I jumped at the chance to test the Kamado Joe’s Konnected Joe Digital Grill and Smoker. Like most members of our extended family of avid cooks and eager eaters, I enjoy grilling year-round. Still, my experience has been limited to conventional charcoal grills and three-burner propane grills. I was curious about what it would be like to cook with a ceramic grill, and grew even more excited by the prospect of precise temperature control promised by the Konnected Joe.
Why cook with a kamado-style grill
Kamado-style ovens, stoves, and grills use heated stone or ceramic to provide radiant heat that cooks the food. The Kamado Joe brand of kamado grills cooks with radiant heat, with thick ceramic sections in the cooker. It can take some time to reach the desired temperature, but the grill’s heavy insulation retains the heat for a long time.
You can use regular charcoal briquettes in this grill, but it’s not recommended due to the large quantity of ash that accumulates and the additives that can impact the flavor of the cooked food. Instead, Kamado recommends lump charcoal made from partially burned chunks of hardwood. This form of charcoal burns hotter and longer than briquettes and can be used up to three times.
Kamado Joe recommends its brand, Big Block XL Lump charcoal, a blend of three hardwoods that burns hot and clean, with no fillers or additives.
I bought the 20-pound bag in the photo above at Lowe’s for $30. Home Depot and Ace Hardware also carry Kamado Joe Big Block charcoal, which can be ordered from Walmart and Amazon, making it easy to find. The price is a bit on the high side, but not outrageously so. You also save because it burns hot and can be reused.
Kamado Joe Konnected Joe – the digital difference
The Konnected Joe Charcoal Digital Grill and Smoker adds digital control to an otherwise standard Kamado Joe grill. To use the added features, simply plug the Konnected Joe into a standard household outlet. Alternatively, you can also use it without AC power in what Kamado calls “Classic Mode.”
The benefits of the Konnected Joe include the Automatic Fire Starter (AFS) button and a digital control panel (the Kontrol Panel) to set and hold your desired cooking temperature. There are also ports for three temperature probes—one probe is included. If you pair the Kamado app with the Konnected Joe, you can use the app to monitor and control the cooking temperature, as well as check the temperature probes.
Ordinary Kamado Joe grills feature two vents: one at the bottom, shared with a removable ashtray, and another located in the dome cap. The recipes on the Kamado Joe website provide instructions on how to adjust the vents. The Konnected Joe has the same vents, but when you use the grill for automatic cooking and temperature control, you are instructed to keep the lower vent closed.
The Konnected Joe features a fan to circulate air, raising and maintaining the temperature.
Once you load the Konnected Joe’s firebox with charcoal and arrange the grates and accessories, the next step is to set the target cooking temperature on the Kontrol Panel. At this time, you can also set targets for temperature probes.
To light the charcoal, start Konnected Joe by pressing the AFS button on the front panel. A red light glows behind the AFS button to show that the burner at the bottom of the fire pit is on to ignite the charcoal. The starter remains on for 15 minutes.
How I tested the Konnected Joe
I asked the Kamado Joe representative to recommend recipes demonstrating the Konnected Joe’s capabilities. I received an enthusiastic email from Chef Eric Gephart, who is also known as the Kamado Joe Director of Culinary Inspiration. Gephart listed several of his personal favorite recipes and encouraged me to use the recipe collection on the Kamado Joe website, which you can filter by type of food, cooking style, cook time, and skill level.
For my first attempt at cooking with the Konnected Joe, I chose three recipes: the Ultimate Grilled Cheese sandwich, Konnected Joe Flank Steak Tacos, and a variation of the recipe for Wood-Fired Pizza with Peaches and Prosciutto. The first two recipes require steady temperature control at 350 degrees. I cooked the pizza using the DoJoe accessory with the temperature set to 550 degrees.
Everyone who tasted the three recipes thought the food was very tasty, especially the grilled cheese sandwich and the pizza. I made slight changes to each recipe, which were mistakes in every case. I’m looking forward to the next round of tests.
Test recipe 1: Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich
I preheated the Kamado Joe to 350 degrees with a small, round cast-iron griddle on the grill. The recipe called for grated cheddar cheese, chunks of brie, prosciutto, and sourdough bread. The store I shopped at didn’t have sourdough bread, so I bought a loaf of unsliced Brazilian bread instead.
