Vision Kamado - Indirect Setup

Hi, I just picked up my Vision grill and need to know which Heat deflector for the Kamado joe you're talking about. I see Two of themthe one for the regular Joe which is the same size as the Vision grill and the Big Joe which is 15". It looks like you're using the one for the Big Joe. Can you please confirm is for me as I don't want to order the wrong one.

Thanks in advance,
George

awesome thread! just purchased the vision from costco. any recommendations on cooking pork butts and briskets in a kamado? Thanks.

Drunk Monkey said:

I just ordered this "Kiln Shelf" from an online pottery store.

https://www.axner.com/cordierite-shelf-15roundx58.aspx

It is 15" and 5/8 thick. It is rated for cone 6 kilns (up to 2165 degrees, had to look that up)

I will let you know how it goes. Cost $17.95 plus shipping. I also got the half shelf since it only cost $10.95.

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That's a great idea about the shelve. How did it work our? Could you have gone with the 16" version?

Great thread!

I recently purchased a Vision Grill Classic B from CostCo. I would like to do both some smoking and pizza, and am trying to figure out a decent deflector plate setup.

I've read this thread about folks using the Kamado Joe deflector plate, and about the optional notching of the fire bowl that voids the warranty. I've also seen the ceramicgrillstore.com options.

Based on the comments here (http://www.nakedwhiz.com/productreviews/kamadojoe/kjclassic3.htm) it sounds like a smaller gap at the edge (15" stone versus 13" stone as a deflector) is preferable.
I was thinking of using:
- Deflector setup: ceramicgrillstore.com 2012 Vision Spider + 15" Kamado Joe pizza stone (I understand this is the same stone as the deflector, but with some extra embossing)
- Another Pizza stone 16-18" on the top grate that comes with the vision.

How well would this work? Would a 14" cast iron pan work better? If using a larger stone on-top than the deflector, will have a ring-shaped hot-spot at the perimeter?

I didn't see other folks talking about just setting the top/pizza stone on one of the upper grates, and am not sure why you would the jig that comes with the KJ deflector plate. if someone can enlighten me about this, that would be great.

Lastly, when cooking pizza, is there an ideal distance between the deflector plate and the pizza stone? I've heard you want the pizza as high as possible in the dome, and notice most of the deflector plates drop down.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Grillgrates

One other accessory I found that "Works" is the Grillgrate.
http://www.grillgrate.com/

They make them for the Lrge Green Egg and it works perfectly on the Vision. Do a great job with lump charcoal on steaks. The crosshatch grill pattern on the meat impresses everyone. Might also work as deflector. I am going to experiment and let you know.:mod:

I was able to purchase a Vision grill from Costco last week that was marked "Last One". I had looked at them every week since they put them out in the spring, but had not purchased one. This one was already on a cart and was marked down to $499.00. I looked it up on Costco.com and saw someone had bought one from a Costco in Chicago a few days earlier on clearance for $400.00. I mentioned that to the general manager and he marked it down to $399.00.

After seeing this thread I bought the Kamado Joe heat deflector, pizza stone, and chicken stand from a local Pike's Nursery.

Now that I have it, I have to learn how to cook with charcoal. Is there a place on this forum that shows step by step the different ways to cook on this type of grill?

Thanks for any advice you can provide to a BBQ lover and soon to be BBQ cook.

New Vision Grill

I picked up a Vison Gill at Cosco in N. Miami Last week for $399. So far i cooked in it twice and had great luck. The firt time i cooked w/o a deflector and had great results. Low and Slow. The next time I made a deflector out of a pizza stone I had around. The stone did a good job. I used the fire grate from my webber to hold it and put the grates on top of the stone. I had the stone too close to the lower grate so i got some charring i wan't expecting, but the meat came out great. Added some water Soaked Apple wood chunks to the Lup Charcoal.

fredcook said:

I was able to purchase a Vision grill from Costco last week that was marked "Last One". I had looked at them every week since they put them out in the spring, but had not purchased one. This one was already on a cart and was marked down to $499.00. I looked it up on Costco.com and saw someone had bought one from a Costco in Chicago a few days earlier on clearance for $400.00. I mentioned that to the general manager and he marked it down to $399.00.

