys asked for more
specific in depth review between The Big Green Egg and the Kamado Joe Classic III. So we're here to deliver,
let's dive into this video. (upbeat music) So we thought we'd review today, The Big Green Egg versus the Kamado Joe Classic III, after being a lot more hands on with them, cooking on both of them. Wanted to just give you
my personal feedback between the two. You probably noticed on the internet there's already a lot
of content out there. So we wanna try to make the content a little bit different. We don't wanna overly repeat ourselves, but there are a few things that Big Green Egg did differently
that has changed recently. I think to try to
compete a little bit more with Kamado Joe that we'll talk about, and I'll tell you if I
like those things or not. And then specifically there's
a lot of content out there that has the Classic II, like older content classic
II versus The Big Green Egg. We want to talk about
the features that you get with the Classic III
versus the classic II, just to show you the differences. Let's dive into the video. So first thing off the bat is we are not apples to apples
here from a price standpoint, The Big Green Egg is a lot more affordable than the Classic III. That being said, you get a lot more with the Classic III and we'll show you all of that. So really from a price standpoint, this is gonna be more
comparable to the Classic II. But we want to compare it
against the Classic III. So you can see if it's worth the upgrades to maybe spring for something like this. So first of all, a couple of things that
Big Green Egg has changed. You probably saw, first of all, actually,
why don't we do this? Let's look on the inside and show you the way it's sitting here is how it comes standard out of the box. So you get your cooking grate, and then this is your fire
bowl here, fire bowl I guess, I don't know what you call
that fire bowl, charcoal bowl, whatever you wanna call it. So you're gonna put your charcoal in there and then load it that way. So one of the issues they
have is this thermal damage sometimes from this large bowl, I think that that's not a huge issue, but it could be a little bit. And then the main thing
that they've changed is the spring loaded system. Now you can see part of the
reason they've done that in my opinion anyways is Kamado Joe. Kamado Joe has the spring
assisted hood system. I think it has the best latch system. So I think they've sort of changed this. But, I don't know if the
audio is gonna pick it up, but you hear that, it's just. It seems a little more clunky to me. If that makes sense, I don't know. And then see how it's like
it's offset from bowl. So it's not like just lifting straight up. It's actually almost
like flipping backwards, and it just doesn't lift as high as the Kamado Joe Classic III. See that, so you're getting
more vertical space here. So even though this is improved and you don't need your
hands once it's open, it can just sort of stay open. I still think it's inferior. And then we still have
our gasket material. Now, the biggest complainant, and Elijah who's filming I think you can give us some feedback here but, Elijah not only has the privilege of filming all these videos. He gets the awesome privilege of putting all these grills together, which I know is his
favorite job, right Elijah? - [Elijah] Oh yeah definitely. - Look at this here. Would you say that this
was harder to put together than the Kamado? - [Elijah] I definitely yeah, - Yeah so see this, I couldn't get it seated perfectly. So this is not sitting perfectly. That could just be my fault. Maybe a little bit of user error. Or I should say Elijah's fault, he's the one that put it together. But, with the Classic III
it's already all assembled. So you don't even have to mess with that. I don't know. I still think it's not my favorite. And then they did change the cap up here. And I think they did that
for a couple of reasons. They had the old cast
iron one that'd flop open. It definitely stays put, so that's definitely improved. And then it's also weatherproof now. So rain's not gonna get in there. It's different than the Kamado but, that's definitely a much improved. I do like that. So the spring assist hood is nice, but it's still not quite on par. And then this is more all a cart. So this actual cart is a separate purchase that you have to make. I do like it, I do kind of like that the
handles back in behind it. So it's a little easier
to like wheel around, with a separate handle. And then also check this out Elijah, this bracket actually bolts to the grill. So this is fixed on here. So let's say you hit a bump or something, it's not like the whole
thing's gonna tip off. The actual cart's pretty
good I do like it. But again it's more separate all a cart, which I still think can come in handy. If you don't wanna spend a ton of money and you don't need many
accessories with your grill, you just want a basic Kamado. Let's say you're building an
indoor and outdoor kitchen. You just want a basic
charcoal ceramic grill. Big Green Egg is still very
sweet for that because, you can just get a basic egg and not spend a ton of money. Especially if you're on a budget. Let's go over to the Kamado
III or the Kamado Joe. I'm getting myself confused here. Let's talk about the Classic III now, unless you've been living under a rock, you're already familiar with
the spring assisted hood. No reason to go into that. Same with the, our top hood here. What are we calling this Elijah? Not top hood, what should we call this? Maybe our air control, I don't know. I don't know, you know who will tell us is a Smoking Dad BBQ,
let's give him a shout out. His channel is actually really cool. He loves correcting me on these videos. So stay tuned for his comment
