Auto-Kamado™ Or Gravity 980

Trying to decide between an AKORN Auto-Kamado or a Gravity 980? Ambassador Steve Dotson shares his thoughts on choosing. 

Hey everyone, we're fast approaching the time of year where some stores begin to mark down some of their grills and smokers, so I want to go ahead and get ahead of that helping you decide if you had to choose between the Char-Griller Auto-Kamado or the Char-Griller Gravity 980 which one should you get. This is a tough question I know, I mean wouldn't we all just rather get both? However, if we can't, and we have to decide what cooker is going to fit our needs better this is how I would break it down. To me the fit of a cooker to a person usually breaks down to how much food do you need to cook, does this cooker need to do more than just smoke or grill and if it does which one is going to be the primary purpose, and what style of cooking do you like to do, low and slow or hot and fast? I find usually once we take out the rule of cool, because sometimes you just love the way something looks and decide you want it because of that, these three questions will usually lead you down the right path and so that's what we're going to be comparing and contrasting today on these two cookers. When we talk about the size of these two the gravity is roughly twice the size of the Auto-Kamado, and its square shape can lend to the ability to be a little more efficient when we're talking about long rectangular pieces of meat like ribs. That's not saying you can't cook an absolute ton of food on the Auto-Kamado, but if cooking the most food is what you need to do, you may want to look at the gravity.

Next, if you're a griller who wants the ability to smoke sometimes, I think there's no question, the Auto-Kamado with that direct flame grill setup is going to be what you need, it can still do a great job smoking and you'll get your flame kissed grilling action. Now the gravity can grill, but putting on a clean pure smoke flavor is where the gravity really shines in my book being the better smoker of the two. Lastly, sort of a subtle difference to me but do you like to smoke low and slow or hot and fast. I believe, due to the efficient nature of the Auto-Kamado, it is a surprisingly amazing low and slow cooker. I think because it doesn't move a ton of air you don't really need to spritz the meat to keep the outer bark moist and it truly is set and forget.

Now the gravity, because of the amount of air it moves and the offset nature of its charcoal chimney, does an absolutely amazing job cooking at those higher temps of three hundred plus while still being able to throw that clean and smooth smoke all over your food. At the end of the day these are both very capable cookers that can help you create amazing food and honestly, you're not going to go wrong with either choice.