What it actually is
An egg-shaped charcoal cooker made of steel instead of ceramic. Three layers of steel with air gaps between them do the job that several inches of fired clay do on a ceramic kamado: they stop heat escaping through the body, so the fire only has to replace what the chimney and the food take. Char-Griller describes it as triple-walled insulation for maximum heat retention and fuel efficiency, and that is a fair description of the effect. A small fire, held in, does an enormous amount of work.
There are two controls and no electronics: a bottom intake damper and a top exhaust damper. The lid locks down. There is a hinged, coated steel body on a cart with locking wheels, an ash pan underneath, cast iron grates on top and a removable stainless warming rack above those. That is the whole machine. There is no thermostat, no auger, no fan, no app, and nothing on it that can fail electrically — a real durability argument that the spec sheet never makes for you.
What Char-Griller publishes
Unusually for this category, the maker publishes most of what you would want to know. These are its figures, not ours.
| Spec | Published figure |
|---|
| Total cooking area | 445 sq in |
| Primary cooking area | 325 sq in |
| Temperature range | 200–700°F |
| Product weight | 88.2 lb |
| Assembled size | 46.1 in wide × 48.4 in high × 31.1 in deep |
| Body | Triple-walled insulated steel |
| Warranty | 5 years |
| Charcoal capacity / burn time | Not published |
Two of those rows deserve a second look. The first is the gap between 445 and 325 square inches: subtract them and the removable warming rack accounts for roughly 120 square inches — that is our arithmetic on the maker’s two published figures, not a third figure Char-Griller states. It matters because 325 is the number you cook on. A rack of ribs and a chicken, or two pork butts, is an honest read of a 325-square-inch round grate; a marketing 445 is not.
The second is that nobody publishes how much charcoal the firebox holds or how long a load lasts. Kamados are the most fuel-efficient cookers we cover and this one is no exception, but we are not going to convert “efficient” into a number the maker has not stated. If you want the arithmetic on running costs by fuel type, our cost-to-run guide does it from published figures.
The heat deflector, honestly
This is the section to read before you buy. Out of the box, an AKORN is a direct-heat cooker: the charcoal is below, the food is above, and there is nothing between them. That configuration sears a steak beautifully and is the wrong way to cook a pork butt. Barbecue is indirect cooking, and to get indirect heat in a kamado you put a plate between the coals and the grate.
Char-Griller sells that plate as the Smokin’ Stone, model 6201, and describes it plainly: it turns your kamado grill into a smoker, circulating air around the meat while protecting the food from the direct heat and flame. The maker states it is cordierite and withstands temperatures over 1200°F, and lists fitment for AKORN models 16620, 26720, 06620, 6520, 6719 and E56720. The full-size cooker reviewed here is a 16620-series body, so that is the right stone for it — check your own model number against that list before ordering, because Char-Griller sells a separate, smaller stone for the Jr.
Two practical notes. First, budget for the stone as part of the cooker rather than as an upgrade; a kamado you cannot smoke on is not what you came here for. Second, when we checked on September 8, 2026, the standalone Amazon listing for model 6201 read “Temporarily out of stock,” so we have not put a buy link on it here — we will not send you to a listing we just watched go dark. Char-Griller sells it directly on its own site, and it reappears on Amazon periodically. That is an inconvenience, not a reason to skip the cooker.
Skipping the stone entirely is the mistake to avoid. Without it, fat dripping from a long cook lands on open coals, flares, and coats the meat in soot rather than thin blue smoke. That is the classic first-cook disaster on a kamado, and it has nothing to do with the cooker being bad.
How it holds temperature
Very well, with one habit to learn. Because the insulated body leaks so little, tiny vent movements do a lot and the response is slow. Open the top damper a quarter of an inch and the temperature will keep climbing for fifteen minutes before it settles. The technique that works is to sneak up on your target from below: light a small fire, close the lid early, and let the cooker walk up to 250°F rather than blowing past it and trying to bring it back down. Recovering from an overshoot on any insulated cooker is slow and frustrating — the walls are still holding all that heat. Our temperature control guide covers the underlying vent logic in full.
The published 200–700°F range is worth taking seriously in both directions. The USDA puts smoking generally in the 225–300°F band, so the bottom of the AKORN’s range sits comfortably under normal low-and-slow territory — unlike a fixed-vent drum such as the Pit Barrel Cooker, this cooker will genuinely run a 225°F overnight if you ask it to. The top end is the part a dedicated smoker cannot match at all: a pellet grill typically stops around 450–500°F, and no cabinet smoker sears. One cooker doing both jobs is the kamado’s whole argument.
The one thing to stay on top of is ash. A kamado draws through a small bottom intake, and as ash accumulates it quietly strangles that airflow — which is why a cook that started perfectly can die four hours in. The AKORN has an ash pan that empties from underneath; clear it before every long cook, not after. Use lump charcoal rather than briquettes for the same reason: lump leaves far less ash. Our charcoal guide explains the trade-off, and wood chunks, not chips, are what you bury in the lump for smoke.
Steel versus ceramic, in one paragraph
Ceramic stores more heat than an air gap does, so a ceramic kamado is steadier over a long cook and shrugs off a cold, windy night in a way insulated steel does not quite manage. That is the honest gap, and it is smaller than the price gap. Steel heats up faster, weighs about a third as much, costs far less, and cannot crack. For a first kamado we point people at steel nearly every time — there is real value in owning a cooker you are not afraid to move. If you already know you love this style of cooking and want the last ten percent, the ceramic Kamado Joe Classic I above is the buy-once answer, and it ships with a two-tier system that includes deflector plates. Our kamado roundup compares all three side by side.
AKORN or AKORN Jr.
Char-Griller publishes both, and the decision is about footprint rather than money.
| AKORN (E16620) | AKORN Jr. (E86714) |
|---|
| Cooking area | 325 sq in primary, 445 sq in total | 155 sq in primary |
| Weight | 88.2 lb | 35.7 lb |
| Assembled size | 46.1 × 48.4 × 31.1 in | 20.5 × 26 × 20.1 in |
| Temperature range | 200–700°F | 200–700°F |
| Warranty | 5 years | 5 years |
The Jr. behaves like its big brother — same triple-wall construction, same published range — in a body you can carry to a campsite. What it cannot do is cook for a group: 155 square inches is a chicken, or a rack of ribs cut in half. Take it if a balcony or a tailgate is the constraint, not to save money, and note that it takes a different, smaller Smokin’ Stone. If you are unsure which size you need at all, our smoker sizing guide translates square inches into food.
What it is genuinely bad at
Big flat cuts. A 325-square-inch round grate is a family cooker. A full packer brisket does not lie flat on it and has to be trimmed, folded or cooked in two pieces — a real limitation if brisket is why you are buying a smoker. A vertical cabinet gives you far more usable racks for similar money.
Being moved once it is built. 88.2 pounds and 46 inches wide with the shelves out is not a cooker you shuffle around a small patio. It is a third of a ceramic kamado’s weight, which is the point, but it is not light. Decide where it lives before it arrives.
Weather, over years. This is a coated steel body, not glazed ceramic. Left uncovered through wet winters it will eventually tell you about it, particularly around the ash pan and the bottom damper where moisture and ash sit together. Keep it covered and empty the ash. There is a five-year warranty behind it, which is a longer commitment than most cookers at this price carry.
Being a set-and-forget smoker. It is not one, and it does not claim to be. You light charcoal, you set two vents, and you learn the cooker. If that already sounds like more than you want on a Saturday, an electric smoker or a pellet smoker is the honest recommendation instead — and our kamado vs pellet comparison lays that decision out properly.
The verdict
The AKORN is the most cooker you can buy for the money in this category, and the reason is that Char-Griller solved the kamado’s expensive problem with engineering rather than mass. Three layers of steel and two air gaps deliver most of what several inches of ceramic deliver, at a third of the weight, with no risk of cracking and a five-year warranty behind it. It smokes at 200°F and sears at 700°F, which no dedicated smoker on this site can do.
Buy it if you want one charcoal cooker that does everything and you are willing to learn two vents. Add the Smokin’ Stone at the same time and treat it as part of the purchase, not an upgrade. Skip it if you want the food without the fire — that reader is better served by our best smokers for beginners roundup, which lines up the easiest option from every type. And whichever way you go, the accessory that actually decides whether your first cook works is not the stone or the cover — it is a meat thermometer. Chicken still needs 165°F on a cooker that reaches 700.
