Advantages of kamados

“The best of its genre”, “Up until ten times more effective than other brands”, “Recommended by the most recognized international experts on the subject”… are just some of the hyperbolic and, in many cases, not very objective sentences we are used to listen to on different advertisement campaigns that enhance excessively certain products in order to make them stand against the ones made by other brands. An aggressive and not very ethic marketing strategy that prevails in our globalized and hyper-competitive world and that has lead customers to justifiably distrust this exaggerated and pseudo-scientific advertisements.

As the only purpose of this website is to get people to know kamados and spread information about its qualities in comparison to other more famous among the public kitchen tools, in this section we will just enumerate its objective and easily verifiable virtues so our kamado enthusiasm doesn’t make us lack moderation and consequently loose credibility.

 

Versatility: probably the main singular feature that defines kamados is its huge versatility. This polyvalence is characterized by the possibility of cooking with:

They are also characterized by a wide temperature range oscillating between 50-60ÂşC and 450ÂşC.

Added to the mentioned factors, you can also cook barely any type of culinary modality with this amazing ceramic ovens, from roasting, grill, to the trendy slow cooking, including also modalities such as stewing, baking, smoking… and so you can cook any type food or recipe. From meat, fish, seafood and vegetables, to pizza, soup, stews, paellas, bread, confectionery, smoked food, etc. A wide world of possibilities that if using other tools would imply the usage of many cooking devices whereas if using a kamado you just need to adjust the ventilation ducts in order to make the fire more or less intense and choose the needed temperature, and to change the height you place the grills or griddles, or maybe adding some accessory such as pizza stones, a stand for cooking ribs, a wok or a roaster.

 

Consumption: one of the main advantages of kamados in comparison to other kitchen tools that are also fed by coal is its little consumption, so you can afford up to 30-40% in respect to conventional grills or barbecues. This is because of the refractory power of the ceramic material kamados are made with, and also because of its ovoid shape, that concentrates heat retaining it inside and so avoiding heat leakages that would cause bigger fuel consumption. The dome closes the kamado thus preventing wind from spoiling the embers and so they last longer. All of this qualities mean an important energetic and ecological afford, and so respecting the environment, which is tremendously important in this era of mindless consumption. The kamado can work for hours with a single coal load -up to 24 hours at minimum temperature- and allows, once turned off, to re-use the unburned coal when cooking again.

 

Ignition quickness: kamados can’t obviously compete with other gas or electric kitchen tools or vitro-ceramic hobs and induction kitchens in terms of how quick you turn them on since they don’t require previous heating but just pressing a button; but if you compare kamados to other counterpart tools such as grills, barbecues or ovens they are the quickest thanks to its efficient design and its practical chimney effect that enables kamados to reach really high temperatures in a short period of time. No matter what method you choose to turn it on: ignition pills, blowtorch, airgun, electric resistances or an exterior chimney with ember trail; the embers won’t take longer than 10 – 15 minutes to get ready and then we can start cooking.

 

Temperature control: regulating its temperature can seem difficult as it doesn’t have a thermostat, but it is not, and once you get to know how it works, how to regulate its ventilation or chimney ducts and get a bit of practice, it is really easy to control very accurately the inner temperature of your kamado with the help of its integrated thermometer, which is not the case of simpler ember kitchen tools such as wood ovens or coal barbecues. This is an important advantage that helps you get your plates at the desired point if you check the time at the recipe.

 

Flavor and texture: each day more and more prestigious chefs and restaurants equip their kitchens with kamados because of its great versatility and for the incredible results it offers in terms of flavor and texture. The flavor quality it provides is a result of the materials it is made out of and the fuel it uses. The porosity of its ceramic materials enables the absorption of the food’s juices and fat tissue, and the smoke emerging from combustion makes the food get “cured”, as a wineskin would do, respecting the natural flavor of the aliments or even enhancing them since the food’s aroma gets concentrated inside the kamado. Thus the food acquires an unique and distinct taste. Kamados prevent the food from getting spoiled because of the burning of fat tissue, which is also unhealthy (this could happen in some barbecues as the ones that use lava stones, or in the ones that use oven door but don’t have pyrolysis) or because of certain additives that other fuels contain, which even though in most cases aren’t a health risk, are less “neutral” than using vegetal coal as kamados do.

