Not sure which Oklahoma Joe Grill to buy? Read our Oklahoma Joe grill reviews to know what to expect of the different grills.
Grilling used to make me nervous. But then I learned to view the fire as just another source of heat, no different from a stove or an oven – Samin Nosrat
Good company, good food, and good conversation are, without a doubt, some of the finer things in life.
A triumvirate that embraces the better qualities of the human condition and revels in the social aspect of our nature, they are also the backbone of the long-standing American tradition of grilling.
While other cultures have an irrefutable fondness for barbecuing and cookouts, none have taken it to heart in quite the same way that America has.
We transformed barbecuing into an art form and turned everything that made it great up to eleven. American made, and continues to make, barbecuing better.
We’ve all spent time at the grill-face, we’ve all learned how to char, grill, barbecue, broil and smoke over an open (and in smoking’s case, closed) flame and we’ve all made lifelong friends over a shared plate or two.
So we all know the value of a good grill, and we all know the kind of difference the right grill can make when you and your friends and family get together for a weekend reunion, party, or cookout.
That’s why we all want to arm ourselves with the best grill possible, as memories and good times are made even better when you’re cooking with a game-changing grill.
And that’s why we’ve put together a list of the best Oklahoma Joe’s grills because when you want the best grill in town, the only name on the grilling list you’ll ever need to know is Joe.
It’s time to start grilling the Oklahoma way…
Best Oklahoma Joe Grill (Winner)
Oklahoma Joe’s Rambler Portable Charcoal Grill
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Best Oklahoma Joe’s Grills – Comparison Table
Image | Product | Our Rating | Buy |
---|---|---|---|
Oklahoma Joe’s Rambler Portable Charcoal Grill | CHECK PRICE ON WALMART | ||
Oklahoma Joe’s Longhorn Combo Grill | CHECK PRICE ONLINE | ||
Oklahoma Joe’s Longhorn Reverse Flow Smoker | CHECK PRICE ON WALMART | ||
Oklahoma Joe’s Judge Charcoal Grill | CHECK PRICE ON WALMART | ||
Oklahoma Joe’s Highland Offset Smoker | CHECK PRICE ON WALMART |
Oklahoma Joe Grill Reviews
#1. Oklahoma Joe’s Rambler Portable Charcoal Grill
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While they’ve never advertised or highlighted, the fact that they make a portable grill, one of the secret weapons in Oklahoma Joe’s barbecuing arsenal is the Rambler, a charcoal grill that was purposely designed to be the tailgater and RV devotee’s best friend.Featuring two hundred and eighteen square inches of total cooking space, and a height-adjustable charcoal tray that makes turning the heat all the way up or cooking the Oklahoma way (that’s long, low, and slow) easy, the Rambler takes all the best bits of a heavy-duty charcoal grill and reworks them for maximum portability.
It even has a front-access, removable ash pan to make cleaning simple and a lid-mounted temperature gauge that has glow-in-the-dark luminous numbers, so you can keep grilling long after the darkness descends. Fashioned from steel and made to be easy to carry, the Rambler has a handhold on either side so moving it around won’t be any more difficult than carrying your grandma’s old trunk up the loft.
It’s been built to take the sort of pounding that family get-togethers inadvertently hand out and all the punishment that life in an RV and partying in the parking lot of the big game will administer.
They make them tough in Oklahoma and the Rambler conforms to all the best Okie stereotypes that a lifetime of generalization and gentle mockery has etched into the national consciousness.
Pros
- The adjustable charcoal tray has three settings, so you can vary the level of heat that you use to grill from high to low and when they’re partnered with the dampers which will also help to control the heat the Rambler makes, they transform this grill into a surprisingly versatile barbecuing and cooking machine.
- And while we’re on the subject of charcoal and trays, the Rambler’s removable ash pan makes it almost as easy to clean as it is to grill with. We say almost as we hate cleaning, and even though we know we shouldn’t, especially given how easy the Rambler makes it, we always leave the cleaning to the last possible moment. The Rambler adheres to a more haste, less waste philosophy and so should we. But we never do and we never learn, which given how easy the Rambler makes cleaning, you would have thought we would have by now. One day maybe…
- The worst thing about spending your life at the grill is that one day you wake up and you’ve suddenly got old and need to start wearing spectacles to see the things that you used to take for granted. The temperature gauge on the Rambler makes it easy to see how hot the grill is, and when night draws in, thanks to the luminous markers on the dial, we don’t even need to put our readers on to see it.
- Rambler by name, Rambler by nature. When Oklahoma Joe’s say the Rambler is portable, they mean it. At a tad under fifty-four pounds, it’s relatively easy to move around, and as it’s built from heavy-duty steel, even if it does take a couple of knocks while you’re carrying it, it won’t notice and will just fire up, as good as new the next time you feel like throwing a tailgating shindig.