After seeing this thread I bought the Kamado Joe heat deflector, pizza stone, and chicken stand from a local Pike's Nursery.

Now that I have it, I have to learn how to cook with charcoal. Is there a place on this forum that shows step by step the different ways to cook on this type of grill?

Thanks for any advice you can provide to a BBQ lover and soon to be BBQ cook.

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Congrats on your purchase and welcome. You'll love the Vision kamado. The following site is for kamado cooking http://www.kamadoguru.com/. (not sure if I can post it but...)

It's got a wealth of info on kamados and there is specifically a section for Vision kamados. It's a learning curve but you'll get the hang of it quick and you'll never want cook on anything else. Seems like you're geared up and ready as well with the accessories.

Question for those who made the Kamado Joe deflector mod on the Vision Kamado. Will you be able to use the double rack with this mod? I am wondering if there is enough clearance to use the top rack...

Rack

The rack fits on top of the Kamado Joe rack with no issues. Place the disk in the bottom of the Joe rack in this config.

DIY Heat Deflector

Hi All,

This is my first post so please excuse me if this question has already been answered.

I have a new Vision Grill, the kind you can find at Costco. I need some sort of a heat deflector but am not sold on the one that Vision offers. Before I check out all the other commercial options out there, I would like to see if I can come up with an DIY solution.

I have a large piece of 1/4" steel that I could probably shape to fit. Is that a good plan?

Another option is to use stone. I have a bunch of leftover pieces of Travertine and granite from a kitchen remodel. Has anyone tried using either of these materials?

Both the Travertine and granite pieces are 18" tiles which means that they are not very thick. I was thinking of doubling them up to get more thermal mass. Any thoughts on this idea?

Finally, assuming that my plan to use metal or stone is viable, what is the best way to hang the deflector inside the smoker?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Bob

dsafety said:

Hi All,

This is my first post so please excuse me if this question has already been answered.

I have a new Vision Grill, the kind you can find at Costco. I need some sort of a heat deflector but am not sold on the one that Vision offers. Before I check out all the other commercial options out there, I would like to see if I can come up with an DIY solution.

I have a large piece of 1/4" steel that I could probably shape to fit. Is that a good plan?

Another option is to use stone. I have a bunch of leftover pieces of Travertine and granite from a kitchen remodel. Has anyone tried using either of these materials?

Both the Travertine and granite pieces are 18" tiles which means that they are not very thick. I was thinking of doubling them up to get more thermal mass. Any thoughts on this idea?

Finally, assuming that my plan to use metal or stone is viable, what is the best way to hang the deflector inside the smoker?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Bob

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Check out http://www.kamadoguru.com/. Plenty of threads and discussions specifically on Vision kamados including DIY deflectors.

I have a Vision Pro that came with the lava stone heat deflector and I like it, I've had no trouble with it and I've been using it year round since June 2012. I recently noticed the Vision site said they are selling deflectors separately again. I still use a cookie sheet placed on the firebowl edge, above the stone but below the grill to prevent burning. I smoke a lot of whole legs and shoulders so the edges of these big pieces of meat need a larger area of protection than the stone alone gives.

I'm jealous of the ¼" steel. N8man has a steel plate in one of his vertical metal smokers and he says that thing works beautifully to regulate and distribute heat and lasts forever. Don't remember how thick it is, I think it was some kind of agricultural or industrial saw blade. I'd love to get my hands on one this summer, I'm planning to bring an old bullet smoker to life and I'd rather have a thick steel plate deflector than a water pan. I'll use stone if I can't find the right piece of metal.

Kathy's Smokin' said:

I'm jealous of the ¼" steel. N8man has a steel plate in one of his vertical metal smokers and he says that thing works beautifully to regulate and distribute heat and lasts forever. Don't remember how thick it is, .

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So if I make a metal plate, or use some of the natural stone tiles, how big should I make the disc or should it be another shape? What is the best distance to mount the deflector above the bottom of the fire bowl? Should I hang it from the top or make some feet that sit in the coals? There are lots of ways to do this.

I am a big-time tinkerer and the occasional inventor so this stuff is fun for me. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with egg smokers so I am going to have to rely on you guys for some advice.