Cooking the sandwich involved four steps:
- Toast generously buttered, thick slices of bread on both sides
- Place a half cup of mixed shredded cheddar cheese and brie on each slice of toasted bread
- Put two thin slices of prosciutto for each sandwich directly on the griddle
- Close the dome on the grill for a minute or two for the cheese to melt and the prosciutto to get warm
- Open the dome, place the prosciutto on one of the pieces of buttered, cheesy toast, and cover with the second piece of toast
- Flip the sandwich and close the dome for about a minute.
This sandwich was a huge hit, even though the Brazilian bread was probably too sweet. The next time, I’ll be sure to use sourdough bread.
Test recipe 2: Konnected Joe Flank Steak Tacos
I messed up this recipe two ways, but neither kept us from eating and enjoying it. The first step is to marinate the flank steak for at least 30 minutes in a mixture of olive oil, lime juice, cilantro, salt, and pepper. I had intended to marinate it ahead of time for six hours, which would have resulted in even more tender cooked steak, but I forgot and only marinated it for the minimum 30 minutes.
This recipe uses the Konnected Joe digital temperature probe to be sure the meat cooks thoroughly. The recipe called for an internal temperature of 130 degrees, or medium rare. I set the target to 145 degrees for medium cooking. The Kamado Joe app sent a text notification when the internal temperature reached 145 degrees.
At that time, I removed the flank steak from the grill, sliced the grilled limes, and squeezed hot lime juice over the steak. So far so good, but then I skipped an important step.
Liquids in meat contract during cooking. That’s why you should let the meat rest briefly after cooking, so the liquids can expand and spread through the meat. The recipe called for letting the cooked steak rest for ten minutes before cutting thin slices to put on tortillas with other ingredients.
I forgot the resting step and, once again, in my enthusiasm, immediately sliced the steak, piled it on tortillas, and served it. The flavor was great, but the meat was chewier than expected, which we immediately realized was my fault. Note that the issue didn’t stop us from cleaning our plates.
I’m happy to report that the remaining flank steak was even better the next day because the remaining liquids had permeated the meat.
Test recipe 3: Wood-Fired Pizza
The device in the photo above is the Kamado Joe DoJoe. It can turn a Kamado Joe or Konnected Joe grill into a pizza oven. You can cook pizza without a DoJoe, but you’ll have to lift the dome to put the pie on the grill or pizza stone and let a lot of heat escape, which will happen every time you check how the cooking is progressing. With the DoJoe, which comes with a pizza stone, you can slide the pizza in and out, keeping the internal cooking temperature relatively stable.
The recipe I used included making the pizza dough, although Chef Eric said he often uses prepared pizza rounds. The ingredients on top of the pizza dough are pizza sauce, prosciutto, mozzarella cheese, and sliced nectarines, with arugula and balsamic glaze added after cooking.
The recipe called for peaches, but our store was out, so I bought nectarines instead. The flavor was fine, but next time I cook this recipe, I’ll stick closer to the original recipe and use peaches.
The recipe recommended using a pizza peel, which is a thin, wide wooden or metal spatula to put the dough with assembled ingredients on the pizza stone in the DoJoe. It also said it would be OK to use an inverted baking pan. I used a baking pan, but that meant the pizza didn’t cook on the pizza stone surface. With the grill set to 550 degrees, the pizza cooked quickly, even though I put it in the DoJoe a little early, when the temperature had reached just 534 degrees.
The grill-cooked pizza was delicious, and we are looking forward to testing the Konnected Joe and the DoJoe with other pizza ingredient combinations. Two days after I made the pizza, this morning, I bought an aluminum pizza peel to use in the future.
My initial cooking tests with the Kamado Joe Konnected Joe and the DoJoe accessory were successful, despite the changes in the recipe ingredients and my inadvertent errors. Similar errors with conventional grills have sometimes proved inedible.
An unexpected feature of the Kamado Joe Konnected Joe is that, when you can control the temperature, you can still prepare crowd-pleasing, great-tasting food even if you consistently make rookie errors or forget steps.
Konnected Joe™ Digital Charcoal Grill and Smoker
