The Great BBQ Debate – Weber versus the Green Egg

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When your family is in the butchery business there’s one subject that is always taken very seriously and that is the art of barbecuing and the equipment needed to do it. Long discussions regularly take place on what is the best cut, marinade and barbecuing method to use for each cut of meat.

When it comes to equipment, the reliable Weber kettle BBQ has always been acknowledged as the undisputed king of barbecues and very rarely debated but there’s a new challenger on the block known as the big Green Egg and boy did I stir up a wasp’s nest this weekend when I questioned whether it may be better than the mighty Weber.

What makes the The Big Green Egg different is it’s origins come from Japan and it is actually a kamado-style ceramic charcoal cooker. The special ceramic used by Green egg means heat retention is a lot higher than normal barbecues. What this mean’s is that it is very efficient in terms of the amount of charcoal it uses (1 bag = 100 hrs) and there is a lot of flexibility in the types of cooking you can do on it and a higher level of control over temperature and flare up.

What I personally find appealing about the Big Green Egg is the ability to slow cook on it; slow cooking over fire is the big thing at the moment with Adam Perry Lang and Pitt Cue Co. singing the praises of this method in their latest books. Because the Big Green Egg can cook for may be as long as 24 hours on 1 bag of charcoal this gives it an advantage over the Weber which you would need to refill and relight a number of times.

Where I start to loose patience with the Big Green Egg is firstly the price, I put together my perfect set up online and it came to £2000!!!!! The various stands, additional grills and cooking plates are ridiculously priced and because a lot of it is bespoke sizes you’ve got no other option if you want it. The other area I get a bit jumpy about is the claim by Green egg that they are a lot easier to cook on and you won’t end up with lumps of charcoal raw in the middle. For me I bore with the constant strive in cooking to simplyfy/dumb down; learning to barbecue is a right of passage for all men and women and you learn from your disasters. Where is the sense of achievement when you serve a beautifully seared steak if cooking it was as easy as putting something in the microwave for 2 mins.

So for the moment I am sticking with the Weber but I do get the feeling the green egg will be a big success.