I like my big green egg. I’m not a fanatic like some, mind you. But I do like it. It does a lot of stuff pretty well. Kamodos are the Swiss army knife of charcoal grills. They do everything pretty well. But they do one thing better than any other grill I know. The big green egg as a wood oven. That’s it’s wheelhouse. And nobody knows this. I don’t know why. It’s dead easy. You probably already have almost all the bits you need.
One thing to note and I’m putting it right up front so nobody yells at me. Putting your plate setter in your egg legs down puts it right at gasket height. High heat and a plate setter legs down equals fried gasket. Doesn’t bother me. I haven’t had much of a gasket for years. Just look at the picture below. I don’t think it’s that important. You have to decide for yourself though. But once you stop caring it opens things up nicely. Pizza gets a whole lot easier with this setup. No more burning the bottom before the top is done. Naan works great too. It doesn’t seem to affect the ability to run it low and slow either. Non-issue for me, anyway.
The setup here is for the big green egg specifically but I’m sure you can adapt it to any kamodo grill. On the BGE, the heat diffuser is called a plate setter. It can go in legs up or legs down. To use the big green egg as a wood oven you need the legs down. This lets you get the temperature up to where you need it. Now you want to create an air gap between the plate setter and the roasting pan. Grab your pizza stone and some fire brick splits or an extra set of BGE feet and you’re good to go. Put the feet or splits on the plate setter and place your pizza stone on those. Instant air gap.
And that’s it. Dial your egg in at whatever temp you feel like roasting at and treat it like you would your oven. Expect to be amazed by the wonderful kiss of smoke only cooking over charcoal can provide. Don’t feel the need to add wood chunks or chips. You are wood oven roasting, not smoking. Have a little faith. It will be awesome. The big green egg as a wood oven. It’s what it does absolutely best.
