Big Green Egg vs a Gas BBQ
Written in 2013. Rewritten in 2026, after 13 more years of cooking on both.
I wrote the first version of this page in 2013, a few weeks after my wife, Helena, surprised me by agreeing to buy a Big Green Egg. At the time I'd been cooking on gas for 20 years and had just spent a serious amount of money on a Weber Summit. I'd seen the Big Green Egg, but never eaten from one or used one. I expected it to be my second grill when I wanted to experiment.
Thirteen years later, I sell Big Green Eggs for a living, so you should read everything below with that in mind. What I can promise is that I still own gas, I still use gas, and there are people I talk to every week, who I tell to buy a gas barbecue instead of an Egg. I'd tell you to buy the Egg and use it for a while, you may find you don't need that gas grill.
The short answer
If you want food on plates in 10 minutes on a Tuesday with no thought involved, buy gas. If you care about how the food tastes, want to cook all year round, and want one thing outside that grills, smokes, roasts and bakes, buy the Egg. Almost everyone who buys an Egg, after owning gas, says the same thing: they cook outside far more often than they used to. You may even find it improves your cooking, it certainly did mine.
Lighting and getting up to temperature
Gas wins on paper. Turn the knob, press the igniter, close the lid, and you're at cooking temperature in about 10 minutes.
The Egg may just suprise you though, it'll get to 180°C in 15 minutes with vitually no intervention. Tip in lumpwood charcoal, drop in a natural firelighter, light it, leave the lid open for 10 minutes, then close it. You're grilling in 15 to 20 minutes on a Large, closer to 10 on a MiniMax.
So gas is roughly 5 minutes quicker to a grilling temperature. That gap may matter more than you'd expect on a weeknight and not at all at the weekend.
Gas wins, but by less than most people assume.
Controlling the temperature
This is where the two are genuinely different, not just marginally different.
On a gas barbecue you control the flame, not the temperature. Low, medium and high are inputs; the actual temperature inside depends on how cold it is, how windy it is, how full the bottle is and how much food you've just put on. A cheaper gas grill will be single skinned metal, and even more susceptible to the weather.
The Egg is a ceramic oven. You set the bottom vent and the top vent, and it holds. Once you understand the combinations — and it takes about three cooks — you can dial in 110°C and walk away for 8 hours, or take it to 350°C for pizza and hold it there. The ceramic mass is doing the work, which is also why weather barely affects it. I always cook Christmas dinner on an Egg, I wouldn't dream of doing it on my gas grill.
The Egg wins, comfortably. See our guide to setting the temperature on your Big Green Egg.
What each one actually cooks better
I've kept this from the original page because it's still the most useful part, but I've updated it after another decade of cooking.
| Dish | My choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sausages | Gas, if I'm being lazy | The Egg does them better. Gas does them faster. |
| Burgers | Egg | Serious sear, no flare-ups, and they taste of something. |
| Chicken thighs and drumsticks | Egg | Indirect heat cooks them through without burning the skin. |
| Whole roast chicken | Either | Rotisserie on gas is excellent. The Egg gives better flavour. I now use the Egg with a rotisserie and get both. |
| Pulled pork | Egg | Fifteen+ hours at 110°C without touching it. Gas can't do this. |
| Brisket | Egg | Same again — see our British brisket recipe. |
| Steak | Egg | A cast iron grid or plancha over lumpwood gets hotter than any gas burner I've owned. |
| Suckling pig or whole lamb | Gas rotisserie, or an XL Egg | The one place a big gas grill still holds its own. It'll taste better on the Egg for sure. |
| Pizza and bread | Egg | Not a contest. I wouldn't attempt a loaf on gas, unless it was a gas pizza oven. |
| Roast potatoes | Egg | So much flavour from the Egg. On gas you may as well use the oven indoors. |
| Cold smoking and curing | Egg | With a smoke generator. See our cold smoking guide. |
| A Tuesday in February | Egg | It doesn't care about the weather, and neither do I any more. |
Flavour
For years I believed Weber's flavourizer bars gave me a proper barbecue taste. They give a good one. Then I cooked on the Egg and realised what I'd been missing.
Gas is a heat source. Charcoal is an ingredient. Good British lumpwood burning under your food is doing something a gas burner physically cannot, before you add a single wood chunk. It's closer to seasoning than to fuel — which is why we're fussy about which charcoal we use.
