Somerset Grill and Big Green Egg: Which Suits How You Cook?

They're both great products. The right choice depends on how you actually want to cook and that's a more interesting question than "which is better."

A Somerset Grill is a wood-fired Argentinian Grill with adjustable height control across a 40–400°C range. A Big Green Egg is a ceramic kamado that excels at low-and-slow smoking with charcoal. They're genuinely different tools built around different philosophies. So let's break down what that means for you in practice.

What You're Actually Choosing Between

The Big Green Egg is built on thermal mass. Heavy ceramic walls hold steady temperatures for hours with almost zero intervention. Load it up, dial it in, walk away. It's brilliant at what it does.

A Somerset Grill works differently. You're cooking over real wood embers, controlling temperature by raising or lowering the Grill Frame with a turn of the handle. The V Grill channels fat into drip trays instead of onto the flames and the ember maker supplies a steady supply of red hot embers. 

One is about patience. The other is about involvement. Neither is wrong.

Go with the Egg If...

You love the idea of setting and forgetting. Load it up, dial in your temperature, walk away for hours. Pulled pork, brisket, ribs, that patient, smoky style where the kamado does the work while you get on with your day.

The Egg creates a stable, insulated environment for consistent results. If that's the style of cooking that excites you, it's hard to beat.

Go with the Somerset Grill If...

You want to be involved. Wood-fired cooking is active, social, hands-on. You're adjusting the height, feeding the fire, moving between searing steaks and simmering a curry.

You want versatility across 12 cooking methods, not just grilling and smoking, but roasting, frying, baking with Pizza Oven Plates, using Meat Hooks for hanging joints over a gentle flame. And you want that unmistakable wood-fire flavour.

The Somerset Grill is also an experience for everyone around it. Flames catch the eye. Sparks rise into the evening sky. The smell of wood smoke drifts across the garden. People gravitate towards it. It becomes the centrepiece of the evening, not just the cooking appliance tucked to one side.

How Temperature Control Actually Works

The Asado Grill uses height adjustment for precise temperature control. Turn the handle to raise or lower the grill surface. More air beneath the fire creates higher heat (up to 400°C). Less air creates gentle warmth (down to 40°C). You control everything with one movement.

After a few weekend cooks, you'll instinctively know exactly how much wood to add for the heat you want. No expertise required, just the right tools and a bit of practice.

Our Honest Recommendation? Get Both.

If you're building an Outdoor Kitchen, this isn't really an either/or decision. The two tools are complementary, not competing. The Egg for those long weekend smokes, brisket, ribs, pulled pork done low-and-slow while you get on with your morning. The Somerset Grill for everything else, searing, roasting, frying, hanging joints, baking pizzas, simmering stews. Between the two, there's nothing you can't cook outdoors.

We build a dedicated Kamado Unit that sits right alongside your Somerset Grill in a matched Outdoor Kitchen setup. Oh, and if you're not going the full Outdoor Kitchen route just yet, our Egg Stand gives your Big Green Egg a proper home next to your grill. Plenty of Somerset owners start with the grill and add a kamado later once they realise how much time they're spending cooking outside. It's a natural progression.

If you're choosing just one to start with, the Somerset Grill opens up the wider world. It does far more, cooks with real wood-fire flavour, and works year-round in all weather. It's so much more than a BBQ.

We cook on these grills ourselves. Every improvement comes from real use, real feedback, real weekends spent around the fire. We built them to give you confidence with fire from your very first cook.

Have a look at the full Asado range, explore the Outdoor Kitchen options, or get in touch we're always happy to talk through what would suit you best.