That is the “Alton Brown” style I was talking about. Either two regular pots stacked on top of each other with a grate, or a rounded pot set in a dish style with something to hold the meat up. Often run on a hot plate. It’s fun, and it’s a great way to improvise a smaller smoker when you don’t have one. Say for a camping trip or while at an Air B&B. But they definitely don’t hold up long term, and they aren’t really any easier to smoke on than a regular charcoal grill.
That seems to be the read on them. The Joes give you a better product for slightly less.
I’d be less concerned about the benefits being lost due to your climate. From what I understand the steel units are insulated or double walled so they perform pretty much like a ceramic. They’re still constructed like an oven, just not a stone or ceramic one. All that mass or insulation is great when it’s cold, but it’s also what gives you all the radiant heat that makes them so good at baking and keeps the temps so even.
But my cousin in Dublin picked up a BGE around 20 years back, and actually had to purchase it from Germany and pick it up in Spain. They didn’t have distribution in Europe at the time.
Anyway it cracked in the first 5 years, down to just how wet it is in Ireland all the damn time. Thing is it works just fine despite the crack. So he hasn’t even looked into replacing it.
You’re in The Bay Area right? Rain would be what had me looking at steel.
My sister and her fiancé had been shopping for a smoker or charcoal grill to go along with their propane grill. And had gotten very interested in the Eggs, he wants to get into barbeque, she bakes and is borderline vegetarian most of the time. So it fits their uses much better than anything else. I pointed them towards the Joes. But the kamado fund became a wedding fund. I’m probably going to get them the Charbroil Akorn steel kamado as their wedding gift.
They do seem to be the best all rounder. Though it’s not hard to out perform most home offsets. Your looking at Kamado money by the time they get functional.
And there is very different math between “I will by separate things that are better at specific tasks” and “I will buy separate thousand dollar things that are better at specific tasks”.
In my experience when you get water involved things explode.
Also in my experience he was either lucky or we didn’t see the part where he cracked multiple pots in the attempt. Terracotta is pretty soft, and it does drill easy. But it is really brittle. We occasionally end up drilling drainage holes in pots that don’t already have them. You do want a masonry bit, and you want to tape either side of the hole before drilling and go slow.