You can add wood chips to a gas barbecue and get some smoke. It isn't the same, and after 13 years I'd say the gap is bigger than I claimed in 2013.
The Egg wins, and it's the reason most people switch.
What they cost to buy
Big Green Egg is sold at the same recommended price by every UK dealer, so the number below is the number everywhere:
- MiniMax — £925
- Large — £1,495
- Extra-Large — £2,050
Those include the ceramic base unit; you'll want a nest or table, a convEGGtor and a cover on top. See the Big Green Egg family for what each size suits, and Big Green Egg dimensions if you're working out whether one will fit.
Gas covers a far wider range. A perfectly good two-burner starts around £400. The Weber Summit range — the direct equivalent of the S-650 I bought in 2008 — now runs from roughly £4,300 to £6,300 at RRP. The Summit is stainless and is going to last you, just as the Egg will. Cheaper gas grills will expire in just a few short years.
Think about that, the gas grill is over double the price of the Large Big Green Egg.
Cleaning and looking after them
Both will burn themselves clean if you run them hot. Both need the grids scrubbing.
The Egg needs its ash clearing every few cooks, which takes 2 minutes.
Gas needs the drip tray emptying every few cooks to avoide grease fires, the burners checking, and eventually the burner tubes and flavourizer bars replacing — usually somewhere between 5 and 10 years.
Gas is marginally easier week to week. The Egg is easier over a decade, because there's nothing in it to wear out.
The Egg is also a much cleaner job than that grease trap.
How long they last
My Egg is 13 years old and has needed 2 replacement gaskets. I've had a fire ring and a fire bowl under their superb lifetime warranty. My original stainless and cast iron grids are still going strong.
My Weber is 18 years old and still going, which is a credit to Weber, but it's had consumables replaced along the way and that's normal for any gas grill.
If you're spending this kind of money, ask what the thing will be worth to you in 15 years. It's the question that made the Egg make sense to me.
They've both been superb grills.
So which should you buy?
Buy gas if convenience is the deciding factor and barbecue is a summer activity for you.
Buy the Egg if you want to cook outside all year, care about flavour, want to smoke, roast and bake as well as grill, and would rather buy one thing once.
If I had to give one up, it wouldn't be close. It would be the gas.
Come and see one before you decide
This is a £1,000-plus decision and you shouldn't make it from photographs or a website alone.
We're in Histon, just outside Cambridge, and we're a Big Green Egg dealer. Come and see the sizes in the flesh, look at the bases, bring something and we'll cook it. It costs nothing and there's no pressure — if we think a gas barbecue is the right answer for how you actually cook, we'll tell you that too.
Book a demonstration — see the Eggs and taste the difference Call 07446 960303 or email hello@meatsmokefire.co.uk — for honest advice, not a sales pitch Shop the Big Green Egg range — MiniMax, Large and Extra-Large
Make sure you talk to a dealer who owns and uses the product day in day out, and that's us.
Common questions
Is a Big Green Egg better than a gas BBQ? For flavour, temperature control, low-and-slow cooking and year-round use, yes. For speed and convenience on a weeknight, a gas barbecue may be more convient, but only just. Which one is "better" depends entirely on how often you cook and how much you care about the result.
Is a Big Green Egg more expensive to run than gas? Yes, by roughly £1 to £2 per cook. Good lumpwood charcoal costs around £2.50–£3.00 a kilo and a typical cook uses about a kilo, against roughly £50–£55 for a 13kg propane refill that lasts many cooks. Unburnt charcoal can be reused, which narrows the gap.
How long does a Big Green Egg take to light compared to gas? About 15 to 20 minutes to a grilling temperature on a Large Egg, against 10 minutes on gas. A MiniMax is ready in around 10 minutes.
Can you cook low and slow on a gas BBQ? You can hold a low temperature on a good gas grill, but not with the stability of a ceramic kamado, and you won't get the smoke. For pulled pork or brisket, the Egg is a different class of tool.
Can you use a Big Green Egg in winter? Yes. The ceramic insulates so well that outside temperature barely affects it. We cook Christmas dinner on ours every year, which has the useful side effect of giving you your oven back.
Do I need to get rid of my gas BBQ if I buy an Egg? No, and I haven't. Plenty of our customers keep gas for quick weeknight cooking and use the Egg for everything they care about.