AmazingRibs.com is supported by our Pitmaster Club. Also, when you buy with links on our site we may earn a finder’s fee.
Click to see how we test and review products.
BBQube Kamado Go 275
The BBQube Kamado Go 275 is a portable charcoal-fired smoker/grill combination that will appeal to tailgaters and backyard chefs. It is designed to act as a smoker with its included temperature controller or a grill for searing foods. Since every single kamado we have ever seen is sort of egg shaped, we wondered why it’s called a Kamado. So we asked the manufacturer and got this answer: “The grill’s top lid is entirely double-walled, just like the Akorn Kamado. I just made it into a rectangular shape so the cooking area can be better utilized. I’m also a big fan of the Weber Go-Anywhere grill but wish it were bigger and more efficient. So I called this the Kamado-Go to indicate that it is an efficient cooker like a kamado and very portable at the same time.” A bit of a stretch if you ask us.
Construction
The cooker itself is a stainless-steel clamshell design with a well-sealed latching lid. The lid is arched to give the cooker a large enough volume to cook a medium-sized turkey. It has short folding legs that add to its stability and keep the bottom of the cooker safely above the tailgate or table top. There is a small folding shelf on each side that can hold the temperature controller and miscellaneous cooking tools. The cooking surface is a 275 square inch (1774 square centimeters) rectangular arrangement made from heavy-duty stainless steel. Beneath the grill surface is an easily inserted or removed heat deflector that doubles as a grease catcher. There is a slot at one end of the deflector that will channel grease and fat into the ash tray beneath it. Below the heat deflector is a trough-shaped space to accommodate the charcoal. Beneath this space is a smaller grill surface that sits above a removable full-width ash tray. This tray slides out the left side of the cooker to empty the spent fuel, making it easy to clean up. I wondered if the exterior stainless steel would discolor from heat, but I saw no evidence of that. A word to the wise: some of the parts have quite sharp edges and corners; I’d suggest some emery cloth or a file to deburr the prickly bits before first use.
Thermostatic Controller
The cooker comes with a thermostatic controller and three temperature probes. One probe that clips to the grill surface is intended to measure the internal temperature of the cooker, and two others are intended to track food temperatures. The temperature accuracy of the probes is very good. The controller has a self-contained fan that forces air through a flexible silicone tube to a port on the right side of the cooker where it is directed toward the burning fuel. The amount of air flow controls the cooker’s internal temperature – the more air, the hotter the fire. The controller is powered by a supplied AC adapter or an optional battery pack. According to the manufacturer, the battery pack will power the controller for 20 hours.
The controller allows the user to select the desired cooking temperature and monitor two separate pieces of food. An app, for both Apple and Android, connects the phone and the controller via Bluetooth, and allows the user to monitor temperatures and receive alarms. The app will display the current temperature of each probe, and presents a graph of temperature versus time. What the app CANNOT do is control the controller. In other words, you cannot set up or change the settings on the controller via the app; it is read-only, a significant disadvantage. The data collected by the app disappears if it is inadvertently closed or crashes, resulting in a total loss of the temperature profile. The controller comes with a carrying case that will hold the controller, the temperature probes, the optional battery pack, and AC adapter.
The controller is pretty bare-bones, lacking programming ability and open-lid detection features found on many other controllers. Should power be interrupted momentarily, all settings are lost instead of resuming the cooking profile. The temperature control algorithm is crude: the fan runs at full speed (for the cooker type selected during setup) when the temperature is below the chosen target, and it stops completely when the temp rises above the target. More sophisticated thermostats use a proportional controller for better temperature regulation. See the graph for the temperature response over time. (This controller is a reduced-feature version of another BBQube controller reviewed here.) Click on the image below to see a larger version of it.
Operation
To fuel the cooker when used as a smoker, remove the grilling surface and heat deflector and pour charcoal along the width of the lower grill. The instructions say to light 6-8 briquettes in a chimney and pour them at one end of the charcoal array. The idea is to have the charcoal slowly burn from the lit end to the other end of the fuel trough. Forced air is fed from the thermostatic controller to the right side of the ash tray, promoting burning of the fuel at a rate necessary to maintain the desired temperature. When I followed the manufacturer’s lighting instructions, I got a lot of temperature overshoot, followed by large temperature swings of nearly plus or minus 45° F. The temperature eventually settled down, but I would use less lit charcoal next time to avoid this problem.
I was initially skeptical of the cooker’s fuel capacity, wondering if it could be used for more than a few hours at a time. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a full load of charcoal ran for 16 hours at 225°F with an ambient temperature that ranged from around 50° to 65°F. I used a Fireboard thermometer to record the internal temperature of the cooker, and left everything running after my ribs (about a 4.5 hour cook) were done. For this test, I lit the cooker at noon, added the food at 1 p.m., sauced it after four hours, and removed it half an hour later. The cooker continued to maintain temperature until about 4 a.m. the next morning. This should be more than adequate for a pork butt or brisket.
To use the cooker as a grill, remove the heat deflector so that the food is directly above the charcoal. If you want to use two-zone cooking, there is an adjustable/removeable fence that can be positioned left or right in the fuel trough to constrain the lit fuel to just the high-temp side. There are four adjustable vents, two in the base and two in the cover, that can control the convective airflow through the unit. When used in the grilling mode, these vents became too hot to open or close with bare hands; you’ll need a thermal glove or a pair of pliers. You can also program the thermostatic controller to output an adjustable percentage of its airflow capacity if additional heat is desired. If used in this manner, I suspect the idea would be to light all the desired amount of charcoal in a chimney and pour the lit coals into the grill directly.