Concerning its texture, the advantage of kamados is again its design, since it allows them to cook food uniformly with surrounding heat and to retain most of the natural juices so the food doesn’t dry out and get perfectly cooked, tender and juicy.

 

Smoke emission: kamados generate very little smoke and retain an important amount of it inside, so in comparison to other ember kitchen tools such as wood ovens or barbecues, its emissions are small. The exception would be when cooking smoked food since these cooking modality emits white smoke derived from the usage of humid wood pieces. The fact that it emits little smoke is an advantage not only because it enhances food flavor, but it also makes kamados a cleaner tool, and prevents you from getting in trouble with your neighbors, and, as long as the local laws allow it, you can place it on balconies, terraces or even inside your home. In fact, some prestigious restaurants have added it to its kitchen settings, simply by placing it under a smoke extractor.

 

Security: kamados are incredibly secure kitchen tools due to two main reasons: firstly, because the coal is kept inside a ceramic glass placed at the bottom of the kamado and the cooking is performed with the dome hermetically closed, so there is no risk of jumping embers or sparks while using it thus avoiding a fire risk. Added to that, even though kamados can reach really high temperatures, the heat is barely transmitted to the outside, which reduces the risk of getting burned if by chance touching its surface. Nevertheless, as with any other tool that works with fire it is recommended to follow the required precautions in order to prevent accidents, specially if there are kids around.

 

Cleaning: one of the main advantages of kamados is its cleaning. Fat and cinder residues are the biggest enemies when trying to keep wood ovens, barbecues and other kinds of ember kitchen systems clean, but these substances are not a problem for kamados, since they can reach really high temperatures thus acting as self-cleaning pyrolytic ovens in which organic matter decomposes and evaporates and inorganic matter becomes cinders. Because of this, cleaning a kamado just requires to collect the embers after its usage, and since most kamados come with a removable ashtray, this task is quick and extremely simple.

 

Maintenance: as with the cleaning, maintaining a kamado is really easy and doesn’t require many tasks in order to keep it perfect. You just need to change the isolating joints placed on the lips of the body and the dome of the kamado, which are usually made out of felt or other materials that, after certain amount of usage, tend to wear out thus not retaining heat effectively anymore. An easy task that you can easily find tutorials of on the internet, and that you won’t have to do until you’ve used your kamado for a long amount of hours and that in the future could be done less frequently as manufacturers are starting to change felt for other materials such as carbon fiber.

 

Movility: it is possible to find some set kamados thought to stay on the floor or to be fixed into a piece of furniture specially designed for that, but most kamados have legs with wheels or are assembled over a wheel wagon that easily allows its transportation from one place to another making no effort in spite of its substantial weight. The fact that it is portable is not an advantage over other tools such as barbecues since they usually have wheels too, but it is important if you compare kamados to other kitchen tools lacking of this feature such as wood ovens or some grills, which even if in other matters are equivalent to kamados, in this one can’t compete since they are immobile, so its usage is limited to one place, which can lead to problems when it comes to its cleaning, and are conditioned by weather conditions, because cooking inside your home with an oven in summer can be suffocating, while exterior ovens in winter are difficult to use or even impossible in case of rain.

 

Durability/resistance: traditional japanese kamados were handmade out of cooked mud, an excellent material for cooking, but brittle and not very resistant, so it used to get cracked or broken easily. In order to avoid these serious inconveniences, high quality kamados are made out of high technology ceramic materials that still have the refractory properties of original kamados but are better in terms of solidity and resistance. With the purpose of providing solidity companies have experimented with the commercialization of metal kamados, which are resistant to smacks, heat and cracking, but show important some inconveniences in comparison to ceramic kamados, because the metal materials spoil the food flavor, make the food loose more of its natural juices and get drier, consume more fuel (as metal doesn’t keep heat inside as much as ceramic materials do) and are prone to corrosion, which makes them last less. Ceramic kamados don’t have these problems, and with some care and maintenance can last for generations.

 

Design: all of the advantages mentioned refer to its functionality and its superiority compared to other more known kitchen tools, but the greatness of these kitchen tools can extent to other matters such as aesthetics, since it seems quite obvious that its elegant ovoid shape and its glossy and sometimes colorful exterior paint makes them more than just utilitarian tools and so they become design pieces that contribute to your house decoration and make a great ornament wherever you place it. This is the last virtue of a kitchen tool that is starting to get known and will most likely spring up in the near future among homes and restaurants because of its extraordinary features.