Published on 22 September 2026 · 5 min read
Holding temperature on a kamado
A kamado is not a barbecue with a lid but a ceramic oven with a small fire in it. That difference decides everything about how you operate it, and it is why habits from a gas barbecue work against you here.
Coming back down takes an hour
Ceramic stores heat. Once the mass is at 250 degrees it radiates that heat back into the dome, and closing the vents does little about it in the short term. You can drive a kamado a hundred degrees up in ten minutes and you cannot bring it a hundred degrees down in ten minutes.
So you burn up to the temperature you want and stop there. In practice: start closing the vents about twenty degrees below your target, because it keeps climbing. Anyone who waits until the gauge reads 110 is at 160 ten minutes later and spends the next hour coming back.
The bottom vent does the work
The bottom vent controls how much air reaches the fire, and therefore how hard it burns. The top mostly controls how fast that air leaves. For a stable low temperature you set the bottom vent to a few millimetres and fine-tune with the chimney.
Do not fiddle with it either. A kamado responds slowly, so after every change you wait fifteen minutes before you can see anything. Adjusting every two minutes is chasing a temperature that has not arrived yet.
- Low and slow: bottom vent a few millimetres, top nearly shut.
- Grilling: both wide open, lid closed as little as possible.
- After every adjustment, wait fifteen minutes before judging it.
What the lid gauge actually measures
The gauge in the dome measures the air at the top, which is not the temperature at the grate and certainly not the one in the meat. On indirect cooks the gap easily runs to thirty degrees, in the wrong direction.
For anything over an hour, core temperature is the only number that counts. A separate probe thermometer costs little and is the difference between guessing and knowing.
Air past the lid is not a technique problem
If a kamado suddenly refuses to run low, look at the gasket between dome and base. It wears, and a kamado drawing air past the lid cannot be choked down: the bottom vent is shut and it burns merrily on.
Replacing the gasket is a job you can do yourself, and it is the part that comes due after a few years. Before you start doubting your technique, check the seal.