Observations
The overall build quality is good. The unit is all brushed stainless steel with stainless hardware as well. Portable grills have to balance weight and ruggedness, and this product seems to have found a happy medium. There was some minor shipping damage that pushed the lid handle in a fraction of an inch, but a couple of firm taps with a soft hammer restored the proper shape. This is a packaging issue.
One of my pet peeves is the quality of users’ manuals. The instructions that come with this unit are inadequate, and the “manual” that can be downloaded from the company’s website is similarly useless. I have a lot of experience with equipment like this, so I was able to sort things out, but a less-experienced user would probably wind up scratching his or her head. Come on guys, you can do better than a two sheets of paper. Give your customers some useful guidance, please.
As I mentioned above, I used this cooker to smoke some baby-back ribs; they came out fine. I also tried using the grill function to quickly cook a flank steak as a London Broil. I used about a half-chimney-full of charcoal briquettes and got more than enough heat to sear the meat properly. I cooked burgers a few days later with similar results. Can’t complain about the cooker’s performance.
Warranty
The product comes with a one-year limited warranty. The included documentation has links to the company’s website where support, instructions and phone numbers will be found.
Conclusion
Despite my misgivings about the controller and the instruction sheets, I like this cooker. It is attractive and appears well-built. It uses fuel much more efficiently than my Weber Smokey Mountain, and it will burn long enough to cook just about anything. I like that it can be used as either a smoker or a grill, and that it’s portable. I’d recommend buying the optional battery pack if you plan to operate off the grid with any regularity.
- Thermometer Function:Leave in Food, Leave in Cooker, Wireless Remote, Thermostats/Temperature Controllers
- Item Price:$ 399.00
- Where to buy (buying from this supplier supports this website):
- Probe:Long food: length: 6" (150mm), diameter: 0.157" (4mm), tip: 0.087" (2.2mm), cable: 44" (1.1m); short food: length 2" (50mm), diameter: 0.157" (4mm), tip: 0.087" (2.2mm), cable: 44" (1.1m); cooker: grill clip and 44" (1.1m) cable
- Battery Type:AC Adapter or Li-Ion (optional)
- Battery Life:~20 hours (mfgr.)
- Safe Operating Range:
- Min & Max Temp:Not specified
- Display Precision:1°
- Actual Temp at 32 Degrees:n/a
- Actual Temp at 130 Degrees:130
- Actual Temp at 225 Degrees:224
- Actual Temp at 325 Degrees:326
- Speed from 32 to 212 Degrees:n/a
- Speed from 32 to 212 Degrees:n/a
- Numbers Display Size:Small
- Water Resistance Rating:
- Weight:~30 lbs. (14kg)
- C/F Switch:Built in CF switch
- Backlight:Built in Backlight
- Color Options:Stainless steel and black plastic
- Thermometer Connection:Bluetooth
- App:Apple and Android
- Included:Cooker, controller, temperature probes, AC adapter, silicone air duct, minimal instructions
- Available Accessories:Additional probes
- Alarms:Audible/Visible
BBQube
A group of barbecue loving engineers focused on design and production of temperature controllers.
Manufacturer:
Published On: 5/12/2020 Last Modified: 2/9/2022
Groundbreaking Hybrid Thermometer!
The FireBoard Spark is a hybrid combining instant-read capability, a cabled temperature probe, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Couple that with high standards of design and workmanship and it’s a “must own.” Click here to read our comprehensive Platinum Medal review.
A Propane Smoker That Performs Under Pressure
The Masterbuilt MPS 340/G ThermoTemp XL Propane Smoker is the first propane smoker with a thermostat, making this baby foolproof. All you need to do is add wood to the tray above the burner to start smokin’. Click here to read our detailed review.
The Good-One Is A Superb Grill And A Superb Smoker All In One
The Good-One Open Range is dramatically different from a traditional offset smoker, placing the heat source behind and under the smokebox instead of off to the side. Click here to read our complete review.
The Cool Kettle With The Hinged Hood We Always Wanted
It’s hard to beat a Weber kettle, but Napoleon holds its own and adds some unique features to make their 22″ Pro Cart a great alternative! Click here for more about what makes this grill special.
High quality websites are expensive to run. If you help us, we’ll pay you back bigtime with an ad-free experience and a lot of freebies!
Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for high quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 2,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner to subsidize us.
Our most important source of sustenance is people who join our Pitmaster Club. But please don’t think of it as a donation. Members get MANY great benefits. We block all third-party ads, we give members free ebooks, magazines, interviews, webinars, more recipes, a monthly sweepstakes with prizes worth up to $2,000, discounts on products, and best of all a community of like-minded cooks free of flame wars. Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial, and help keep this site alive.
Post comments and questions below
1) Please try the search box at the top of every page before you ask for help.
2) Try to post your question to the appropriate page.
3) Tell us everything we need to know to help such as the type of cooker and thermometer. Dial thermometers are often off by as much as 50°F so if you are not using a good digital thermometer we probably can’t help you with time and temp questions. Please read this article about thermometers.
4) If you are a member of the Pitmaster Club, your comments login is probably different.
5) Posts with links in them may not appear immediately.
Moderators