Kamado Joe vs Big Green egg Primo Pork Butt Throwdown, Akorn

Welcome back to Baby Back Maniac‘s YouTube channel! This week, we’re going to cook up some pork butt and see which grill does the job best. We have an exciting article about Kamado Joe vs Big Green Egg, Primo, and Akorn grills that you don’t want to miss out on if dinner is in your future this weekend (or maybe even today).

I was so excited to find these at Home Depot! They normally sell for 20 bucks a pound but now they’re on sale for only 3,90 per bag. It doesn’t quite make up for how much I overpaid before, though – 34 bags of this stuff came outta my pocket after all was said and done 🙂

People are always asking me if this charcoal will work in a Kamado grill. I’ve never even tried it myself, so I decided to find it out. The arguments against using briquettes are usually chemical, but these are 100% pure, natural briquettes that don’t contain any chemicals or lighter fluid. They’re perfect for those who want an alternative to traditional firewood and charcoal.

Weber’s 100% all-natural hardwood charcoal is the perfect way to get that authentic smoky flavor your favorite BBQ joints are known for. Charcoal is what they call it. A hundred percent, all-natural hardwood.

The four pits on the XR50 are all coming up to temperature. If you’re interested, we can go ahead and get this cooking started. I’m so excited! We have our pork seasoned up with this honey and it’s just perfect. I’ve never used the ingredient before, but now that you’re telling me how easy grill cooking is going to be for dinner tonight – I can’t wait. Be sure I’ll let you know what I think about it after this is over.

A lot of people might be wondering why we’re not using our Weber summit today. The grill is an amazing grill, but the truth is because that grill was designed with briquettes in mind. So I know what will happen if you run that full of briquettes. It works fine and it’s as though the fire is running on lump instead. So, I just left that out of the comparison because you know how it goes.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Choice: Top-list grills

When people ask me why my cookers are so clean, I have this trick up my sleeve. After all the hard work in preparing and cooking food for hours on end-I just might need some time off from scrubbing pans.

The delicious smell of pork butt cooking fills the air. This is one of my favorite parts of this job! I can’t wait for it to be done so that we’ll have all those succulent meats ready later on down below… I just need six or eight hours more, then everything will finally shut off up here. So, watch out for that. It’s a tough task! somebody has to take care of business like this.

The Kamado Joe seems to be a better choice for cooking in this test

I’m not sure why but I think that one of these brands is going to do well with their product line-up, and it’s most likely not going to involve the Big Green Egg since they’re so popular right now. I am not trying to say that one of these three brands is better than the other. What I do know, though and this may come as a surprise to some people out there who have been cooking on that grills all along without realizing it – is that the size matters. The Kamado Joe has much more space underneath for that ash to fall through than the Big Green Egg. I think this will be a major limiting factor and it’s not easy placing food on top when you’re using an open flame, but if done right can make all of your foods taste better. When compared to Kamado Joe, the Big Green Egg has a much smaller pocket for ash. Not only that but it also doesn’t have any kind of cooking surface or firepot in its own right.

The Acorn will also be okay, but it’s not because of its design. The more space underneath for ash to fall through and the efficiency at which food cooks make this a better option than other models on offer from competitors. The double-walled design of this cooker means that it’s more efficient than ceramic. What this means is that less coal used in this cooker will result in a lot less ash being generated. Then it also has a wire grate below, which is perfect for catching smaller debris. Now that brings back memories of using the kick Ash basket in Big Green Egg and Kamado Joe.

When I was thinking about going back to the stock setup, just so people would know how each one of these Kamados works with their own particular setup. But with this one, it was like I’m not ever going to use my grills without the kick ash basket. The Kick Ash Basket is a great product that just makes things easier for me. I can throw out all of the ash and debris without worrying about it getting everywhere, which saves time in between cleanups. So if you have a Big Green Egg or Kamado Joe, then it’s time for an upgrade. The kick Ash basket will make your smoking experience more enjoyable.

I’m very excited about Primo’s chances in this competition. It has a larger firebox and ash collection space under its hood, so I think that will help it fare better than last when we had some problems with flare-ups during the cooking. This might be the most stable cook ever, and everything works just like normal. However, I do think that as soon as those onions turn brown from burning they’re going to choke on their own Ash because there’s so much Charcoal build-up at bottom of the cooker where it is currently lit; but we’ll see what happens!

Hey, everyone. We’re at the 4-hour mark and the meat is almost dark! I wanted to take a quick view of how things are going with you all before we eat our vegetables (or anything else). Here you go. That looks great!

