Video Transcript
Hey, everyone, I'm Chef Tom with All Things Barbecue. Today I'm excited to show you the Kamado Joe Classic II Ceramic Grill. The Classic Joe has some fantastic new features that are going to improve the cooking process and the maintenance, and we'll get through all of those as we walk you through this grill, but first I want to address something.
A lot of folks ask me which ceramic style grill I prefer to cook on. Well, if we're talking about a round Kamado-style ceramic grill, it's got to be Kamado Joe. I mean, the build and construction, the materials are topnotch. The accessories are better than anything out there. And straight out of the box, you can smoke, grill, and bake on it without any added accessories.
Kamado Joe Classic II Features
Now for the air-life hinge. This hinge reduces 96% of the weight of the ceramic lid, making it a breeze to lift no matter who you are. This is truly a remarkable upgrade, and it makes cooking on this grill even more enjoyable. As a comparison, I want to show you how much your typical ceramic lid weighs compared to the new Classic Joe. The lid on this guy weighs about 19 pounds. To lift the lid on the new Classic Joe, it's about four to five pounds to get it started, and from there, there's nothing.
Next up is the new control tower top vent. This is an all-aluminum top vent that makes it so you can have precise control over your cook, and it also doubles as a rain guard so you can cook rain or shine. Added to that, when you lift the lid, you never have to worry about where it's set. It will not budge when opening and closing on accident ever.
Finally, one of the most important upgrades that Kamado Joe made is at their gasket. This wire mesh gasket provides an airtight seal and gives you 10 times the life of classic felt gaskets.
The team at Kamado Joe has done something pretty amazing with their new firebox design, creating a patented interlocking panel setup that prevents cracking by allowing the firebox to expand and contract naturally without cracking. These seams isolate the expansion and contraction into individual panels, which prevents cracking. The ceramic itself has a limited lifetime warranty to the original purchaser.
Another feature I really like about the Kamado Joe is the slide-out ash drawer because cleaning up your ceramic grill can kind of be a pain, but a quick tap of the unused charcoal and all the ash drops to the bottom, allowing you to simply slide out this drawer and dump. No more crawling on your knees to clean out that ash before your next cook.
Now for the most important feature on the Kamado Joe, the divide and conquer flexible cooking system. The Divide and Conquer Flexible Cooking System is what makes the Kamado Joe such a standout in round ceramic grills. The setup is really pretty simple. It features a multi-level rack that allows you to use any number of different half-moon shaped accessories at one time to control the environment in the grill.
Now, most simply, if you're just grilling you can set the cooking grates on the lower level for high-heat searing, or on the top level for grilling up burgers, dogs, and things like chicken breasts. Now, if you also need an indirect space, which is nearly impossible in any other 18-inch ceramic grill, you can drop a single diffuser stone down on the bottom ring here, and now you have both direct and indirect space. To smoke or bake, you simply fill the bottom space with the diffuser plates, and you're ready to cook 100% indirect heat.
Now, of course, Kamado Joe has a full line of accessories, from cast-iron grates to griddles and more that you can check out on our website. But beyond those upgrades, let's see how it cooks.
Kamado Joe Classic II Cooking Test
Here we have the grill set up for direct grilling, with our vegetables up on the higher rack so that they can cook in about the same time as the steaks. You can see that the steaks are cooking on the half-moon cast-iron griddle in the lower position. Now, this griddle is one of Kamado's really great accessories that you can add on. You can see what a beautiful color and those grill marks that it puts on your steaks.
Next, I'll show you the setup for the cast-iron wok insert. As you can see, this is also over the direct flame to get this wok nice and hot. The wok is another one of those really great accessories from Kamado Joe, but the actual insert that it's sitting on comes standard with every one of these grills. This is really perfect for high-heat stir-fry cooking.
Last, I'll show you the indirect setup. This is perfect for roasting, smoking, and baking.
I hope this gives you guys a feel for what a great product the Classic Joe really is. As always, you can go and purchase this product at ATBBQ.com and any other products you find on this channel. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to get in contact with our team.
