$299 Char-Griller Kamado First Looks

Excellent JM. Picked mine up yesterday. May try and do the seasoning on it tonight. I also did pick up the Weber Charcoal grate and a 16 inch clay saucer for a heat diffuser. The Kamado itself went together very nicely. Took me just about and hour to put it all together. Can not wait to fire it up.

JMSetzler said:

I did a little bit of air sealing yesterday on the ash pan and lower air vent to see if I can improve the airflow into this cooker. Upon closer inspection of the air vent after removing it from the pan, I found several sources of probable airflow issues. I used some high temp rtv silicone around the vent and a few other places to see if I can better control it. If those mods are successful, as I believe they will be, I'll post some photos of what I did....

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Glad you were able to find those areas, sealing them up is going to help quite a bit. A small leak of air around the vent area is killer on a cooker like this. Can't wait to see the pics.

It now has a name

Went over to lowes to pick up the cover for my Chargriller Kamado and they have new advertising signs up around it, and the cover has a Chargriller trademark along with the name they gave their kooker. The salesman told me they are now told to call it the "akorn" cooker. That is also the name on the cover logo and all of the new advertising signs. It's a pretty big acorn, but than again the BGE came from a really big chicken. "Now you know the rest of the story, and good night !!!"

New job making more money. Check
In need of a Kamado grill. Check
Gave up buying myself anything for Lent :doh:

I don't even have one yet and I'm already working on some mods for it. First I was thinking of making an adapter ring to set a WSM water pan above the coals for the heat diffuser. JM do you think there is room for the water pan? Here is a basic drawing.

lola said:

Went over to lowes to pick up the cover for my Chargriller Kamado and they have new advertising signs up around it, and the cover has a Chargriller trademark along with the name they gave their kooker. The salesman told me they are now told to call it the "akorn" cooker. That is also the name on the cover logo and all of the new advertising signs. It's a pretty big acorn, but than again the BGE came from a really big chicken. "Now you know the rest of the story, and good night !!!"

Click to expand...

I always thought that the Big Green Egg should have been called the Big Green Avacado. :crazy:

The ash pan is peppered with holes around the welds. At least mine is. I took high temp silicone and sealed all of them up. Did they make the front vent any better or is it still really loose?

JS-TX said:

Glad you were able to find those areas, sealing them up is going to help quite a bit. A small leak of air around the vent area is killer on a cooker like this. Can't wait to see the pics.

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Yes true enough JS-TX having some experience with the kamodo BBQ (my broil king keg) it worried me that you had the bottom vent all the way closed in your video and held that temp for so long JM, which is telling me that air is indeed getting in. I will tell you my Keg is sealed up like fort knox and if i shut my vent down like that it will pretty much begin to snuff out. So look for those holes seal them up and you should be good to go! like I said im will be getting the char griller as my "second" kamodo cant wait to have both going at once!

Will work for bbq said:

I don't even have one yet and I'm already working on some mods for it. First I was thinking of making an adapter ring to set a WSM water pan above the coals for the heat diffuser. JM do you think there is room for the water pan? Here is a basic drawing.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong but I don't think there is much room for a water pan, not anything deeper than a couple inches anyway. Speaking of water, I wouldn't suggest using water in this type of cooker. It retains moisture pretty well on it's own and you could get some serious steam burns if you are not careful. A clay saucer is perfect for this cooker and it's not pricey either.

I can't get this kamado out of my mind. Will the price go up or down before summer?

Sold the Char-Griller finally, now I have to make a choice between saving and buying this grill or getting a OTG Kettle. Good problem to have.

Hey JM I wanted to thank you for posting that Beef rub recipe on your blog site. I had a bottle of Montreal steak seasoning hanging around for a year so was glad for a way to try to get some use out of it. Applied a bit before grilling a skirt steak this evening. Wife and I really liked it.

JMSetzler said:

I did a little bit of air sealing yesterday on the ash pan and lower air vent to see if I can improve the airflow into this cooker. Upon closer inspection of the air vent after removing it from the pan, I found several sources of probable airflow issues. I used some high temp rtv silicone around the vent and a few other places to see if I can better control it. If those mods are successful, as I believe they will be, I'll post some photos of what I did....

Click to expand...

I went to the post office and picked up a change of address pack and got the lowes 10% coupon out . I looked it over and it said it expired 2/15/12----CRAP !! I took it to lowes and they honered it anyway. So I got my "acorn" for $269.99. Best part is it was already assembled. I have a question though. Do you use regular wood chunks with the lump for smoke just the lump?

DannyDyson said:

I took it to lowes and they honered it anyway. So I got my "acorn" for $269.99. Best part is it was already assembled. I have a question though. Do you use regular wook chunks with the lump for smoker just the lump?

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:thumb: Good deal! On my egg, I put a wood chunk on the lump about 10 - 15 minutes before I put the meat on.

DannyDyson said:

I went to the post office and picked up a change of address pack and got the lowes 10% coupon out . I looked it over and it said it expired 2/15/12----CRAP !! I took it to lowes and they honered it anyway. So I got my "acorn" for $269.99. Best part is it was already assembled. I have a question though. Do you use regular wood chunks with the lump for smoke just the lump?

Click to expand...

:clap2:


http://www.ehow.com/how_5351087_lowes-off-coupon.html

http://www.lowes.com/cd_Offers+and+Services_425333486_

JS-TX said:

I could be wrong but I don't think there is much room for a water pan, not anything deeper than a couple inches anyway. Speaking of water, I wouldn't suggest using water in this type of cooker. It retains moisture pretty well on it's own and you could get some serious steam burns if you are not careful. A clay saucer is perfect for this cooker and it's not pricey either.

Click to expand...

JMSetzler said:

I think it might work. I wouldn't make the water pan more than 2" deep or so... maybe 3". When I get mine uncovered again on Friday I'll have a closer look at that. I LOVE your idea and I think it would be awesome. The water pan would make it a lot easier to maintain the lower temps. I'd be interested in one of those for sure.

The WSM water pan is going to be too deep....

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Thanks that is good to know, I have zero experience with these types of cookers but I plan on picking one up Saturday along with some clay saucers and will make a prototype adapter ring on Monday, will post pictures and see how it goes.

Hey Brethren....did my seasoning burn in on my Char Griller last night. Cleaned off the cast iron grate with soap and water to get rid of the protective gunk that it had on, and then coated it up in oil for seasoning. Half filled the fire box with some RO lump. Lite up a weber starter cube on top of the lump and cover with some more lump losely to get her going. Once going nicely closed the lid and let it start to come up to temp. I was shooting for 400. When it was at 300 I started to close down the vents. Put them both to the 2 mark. When it got to 350 I closed the bottom vent to 1 and let it roll to 400 and then closed the top vent to 1 as well. From then on I barely had to touch any of the vents for the burn in. It held at 400 pretty much for 2 hours very nicely. I did use JM's suggestion of putting a Weber Charcoal grate where the difusser plate for this would go. I also had a 16 inch clay saucer sitting on that grate. After the burn in I closed off both vents to shut it down. At this point no smoke was noted so I do not believe I had any leaks to worry about. In about 45 minutes the temp was down below 300. Then another half hour had it below 250. Roughly 2 hours after clsoing it down I was under 100. I will be curious today when I get home to see how much of the lump was actually burned during this process. Overall very pleased with this on the initial run. Plan on a few cooks over the weekend and will try and post some PRON.