Kamado Joe Kettle Joe 22-Inch Charcoal Kettle Grill - KJ15040320

I bought this grill a month ago and so far so good need more time to find out all this product can do. But what I have done so far has been great.

I love that I can, sear, grill and smoke. I had a high end pellet grill and I get a better smoke flavor from this unit then my pellet grill.

Wish I had bought a kamado style cooker sooner. For the money it was a great place to start for inexperienced kamado user like myself. I lovey it

This is such an exciting new product! Hybrid kettle and kamado grill. So many possibilities of things to cook. Assemble was easy. Very reasonably priced.

I haven't tried smoking yet, but for steaks and burgers, it's great!

I've had my Kettle Joe since June and I love it. Coming from a Weber kettle, this offers the heat retention and the Slo Roller technology in a kettle format. I've smoked tri tips, grill steaks and chicken, and even made Pakistani Nihari It's a great stepping stone towards a ceramic grill.

I am a long time griller. Have had several Weber, Yoder, Memphis, Primo products, pellet smokers, ceramic, kettles and gas grills. The Kettle Joe is my first Komodo Joe product however. I will start by saying that I mostly like this grill. It is better built then a Weber kettle. The stand and over all materials are good. I have done 3 cooks on it now and the food has turned out as expected. My big issue which is a deal breaker is that I went through a whole bag of Big Block lump in those three cooks. And neither cook was longer then 4 hours. I have never seen this. One of the big issues is that this grill will not seal anywhere. It leaks at all rim surfaces and through the holes in the thermometer and the sliding intake door and the chimney are overly loose IMO. My last cook was a 2 hour cook so the grill was running for 3 hours. I shut it down at 6pm and the grill was still lit at 1130pm. It burns until all the fuel is gone. I have tried many different ways to correct this but it is just a fact that it lets too much air in. To add the slow roller and diffuser warped during the first cook. I also agree with other reviewers that the ash clean out is basically useless. I have submitted a claim so we will see what kind of service Komodo Joe has. I really want to be happy with this product but I can't be by the way it performs.

Poor design, ash goes down between drawer and housing and drawer does not slide out. Have to take housing and drawer out at some time, very inconvenient. Also the drawer is where the air flows through to control temperature. If you don't get to it in time to empty during cooking it will not slide out, then air does not flow properly. Does not take a lot of ash for this to happen. I know nothing can be done as far as the company. Going to try and add a lip above the channel where drawer slides in, should work. I am a novice griller and smoker, really like what the rest of the grill has to offer. Also on rating I am not taking ash drawer into consideration, except for design

Recently added a kettle Joe to my outdoor cooking arsenal. Been able to do everything a Weber kettle can do, but with a lot more features and overall capability. I am a big 2 zone cooking guy and love the versatility u get by having split cooking grates where u can start over direct heat and finish over indirect or reverse sear with the same setup. The removable sloroller also turns this kettle into a bonafide smoker with improved airflow and 22" of edge to edge indirect cooking. I also really like the hinged lid, stainless charcoal ash basket and ceramic petals which help this cooker retain heat and act more like a Kamado style grill. Here are a few cooks I've done thus far with many more to come!

1 user found this review unhelpful

I have owned several Kamado Joes. I had a classic 2 that I sold in order to purchase a Big Joe 2, which I currently own. I also recently bought this Kettle Joe. After 2 months, I have found this grill to be a big disappointment and think Kamado Joe really missed the mark with this one. My ash tray warped after two months, but to be honest it was pretty worthless in the first place. It is very difficult to remove any old ash/charcoal from this grill. The hinge idea with this grill is good, but not well executed. I find it very difficult to get the dome to raise for smoking and then lower for grilling. Don't know if I got a bad hinge or what, but mine is definitely terrible. When I do get the dome to raise or lower, I often have to make further adjustments with the hinge to get the grill to seal up. I also sometime have trouble getting the side tables to lock into place from time to time. I have also found that the grill doesn't hold temperature for well for smoking. I have tried smoking a ham and small pork roast with this grill. In both cases, the temperature started to drop after 4-5 hours. When I pulled the slo roller, I found that all of my charcoal had burned up despite the fact that I completely filled the grill with charcoal and ran it at around 250 degrees. The grill also seems to have a lot of leaks and wastes a lot of charcoal. Anytime I grill steaks, burgers, etc. I can fill the charcoal basket and grill anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. I then shut down the grill vents (both top and bottom) and it takes hours for the fire to burn out and the grill temperature to come down. Usually when I open up the grill the next day, all of my charcoal has completely burned up. I wasn't expecting this to be as good as a ceramic Joe by any means, but it should be better than it is. Personally, I would recommend purchasing a Weber Kettle to anyone who is thinking about buying this grill. Sorry Kamado Joe.

1 user found this review helpful