Let’s do a quick internal check-in and see what we’re working with before moving on to the next step

Man, Primo sure does look good. So the meat is at around 137 right now and we have a lot of time left to go.
Let’s take a look at the Akorn grill. See here, this one is running just slightly cooler than our previous example and because of that difference in temperature, you can already tell there will be less cooked meat. Let me quickly check the internal temperature of all my cookers. This is most likely to run away. I’ve been told that it’s really insulated and can be a little air leaky. So sometimes the temp will get up to 400 degrees, but that is not too bad off here with our 113 degrees so far. So long way still on this guy, but that’s all right. The fastest one is not always the winner. Let’s get the snap back on here. It will just take some time for them to see if they can manage their charcoal or work with this new kind of grill that I bought last week.
Do you guys see that one over there? That’s the Kamado Joe grill. It looks like it’ll cook your meat pretty fast and well done too, which is perfect. The temperature has been steadily rising at 150-152 degrees and it’s looking good.
The Big Green Egg is a great example of how different they can be. It has an internal temperature that ranges from 151-152 degrees Fahrenheit, which means you’ll never need another tool for cooking again.

It was a little after the last update when we noticed that something wasn’t right. The wind started blowing, and then just as quickly it began dropping in temperature. When I returned to my grills, the temperature was only 55-60 degrees.

Editor’s Choice: Top-list grills

The pork is out and ready to be eaten

The total cook time for this experiment was 7 hours. I wrapped the meat in all of my smokers at once, and they were all between 152-165 degrees when done cooking. They were all ready to be wrapped by the time I got them. The big cookers – my Premo and Kamado Joe needed another three hours before they would finally tender. And then there are the two smaller cookers-the Akorn and Big Green Egg. They needed 45 more minutes on top of that.

Still, I was bored to tears. Like nothing happened; it almost seemed like a normal cook, instead of an experiment with extra ingredients that caused something new and exciting. The only difference between these two methods is that it took a little longer for the cookers to come up to temperature. Other than this, nothing else happened when using either briquette; flame size was about equal and there was no significant loss in efficiency over time due to cold weather conditions being present outside during the testing day.

The clock was ticking and I wasn’t sure if my prediction would come true. The seven-and-a-half-hour mark had passed, but there were still issues with the Big Green Egg cooking too fast or cooling down suddenly which could cause it to overcook by accident. But nothing happened. When I opened the cooker and looked inside, it had used up all of its fuel. There was some ash underneath where there should have been hot firewood but no longer any flames. This is very strange considering how long we’ve had this going on because I’ve had longer cooks in it.

I think the kick Ash basket may be to blame for this. It’s smaller, so it doesn’t allow as much fuel in there and you’ll run out before if cook pork butts because those need more heat.

I had no problems with this and it was easy to use. The only thing that might be an issue for some people is the ashes, but once you get used to cleaning them they’re not so bad anymore.

I haven’t tasted it yet, but I’m expecting it. Everything seemed totally normal- there are no signs that anything out of the ordinary happened or will happen with this product!

So, I’ve tried all of them to be honest with you. And truthfully there’s not much difference in the flavor; I really liked that Honey Hog Barbecue rub from Meat Church because it has an interesting sweetness about it so if your taste buds like sweet things then maybe give this one a shot.

I can’t really taste much of a difference between the four cookers, but there is one notable exception. The texture changes depending on which cooker was used. The texture is what makes these different. There’s some variety in the taste, but I think my favorite was actually Akorn Junior today, which is some kind of weird for me. Because it was running a little low and then towards the end, I compensated by raising its temperature up to 300. So in total, there were about 200-225 degrees somewhere between those two points.

I think the Akorn Jr. which is by far one of our most affordable brands today will be unbeatable! I was so excited to try this out. The texture is just what I needed and at only 150 dollars, it’s an amazing deal! I found a cooker for $37 at Walmart. The season’s end promotion was ending and my wife convinced the manager at Walmart to give us more discounts on purchases, so we got our hands on this one. It has been great so far.

So thanks, guys. I really appreciate your support and interest in my channel, as it’s been a pleasure to make these videos for you all. Thanks for reading!

About Author

Thomas Francis

Hi there – I’m Thomas. I love cooking barbecue grills.. To me, there’s nothing like the joy of cooking up a delicious dinner on an outdoor grill. From searing steaks to sizzling sausages and succulent chicken wings, I’ve been making mostly everything under the sun at my humble home in Springfield.

See author's posts