Product Review: The Big Green Egg Barbecue and Smoker

Is the Big Green Egg the World's Best Barbecue and Smoker?

Despite the popularity of industry standard Weber barbecues and Brinkmann barbecues, its a barbecue-smoker combination that has everybody talking and seeing what all the fuss is about. It's called the Big Green Egg, and in the eyes of many who have tried it, it's quickly earning its reputation as "The World's Best Smoker and Grill".

The Big Green Egg Smoker and Barbecue is thusly named because it appears as a rather large green egg, supported by a sturdy frame. The Big Green Egg is actually designed after a 3,000 year old oriental design called the Kamado cooker. The Kamado cooker was originally utilized by the ancient Chinese, and was then adapted by the Japanese, who gave it the name "Kamado", which translates into oven, or stove. Like the Kamado cookers of ancient China and Japan, the Big Green Egg is a ceramic cooker, but has been updated with far superior heavy duty ceramics that comes with a lifetime guarantee, and provides better heat insulation.

Due to the unique design of the Big Green Egg, you can cook foods at both amazingly high temperatures as well as low temperatures, making the Big Green Egg an ideal smoker. Its other parts are of made quality materials, and have been vastly improved since the first inception of Big Green Egg barbecue and smoker in the late 1970s.

It is these many new improvements and the amazing food cooked using the Big Green Egg that has everybody talking, and as I love to barbecue quite often, I sought to try it for myself. Luckily, I did not have to purchase one, as a friend had recently done so and allowed me to help set it up with him and subsequently test its cooking capabilities.

The Big Green Egg comes in three sizes, and the cost starts at about $500, with the largest size about $900. In my opinion, unless you plan barbecue for very large family or large amounts of people quite often, I'd go with the medium size Big Green Egg. It's a few hundred dollars more than the small size, but at least this way you'll have the option of being able to cook larger quantities of food should a situation call for it, and as the Big Green Egg excels at grilling and smoking, you'll likely use it often.