'cause you know it's coming. He likes to correct me in what I say wrong about Kamado Joe. Stay tuned for that. So anyways, a gasket
material is much better. You also get the whole cart as well. And then these metal side
shells that are retractable. Also what's nice about
these being metal is you don't have to worry about them overheating or getting too hot. So a lot to unpack in the Classic III. So we have our cooking grates here. Now these are our dividing cooking grates. So these can set at different levels. You get these standard,
you get the cart standard. And then we have our two
half moon heat deflectors. So you can use one or both, and that's if you didn't want direct flame or direct heat on your meat, and then this little fun guy, this is gonna hold like a
cast iron pan or something you want this just sitting and loose. You could sort of have that
floating over your charcoal, which is pretty nice. And then here's our actual cooking rack that it's gonna sit on,
you get that standard. And then the most popular feature, you know what's really
surprised me about this year is how popular this feature is. Classic IIs for example, which don't have the slow roller we could keep in stock all day, but Classic IIIs, we literally
cannot keep in stock. So the principle behind this is that it's gonna create more smoke. Now I personally cook with
this at home and it does. And so if you're a low
and slow kind of guy, you're doing a lot of
briskets, pork butts, ribs, this is an awesome feature. And again, this is all standard. So the slow roller, probably
a fan favorite I would say. Then we have our charcoal basket. Again, heavy duty stainless steel basket, and then we also have our divider here. That's kind of cool If you
wanted to do some offset cooking only have the heat or
charcoal on one side, that's pretty slick. And then our sort of charcoal
bowl or charcoal basket. Now that's the charcoal basket. This is our, we'll call
this our charcoal bowl. These are individual pieces. I think it's a little more bulletproof from a thermal damage, things like that. That's sort of the
Classic III in a nutshell. Let's talk about some of
the final differences here. So again like I said, it's not quite apples to apples because The Big Green Egg is more affordable. So it would make sense
that the Classic III comes with more stuff, because you're gonna spend more money. It just makes sense. And what's cool about The Big Green Egg is they have a ton of accessories, so you can sort of trick it out and do the accessories you want. What's my final opinion. Well, I cook on these a lot. I personally have a Kamado
Joe Classic III at home. I have that at my house
because it's my favorite grill period right now to cook on. Some things we didn't even talk about, the DoJoe, so that's
gonna be your pizza oven. We have our JoeTisserie
kit, which is gonna be able to put a rotisserie
function on this grill. That is an awesome
feature, it's super fun. I have a video coming soon where
I rotisserie chicken wings. Yeah, that's right. Rotisseried chicken wings, but not in the way you think so click below if you
wanna check out that video. So it's just, I think a better
more well-designed product. Big Green Egg is just to
me, this is just my opinion. I'd love to hear your guys' feedback. It just feels a little
long in the tooth to me. Whereas this guy, this just
a more well thought out and sort of brought some
life into Kamado cooking. And then the slow roller is
an absolute fan favorite. It's pretty hard to duplicate that, with what we've seen from competitors. And everyone now is trying to go to this
spring assisted type hood. We're seeing in Primo, Primo's coming out with
a new system like that. How do you know something's working? It's when people try
to mimic it or copy it. And that's definitely what's
happening with Kamado Joe. I'm going on and on here. What else in new? I do that all the time. That's my opinion, If you're
choosing between these two, if you can spring for
it, get the Classic III, or if you're wanting a bigger
one and be the Big Joe III. I think there are their III series is the one of my favorite Kamado smokers on the market period. I have a ton of fun using it. I have a ton of fun making videos with it. You can check out some of
my cooking videos with it, but yeah, it's pretty
tough to beat this grill. So those are my thoughts. One thing I would like to know
your guys' comments on though is with Big Green egg, you know instead of talking
so much about design, they talk about durability
and longterm longevity with the ceramic, being a lifetime warranty,
ceramic's pretty durable, unless you drop it, then you're gonna have problems. So what I wanna know is I've only been messing around with Big
Green Egg for a couple years. Some of you long time cookers out there, did you see any quality difference between the quality of ceramic between the two. I'd like to get some feedback on people who have cooked
on it longer than me. So if you have some feedback there, that's one thing Big Green Egg is saying, I personally can't speak to that, but they're definitely telling me their quality of the actual
ceramic material is better. Don't really know what
to think about that. If that's really a sales pitch or if true. If you have any feedback, please let us know in the comment section. So that's it in a nutshell,
hopefully that helps. If you wanna see the Kamado Joe or The Big Green Egg in action, check out our other videos when we're actually cooking on them. If you're in the Denver Metro area, come to our showroom, check out the differences
between these two products. Stay tuned for more videos. Thanks so much. Subscribe.
