Three machines, three different ideas of what "easy" means Kamado, gravity-fed charcoal and electric bisquette smoking all produce genuinely good barbecue. They disagree on what you should be doing with your hands while it cooks. A kamado hands you a vent and asks you to manage the fire. A gravity-fed grill hands you a dial and manages the fire itself, as long as the power stays on. A Bradley smoker removes fire management from the equation entirely, at the cost of the highest heat you can reach. If you want the broader rundown that also covers pizza ovens, portable BBQs and gas — we've written that one already. This is the narrower question underneath it: if smoking specifically is what...

13.5, 18 or 24 inches — the number that decides everything else Kamado Joe sells three grills, and the difference that actually matters isn't the generation or the colour — it's the cooking surface. Joe Jr is 13.5 inches across (roughly 148 sq in). Classic Joe is 18 inches (around 254 sq in). Big Joe is 24 inches (around 450 sq in). Everything else — price, weight, how many ribs you can fit flat, whether it fits in a ute — follows from that one number. Most people get this decision wrong in a specific direction: they buy for the party they hosted once, not the Tuesday-night dinner they'll actually cook a hundred times. Joe Jr: 13.5 inches, and it's...