The Big Green Egg Family
Meet the Big Green Egg family, the MiniMax, the Large and the Extra-Large.
Made of aerospace-grade ceramics hailing from NASA, the Big Green Egg grill and smoker is much more than just a barbecue. It’s incredible cooking performance has led to it being adopted by the foodie community all over the world. It has been adopted as the grill of choice by the majority of Michelin starred restaurants, as well as hundreds of thousands of homes across the world.
Please don’t think of the Egg as just a tool for cooking traditional BBQ, it’s far more flexible than that, cooking incredible vegetable dishes, cakes, pies, stews, stir fries and so much more. We use the Egg for pretty much everything as the results are so much better than we can achieve cooking indoors. Even our Christmas cake is cooked on our Egg.
The MiniMax
- Grill diameter: 13″
- Cooking area: 856 cm2
- Cooking capacity: Four burgers, a small chicken, two steaks
- Weight: 35kg – luggable
- Ideal use: Great for couples with limited space, and camping.
Our experience with the MiniMax Big Green Egg
We love the MiniMax, and actually own two. One lives typically in our campervan, while the other is used for quick, smaller cooks.
We’ve cooked so many fabulous dishes on our MiniMax while travelling, including lobster and paella, casseroles and burgers, right the way through to a full rack of beef short ribs.
The MiniMax uses so little fuel and can be ready in as little as 10 minutes. In some groups it’s described as the Mighty MiniMax, and we’d agree with that.
The Large
- Grill diameter: 18.25″
- Cooking area: 1688 cm2
- Cooking capacity: Six to eight steaks, a full turkey
- Weight: 74kg
- Ideal use: Excellent for frequent grilling, smoking, and entertaining.
Our experience with the Large Big Green Egg
It’s our go to Egg, and Big Green Egg’s best seller.
We use the Large for our cookery school and have cooked just about everything you can imagine on one, just take a look at some of our live cooks.
If you’re a small family of up to four or five people, this is the Egg for you.
If we could only have one Egg, then this would be it.
The Extra-Large
- Grill diameter: 24″
- Cooking area: 2919 cm2
- Cooking capacity: Can handle multiple racks of ribs, large pizzas, or a whole suckling pig.
- Weight: 102kg
- Ideal use: Best for those who entertain large crowds or cook large amounts at once.
Our experience with the Extra-Large Big Green Egg
The Extra Large Big Green Egg is a beast. It’s huge, and as a result, it’s the least used Big Green Egg we own.
If we were a family of six or more, or just spent our whole time entertaining, then this may be our favourite.
We tend to use the Extra Large Big Green Egg when we’re cooking huge chunks of brisket or many rack of ribs, but on the whole, it doesn’t get used much.
Note: in the UK Big Green Egg have chosen not to import the Mini, Small and Medium sized Eggs. The 2XL is available, but unless you are catering doing only Low and Slow cooks, we would advise against buying one of these, the accessories available are very, very limited. We can source the 2XL.
Choosing the right Big Green Egg for you
If you’re thinking of getting a Big Green Egg, or maybe adding a second Egg to your setup, these are the things I would think about.
How many people are you going to be cooking for?
- While you may cook for 20-30 people once a year, how many people are you regularly cooking for. The Big Green Egg is a product that you’ll find yourself using way more on a day-to-day basis than you might any other grill. Therefore if you’re a family of four who entertains maybe two or three times a year I would recommend the Large. You can still do cooks for up to twenty or thirty people, but you do one, maybe two dishes and do them really well, not a tonne of burgers, wings, thighs, and sausages all cooked badly.
- Stick to cooking one dish really well, you don’t have to compromise and try and cook everything all on the Egg.
What type of food are you going to be cooking?
- If you think you’ll be cooking brisket and pulled pork every time you cook, then you might want an XL. Bear in mind, though, that these cuts are best cooked in big pieces, so they tend to be expensive, and you’ll be using a lot of fuel. If you’ve been looking at the forums, charcoal is about half the price in the US, as is their meat. I’d recommend going and eating some good barbecued brisket first; you might find it’s not something you want to be eating every week; we’re not massive fans of this type of cooking.
- If you’re like us, we like to use the Egg for every type of cook that we could do either on our hob or in the oven. Just look at our recipe library and you’ll see the versatility. Do you need a huge grill?
- Some things do require a little bit of space. I was involved in the decision to phase out the medium Egg in the UK. Too many people were buying it and then getting frustrated at both the lack of cooking space, a leg of lamb didn’t fit, and also the lack of accessories available for it.
Where are you going to be using it?
- If you want to move your Egg around, you’ll need to opt for a base with casters, or the MiniMax, that can be lifted.
- If you want your Egg to stay in one position, then the Big Green Egg tables, the Modular Nest, The Big4Space Kitchen Islands, or the VLAZE kitchen units are perfect. At the cookery school, we use Big4Space and VLAZE as they have unrivalled storage and are more hygienic than most Big Green Egg units.