Kamado Joe vs Visions Grills- Kamado Grill Reviews 2020

With the rising popular demand Kamado style grills spread worldwide with leading companies such as these two, the Kamado Joe and Vision Grills.

If you are a bit unfamiliar with Kamado-style grills, then you might know them with the Big Green Egg. It is the leading company for creating Kamado grills, but they do have a lot of competition.

The Kamado Joe has incorporated a lot of features that you will only find in their products.

One special feature that the Kamado Joe offers that you will never find from any other Kamado style grills.

The Vision Grills have innovative features that are also exclusive to their products, but some users complain about the quality.

They usually say that Vision has exchanged innovations and gimmicks for quality.

This post will have you cleared about these doubts and look at the benefits you can get.

There is a lot that you can do with a Kamado grill.

You can smoke, sear, or grill in them with ease, and the results end up with a delicious smoky flavor.

They are also known to be fuel-efficient, so you do not have to worry about repeatedly reloading these very hot grills. 

With proper insulation, they keep the heat inside and the heat retention in cold weathers is excellent.

Therefore, we give you this post that compares two of the best Kamado-style grills in the market to see which one is the better one for you.

 

Setting up and Assembling the Grills

Kamado grills are made out mostly of ceramics, so they weigh a hundred or more pounds.

This means that the set-up process takes a long time because of the weight.

You will need a helping hand if you want to set them up quickly.

The nests of these Kamado grills help transportation, but they do not do well in inclined surfaces, let alone steps.

One piece of advice is to let the delivery guys place the product near the set-up area.

This will give you less space to move the grills around and will be immediately good for setting up.

You can also remove some of the ceramics inside the grills so you can deliver them one by one to the area where you are going to set them up.

You can remove the fireboxes of most grills, which lessens the whole grill’s weight but not by much.

You will still need help carrying the other parts and the grill itself.

The Kamado Joe grills can set up in any place in your backyard. With the nest protecting the grill and the ground itself, this grill is safe to cook anywhere outside the house.

As for the Vision Grills, depending on the model you buy, you will need a nearby plug to ignite the grill’s fuel. This is one of the features that the Vision Grills offer.

 

Now let us get to the Features.

 

The Lid

We start with one of the biggest questions with Kamado Grills.

Since Kamado-style grills are made out mostly of ceramics, the lids are very heavy.

From a literal standpoint, it is nearly impossible to open the grill while holding a fork or a tong on the other hand.

That is why the companies that made the Kamado grills in the market have some sort of mechanism to ease lifting up the heavy ceramic lids.

The Vision Grills have a spring-loaded lid that helps pull the lid up when you open it.

This means that you can easily open it with one hand.

The Kamado Joe Grills are more advanced with their innovative Air-Lift Hinge, which is also spring-loaded but with an additional counterbalance feature.

This amazing built-in hinge design reduces the weight of the lid by up to 96%.

This means that a mere six-year-old can lift the heavy lid with one hand.

The lid has so much assist that it opens with a small push.

Therefore, to close it, you will need to push it down and latch it on the body.

 

Vents

Staying on the lid, we have the vents on each grill that help control the temperature inside or select a certain cooking type.

The Kamado Joe takes the early advantage by having an innovative design on their vents.

The Classic Joe 3 line has a vent that allows proper airflow and protection from rain as well.

The Vision Grills have proper airflow, but most of their grills have a vent that opens directly upward, meaning rain can easily seep in through the vents’ holes.

Both of the vents from both grills have easy access and easy control.

This simply means that you can control the temperature easily with the vents alone.

The Vision Grills have a very easy-to-follow vent.

They are made out of cast-iron and a cool-to-touch control handle.

As for the Kamado Joe, their innovative design on the vent makes sure that the heat is always kept inside and with every turn of the vent, the temperature either goes up or down by 25 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Shock Absorption

Since the lids are heavy, they are equipped with a force-stopping mechanism.

However, a ceramic to ceramic contact can still cost damage if repeatedly slammed to each other.

That is why these grills are also equipped with a feature that prevents dents and breakages on the lid and on the body of the grill.

The Vision Grills have a soft cushion on the lid and on the grill made out of a soft spongy material that absorbs all the shocks.

The Kamado Joe Grills also have this in the form of a fiberglass wire mesh that protects it from blunt forces when closing the lids.

Both the sponge and the wire mesh on the grills is airtight, so this means that even if there is a space between the lids, the smoke, and the heat will not escape from there.

 

Built-in Thermometers

Both of these grills have a built-in thermometer included on the grills.

This allows you to have an accurate measurement of the amount of heat produced inside them.

The Kamado Joe grills have a thermometer that needs some installation.

The thermo-stick pierces through the lid to the interior of the grill.

 This gives you the accurate temperature of the air inside the grill—the air or the convection heat that is cooking your food.

The Vision Grills also has an analog thermometer that is already installed when the product arrives. It is heavy-duty, so you do not have to worry about damaging it with heat.

 

Powering the Grills

The best fuel used in these grills is lump charcoal.

This means that you have this proper amount of heat without creating too much flame.

Lump charcoal is a very great fuel since they are very efficient.

Even after a long day of cooking, the charcoal would still have extra power in them that you can fire up for the next use.

This kind of fuel also produces fewer ashes for you to clean up.

However, both grills have a removable dirt-catcher, so they are easier to clean.

The grills are also easy to use when it comes to refueling.

All you need to do is remove the accessories above the firebox and load them with another charcoal.

However, since they are very efficient, a single full load of the fireboxes in these grills can last a whole day of smoking or grilling, so refueling will not always be necessary.

 

Full Power

Once the ovens is cooking, it will only take somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour before they reach the maximum temperature that they can get to.

Both grills can go over 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that they can cook many recipes such as pizza, steaks, chicken, barbecue, and more.

With the dual vents from the lid vent and the bottom vent, you can control the grills’ power by opening or closing these vents.

Both grills can sear steaks or slow-smoke a rack of ribs for the whole day.

They do have the power for fast cooking, but they also produce that smoky flavor.

 

Flavor

Speaking of smoky flavor, the main advantage of the Kamado Joe girls is in this category, and they guarantee that you can never find this in any Kamado grill in the market right now.

See, most kamado grills like the Vision Grills have a flame blocker or a heat deflect, which reduces the risk of burning your food by blocking the flames.

This means that the hot air from the vents will cook the food and give it that much needed smoky flavour.

Usually, heat deflectors come in a flat ceramic plate placed between the grill grates and the firebox.

Ceramics can retain heat, so the grills can still cook even without direct flames.

The Kamado Joe Classic 3 and the Big Joe 3 have this amazing sort of a heat deflector in itself that also improves the smoky flavor in your food.

These grills have the SloRoller Hyperbolic Insert.

This patented design with Harvard Science allows the smoke to pass through the food at least twice.

The SloRoller Hyperbolic Insert is some kind of a parabola-shaped device that goes on top of the firebox.

What it does is it circulates the smoke from the charcoals and then rolls the smoke twice on the grates before eventually going out on the vent.

 

Cooking Grates

Depending on the model you order, Vision Grills offer either cast-iron grates or stainless steel cooking grates found in their Diamond Cut Kamado series.

The cooking grates of the Vision Grills are two-tiered, meaning you can fit two grates in a single grill.

You can modify the grates by separating them into two halves.

The Kamado Joe also has these kinds of grates.

However, they feature a lot more space with their three-tiered grates that can also be modified.

You can also concentrate the heat on one side of the grate with the Kamado Joe’s firebox separator that also sets the charcoals in half or meaning you can load just one side of the firebox.

These large spaces ranging from 600 square inches for the Vision Grills and over 800 square inches on the large Kamado Joe grills allow you to cook a lot of recipes simultaneously.

 

Conclusion

So as you can see, the Vision Grills did not sacrifice the grill’s quality for features.

It might have a lot of features, but the grills can still cook amazingly.

The Kamado Joe grills prove to be the amazing grills that they are.

The newer versions of the grills have amazing smoking features that put more flavor to your food.

The Vision Grills are also improved in their newer version with the electric starter, so you do not need to start a fire out of the grill to get it fired up.

They also both have amazing vents that allow you to cook a variety of food.

They are very fuel-efficient, so you can take the grill for a whole day of cooking without reloading too often.

Either way, these grills will not disappoint you, and they are a great investment.

They are a great addition for you and your family when you invite your friends over for barbecues and more.

Check out these ovens, and let us know what you think!