djh64, Don't have a Kamado Joe, but might shed some light on the EGG. Really not much assembly with and EGG. There might be 20 pieces if you are counting the nest and side tables. Egg consists of dome, lower half, fire ring, firebox, ceramic grate, cooking grate, rain cap, ceramic feet(3). Options are thermometer and daisy wheel, nest, side tables and bands for the basic set up. Concerning colors I have seen BGE's in green and blue. About putting the BGE together it is straight forward and not difficult at all. If colors really interest you you might want to look at Grill Dome they offer red, black, green, blue and sometimes orange and yellow. Or if you want a tile variant look at the straight stick Kamado. Primos are pretty much black/gray (never seen any other colors) and Imperial Kamados only ever seen one of them and it was red. Haven't seen a Kamado Joe yet. I have a couple of ceramic cookers (three different manufactures) they all cook alike, food tastes the same out of each. You cant go wrong with ceramic they are awesome. V/R Jeff GO NAVY Fly Navy

I'm in paint (& general sales too) at work.... * We're a BIG Weber dealer, & it's SO fun helping people with stuff for BBQ-ing! * We've also got that Vault, & a couple "Egg"-style smokers. Not nearly as popular vs. a few years ago here tho'. * Just helped a young man with the linked Weber smoker. He bought some Traeger smoking pellets, regular charcoal, & a bag of Cowboy Hickory wood-lump charcoal. * It's a nice, easily portable smoker, and does a good job. * The Traeger smoking-grills are getting increasingly popular here, and we stock most of them. Most have to be plugged-in to run the Thermometer/auto-augering-system for the many flavored pellets available. * The smaller ones are portable tho'! * Near the Traeger area, we've got EIGHT full pallets of their wood-pellets!! * Check out Traegergrills.com * There are some RABID fans of these Traegers 'round here! Faron PS....Someday I'll have to get one of the Weber Summit-series grills! From $1800~$2400....Uffda! We have sold a couple of the "Weber-island" Summit Grill-Center setups this year....$5,000+ for all the S/S side-cabinetry, etc.!! Here is a link that might be useful: Weber smoker...

We went to a couple of barbeque places today and ending up buying the extra large Big Green Egg, and I think we will be very happy with it. Kevin thinks it will be great for parties, and now it will be even easier for us to cook for a crowd. Since we now have three charcoal grills, we can use separate grills for separate dishes which will make it easier for us to make multiple dishes at once, even if they require different temperatures. We also have the electric smoker, and I have to say that we get a more intense smoke flavor from that than we do from the charcoal - or at least it permeates the meat more. For smoking chilies, only the charcoal will do the job the way I want it. The BGE that we bought also has a pizza stone and can be used for grilling pizza - something that I've been wanting to do since first visiting the pizza making forum. We bought some outdoor lights for our pergola, and I think they will provide way more light than we required, but at least we can lower the wattage when we want to. I haven't bought anything for lighting the fountain yet because I want to have that installed by an electrician on an exterior wall of the house. I'm hoping to light much of the back yard that way and have it on a dimmer. I don't really want underwater lights in my fountain at this point but will talk with the electrician about that. I'm thinking that I will get my yard lit in stages and start off with getting some outdoor outlets installed at strategic points so that lights could be hooked up later. We went out for dinner this evening because I wanted sushi! We haven't assembled the Big Green Egg yet. Lars

There are mats you can get to place under a grill. Although auto drip pans work better. However unless you are quite literally a total idiot I can not imagine how you could set fire to a wood deck using a Kamado type grill (BGE). They are extremely safe and absolutely zero way for hot coals to just drop onto the deck. Small little sparks when lighting the charcoal sure but unless your deck is covered in crumpled newspaper I fail to see how a small charcoal spark can do anything to treated wood used for decking. I have been cooking with and around others with charcoal grills on wood decks for 50+ years, most of that time using what "could" be a more likely candidate to set a deck on fire such as those cheap "Brinkman water Smokers" of which just has a thin metal bowl setting about 3-4" off the deck with holes in the bottom of it and is likely to rust out in about a year. Now THOSE are a danger and you best be careful. But even with those as long as you are careful and place one of those large auto drip pans, they are about 30x40" and made of galvanized steel then you are good to go. You can even pour a 1/2" of water in it to be super safe if you are smoking meat all night. However a BGE, personally I use a Vision Grill which is virtually Identical to a BGE except they are far less expensive, thicker ceramic, better hinges. But identical as far as any fire concern. There is really no way for coals to fall out of a kamado grill/smoker. The ceramic is thick, in fact in the Vision grill you have a thick fire bowl with cast iron grate inside then a small 1/2" thick ceramic plate it sits on then the 1 3/4" thick ceramic outer. There is no way it can be knocked over by the dog or a kid as it weighs over 250# and is very stable. So Kamado Grills and wood decks don't worry about it as there is really no way you are setting anything on fire deck wise as long as you are not an idiot, such as do not place it 1" from the side of your house, do not have dry over hanging dead tree branches with leaves over it, don't cover your deck with pine straw, DOH! I mean really, on a plain wood deck, clean of debris with the grill setting in the middle of it I don't see how it would even be possible to set the deck on fire even if you tried to. This is mine on our deck. The grill doesn't get closer than 2 feet from the deck and even when grilling steaks at 600+ degrees the outside from bottom to 2/3rds up never gets so hot that you cant put your hand on it. It cant be tipped over, nothing can possibly fall out. Exactly how can it catch anything on fire?