Kamado vs kettle: ceramic egg or steel BBQ?

What each one is

A kettle is the classic round steel charcoal BBQ: a bowl and a lid, usually porcelain-enamelled, with adjustable air vents, like the Weber Master-Touch or the Napoleon NK22CK-C. It is light, affordable and a brilliant all-rounder that grills, roasts and can smoke. A kamado is a thick-walled glazed ceramic egg, like the Kamado Joe Classic II, descended from ancient clay cookers. The ceramic is heavy and costly but insulates superbly, which is the source of everything a kamado does better, and worse, than a kettle. In short, a kettle is the practical default and a kamado is the premium specialist; the rest of this guide explains exactly where each pulls ahead.

Heat retention: the kamado's superpower

This is the biggest difference, and it flows from the materials. A steel kettle has a relatively thin wall, so it heats quickly but is more affected by wind and cold and needs the odd vent adjustment to stay steady; a good one like the Weber Master-Touch still held 120 C within about eight degrees for four hours in our test, which is excellent for steel. A ceramic kamado, by contrast, has thick insulating walls that barely notice the weather: the Kamado Joe held 120 C within just three degrees for fourteen hours straight. For very long, hands-off cooks the kamado is in another league, while for everyday grilling and shorter smokes the difference matters much less. If you do a lot of all-day low-and-slow barbecue, the kamado's stability is genuinely worth having.

Versatility and temperature range

Both types are versatile, but the kamado stretches further at the extremes. A kettle grills, roasts and smokes well, and a 57cm one sears nicely too, covering everything most people ever want to do. A kamado does all of that and adds the ends of the range: it holds a steadier low temperature for smoking, and it reaches a higher 370 C for searing and pizza, where a kettle tops out around 280 to 340 C. The Kamado Joe's Divide & Conquer system also lets you cook on two levels at two temperatures at once, which no kettle can do. So a kettle covers 90 percent of cooks superbly, while a kamado covers the last 10 percent, the overnight brisket and the wood-fired pizza, that a kettle finds harder.

Fuel use and capacity

The kamado wins on fuel efficiency and the kettle often wins on footprint. Because the ceramic insulates so well, a kamado burns roughly half the charcoal a steel kettle uses for the same cook, and any unburnt lump is easily reused by closing the vents to snuff the fire, so the running cost is low once you own it. On capacity, though, a big 57cm kettle gives around 2,500 cm2 of grate, more single-level footprint than the Kamado Joe Classic II's 1,662 cm2, although the kamado's multi-level grates claw back usable space. A barrel like the Landmann Black Taurus 660 gives even more flat area for a crowd, but holds heat far worse than either. Match the capacity to your typical cook rather than the largest party you might host.

Price and value

Here the kettle wins decisively for most people. A quality steel kettle costs between roughly £170 and £260: the Char-Broil Kettleman is around £170 and the Weber Master-Touch around £259, and both will last many years. A ceramic kamado like the Kamado Joe Classic II costs around £1,199, four to seven times as much, and weighs over 100 kg, so it is a permanent garden fixture. The kamado is built to last a lifetime and saves on fuel, which offsets part of the gap over many years, but no one buys a kamado purely on value. For the cook who grills and smokes a few times a month, a kettle delivers the great majority of the experience for a fraction of the cost; the kamado earns its premium only for the enthusiast who cooks outdoors constantly.