Bob

Hi all, I'm a newbie re: kamado style grilling. I have a Vision Classic B-Series grill and I'm looking to start doing some smoking. I am having a hard time discerning the wisest choice for occassional smoking from this thread. I can get the Kamado Joe Heat Deflector (KJIHP23) for 80 dollars or go with a Vision Heat Deflector from Home Depot but I read that it breaks after a few uses. I know a lot of these posts were from a few years ago but I'm hoping with time someone has a definitive answer. Thanks in advance! Mike

chargerteacher said:

Hi all, I'm a newbie re: kamado style grilling. I have a Vision Classic B-Series grill and I'm looking to start doing some smoking. I am having a hard time discerning the wisest choice for occassional smoking from this thread. I can get the Kamado Joe Heat Deflector (KJIHP23) for 80 dollars or go with a Vision Heat Deflector from Home Depot but I read that it breaks after a few uses. I know a lot of these posts were from a few years ago but I'm hoping with time someone has a definitive answer. Thanks in advance! Mike

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I have moved from Newbee to semi-experienced since I first posted in this forum. There is a lot of good information here but the two best tips that I picked up when I first started using my Vision Classic was to use large charcoal chunks and that a heat deflector is one of your most important tools.

I once made the mistake of putting room temperature pizza dough on a ceramic stone when the stone was heated to over 500 degrees. The explosion was not very violent but the stone cracked into about 10 pieces. Since I knew that I would likely repeat this event if I continued to use a ceramic heat deflector, I went to metal. For less than $15 I picked up a 14" x 1/4" steel disk at a local metal supplier.

I position the metal disk on the lower grill and cook on the higher grill. After lots of use, the disk is rusty and ugly but works perfectly. I expect that it will continue to work well for many years to come.

I use the deflector for almost all types of cooking. If I need to sear something, I remove the disk during that portion of the process and put it back in place, (using long pliers), for the rest of the cooking time.

When cooking pizza, I like to have the temperature quite hot so I use a metal pan positioned above the deflector.

Here is something that I learned on my own. I found that preparing the pizza on a piece of parchment paper makes it easy to transport the soft dough to the pan. After the pizza cooks for a couple minutes, I lift the edge of the pizza and pull out the parchment paper. Don't wait tool long, however because eventually the parchment will catch fire and blacken the bottom of the pizza. No bueno!

Bob

Bob, that is an awesome post and idea--can I get a pic of your metal plate? I'm curious as to how thick it is (i'm guessing about 1/4" based on above posts). Thanks!! Mike

chargerteacher said:

Bob, that is an awesome post and idea--can I get a pic of your metal plate? I'm curious as to how thick it is (i'm guessing about 1/4" based on above posts). Thanks!! Mike

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It is 1/4 thick. The metal supply place had a number of sizes and thicknesses but this seemed to be right. I will try to post a photo but there is not much to see. It is just a plain round metal disk. I set it on the lower grill and cook on the upper grill. If I had one of those hangers which clip on to the fire bowl, it would free up the lower grill, but the way I have things set up, it works just fine.

Bob

Dsafety, I'm sorry I didn't see your post from Feb 18/14. :doh:

I never did get a metal plate, I'm still using the same set up with a cookie sheet on top of the lava stone/below the grill. A great side-effect of the cookie sheet is it catches the grease from what I'm smoking. The cookie sheet keeps the kamado clean automatically without me having to spend time cleaning out grease. I still have some overcooking issues once in a while at the edge not covered by the stone or cookie sheet but it doesn't seem to bother me as much as it used to. Guess I'm too busy to complain! ….. or I'm getting better at arranging partway through a cook.

I do like my original set up from Vision that looks like this and is mounted on the fire bowl, though I must admit I've not tried any other. I took this photo from the Home Depot website.



I've now been smoking for 3.5 years with my original set up and it's as durable now as it ever was. My biggest surprise is the old cookie sheet is still in one piece! I use both levels of the grill often so losing one level for a deflector would compromise my ability to cook how I like to. Just a few days ago I had a beef ribs and chicken thighs on the bottom level and chicken wings on the top level. Those wings were amazing, I'm still having dreams about them. :clap2: