Anybody have any insights to this cooker? I’ve never used a kamado before and I see a used one of these for sale near me for $150. Near as I can tell this should be very similar to the akorn which seems quite popular on this forum. Just want to know if this would be a cheap way to play around with kamado style cooking or if it would leave a sour taste in my mouth. Thanks.
The high sticker price of popular kamados prevents many consumers from jumping into the kamado ring. Char-Broil’s Kamander changes all that with a list price of $349.99 making Kamader one of the lowest cost kamados on the market. We tested and reviewed the Char-Broil Kamander Charcoal Grill and award it our AmazingRibs.com Best Value Silver Medal.
My Akorn is outstanding. This is pretty much identical.
I have a need for 3 wheels and prefer the 2 shelves design for the Akorn. If that doesn’t matter to you, I’d get it.
My Akorn was also $200 used (and came with the wrong cover so I had buy another for $25) so $150 is a very good price especially outside of Texas. I think you will love it.
IIRC the Kamander has been out of production for at least a couple years. If you were to need any replacement parts that might be a challenge, though there may be some inventory at CB.........worth a check if your interest is high enough.
As an aside, when CB/OKJ designed the Bronco cookers they used the same design principles for intake air..............very effective design.
We have a Broil King Keg so green apple red apple as far as Kamado's go.
But hey, why not, consider it another arrow in your cooker quiver.
Kamado's aren't rocket science once you get the hang of the dampers.
Sounds like a fair price but make a counter offer on the price see where it goes.
I have one I wanted to try a Kamando style cooker and this was on sale at aldi s for 197$ should have bought two had mine for 3 years and its well made. it's insulated and holds the heat well so your charcoal lasts. On long cooks only light a few brackets once you get the daisy wheel dampers set right it works great done ribs briskets butts bacon and chicken and all turned out great. I also bought a tip top for the top damper and it works very well . there is a web site I think its tims budget bbq he does a lot of cooks and mods for this cooker go for it
The air intake is what caught my eye on that one. I remember it on sale at Aldi. I was tempted, but since I already had a BGE I passed. I still think the air intake is genius especially for any place that battles gusting winds.
So the person listing this grill for $150 on offer up never replied. Oddly enough there was another one listed there with an ask of $250. Offered him $200 and picked it up yesterday. I noticed that he never swapped out the plastic air intake. What I failed to notice was that at the bottom of that intake is supposed to be a cap. When I got home I realized it was missing. I messaged the seller and he apparently didn’t know that he had been using this thing without it since his father in law gave it to him! I guess he has never needed to cook low and slow. I found a pipe end cap at the hardware store to fix this for a few bucks. Plan to use the unit today and play around with it. Looking at Char Broils’ website it looks like the are now charging $45 for the updated metal intake system. For anyone who has one of these do you think that’s worth paying for?
I guess the real question is did Char Broil offer the metal upgrade because of an actual design flaw or because of consumer complaints about plastic being used on the unit?
Anyway, I’m going to get some tri tips and fire this thing up today. Thanks everyone for your input.
Last edited by Calicowdoc; June 12, 2022, 08:32 AM.
Any home improvement store should carry a pvc pipe end cap you would have to measure for the proper inside diameter the would fit and cut the slot out with maybe a dremel
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Make sure the intake is made of metal and not plastic, the early models were melting. I like this cookers performance better than my akorn and broil king. It get super hot quickly so it's great for pizza. (Bkk of course superior build)
First time using it went well. Did a couple of tri-tips and a veggie medley. I used kingsford pro because a: that is what I have on hand and b: I’ve never used lump before. I figure the less new things to work on at once is better. I also didn’t use the heat deflector because my plan was to cook the meat low and slow then pull it and see how hot this thing can get to do a seat with.
Im not sure how many briquettes I put in the bottom, but I pulled about 20 out to light in a chimney. Got those going and put them back into the center of my pile with a couple chin is of oak. Managing the vents I got the temp to come up to about 260 and settle. After I was confident it was holding temp I put the meat on. That cooled the chamber a bit and my temp settled in at 230. The temp stayed there for the entire low part of the cook. The tri-tips got to 120 internal a little faster than I thought they would at that temp taking only about 45 min. I think this is because I had some poor lean cuts. Like I said, they got to temp and I pulled them out and opened all the vents. Put the veggies on to cook while the cooker was heating up. My probe only measures up to 572. It took about ten min to go up to the H reading on my in cooker thermometer and the dome guage was reading 700. Those grates were good and hot and got a nice sear on those tri-tips.
Overall the cook went well, I don’t think I got as much smoke/color on the meat from the slow part of my cook as I would’ve liked. Maybe I didn’t start enough briquettes to start with? Could also be a function of cheap meat. The unit did hold temp just like hoped it would and got plenty hot when I needed it to. I also checked the plastic intake often and never felt it was getting warm let alone hot. I’ll need to keep an eye on that but it was good for me today. And now the requested pics:
Attached Files
Last edited by Calicowdoc; June 12, 2022, 10:48 PM.
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