Cons
- Two hundred and eighteen square inches of cooking space might not be enough to cook for your entire family. While it’s ideal for road trips and winding up for, and down after, the big game, it might not have enough grilling power to cover your home-based barbecues and parties.
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#2. Oklahoma Joe’s Longhorn Combo Grill
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Variety is the spice of life and a lesson that Oklahoma Joe’s took to heart when they began their grilling adventure.
They know that sometimes you want a little more from your grill and need to draw on all of the power and versatility that it possesses to satisfy the ever-changing food-based demands of your guests and your family.
That’s why they created the Longhorn so that you can cook with gas and grill with charcoal.An offset smoker and a gas grill, the Longhorn is ready to rise to any culinary challenge that you can lay in front of it.
A dual-chamber grilling monster who’s gas-fired side can produce thirty-six thousand BTU’s (British Thermal Units) of heat and whose charcoal chamber will grill and smoke as long as there’s fuel in its firebox, this combination grill, and smoker has a total cooking surface area of more than one thousand square inches and two separate lid-mounted temperature gauges so that you’ll never lose track of how hot your grill and smoker are.
And if that wasn’t enough heat and grilling power, the Longhorn has an additional side-mounted gas burner that’ll provide another twelve thousand BTU’s of heat, so if any extra guests do show up at your barbecue unexpectedly, you’ll have more than enough spare capacity to cook for them. Built from heavy-duty steel, the Longhorn is as reliable and durable as the State that is named after and won’t let you down, even in a grilling crisis.
If there’s one thing that the people at Oklahoma Joe’s know how to do properly, it’s make a grill that lasts forever and a day.
Pros
- One thousand square inches of the cooking surface area gives you an awful lot of grilling power. The first time we saw the Longhorn, we thought we’d taken a wrong turn, had gotten lost and were staring at the flight deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford rather than a grill.
- The versatility that the Longhorn offers is invaluable to the griller who wants to master her or his chosen art. Want to serve burgers that have cooked with the clean, natural sear of a gas grill? Or do you fancy a brisket that’s been left to smoke for a couple of hours and has been infused with all of the rich flavors of charcoal? When you’re grilling with the Longhorn, neither is a problem, just decide what you want, light it up and you’ll soon become the ruler of your own grilling kingdom.
- Unless it gets caught in the epicenter of a natural disaster, the Longhorn will weather any and all calamities and emerge unscathed on the other side. It has been built to outlast humanity.
Cons
- Versatility and adaptability aren’t cheap, and the price that you’ll pay for them with the Longhorn manifests itself in pounds rather dollars. Weighing in at just over two hundred pounds, it isn’t an easy grill to move and once you’ve found an optimal position for it in your yard, the Longhorn will probably stay where you put it for the rest of its natural, grilling life.
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#3. Oklahoma Joe’s Longhorn Reverse Flow Smoker
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It might share its name with Oklahoma’s Joe’s combo gas and charcoal grill, but that’s about all this reverse flow smoker has in common with its namesake.
Oklahoma Joe’s made their name with smokers and this offset behemoth was designed and built with three decades of experience and know-how to help imbue you with all of the grilling prowess of a culinary deity. With seven hundred and fifty square inches of cooking space in its primary cooking area and an additional three hundred square inches mounted in the firebox, the Longhorn has a total grilling knockout blow of nearly eleven hundred square inches.
Designed to be used as either a traditional offset or a reverse flow (which provides an additional level of smoke-infused flavor to whatever rests on the grill plates in the primary cooking area) smoker, the Longhorn uses a set of simple to control baffles to control the amount of smoke and heat that it makes, which will grant you mastery over, and command of, everything that you smoke and grill in it.Its chamber mounted temperature gauge will ensure that you’re constantly aware of how hot it is inside the Longhorn and the easy to remove charcoal basket that the firebox uses to house its fuel means that the Longhorn is also easy to clean and maintain in peak operating condition.
Whether you want to smoke and grill the offset or reverse way, the Longhorn is the machine that makes it possible for you to conquer both disciplines and perfect your grilling skills.
Pros
- The Longhorn is the epitome of smoking ingenuity and makes it easy to grill and barbecue with charcoal, and whichever avenue of smoking possibility that you chose to pursue with it, offset or reverse, the depth of flavor that it’ll help you to create with, and in, whatever you decide to grill, will set you on the path to grilling nirvana.
- With almost eleven hundred square inches of title cooking surface area, you’ll be able to feed your entire neighborhood with the Longhorn. So, unless you want to spend every weekend of the rest of your life stuck in front of the Longhorn, it might be wise not to let everyone know that it’s living in your yard.
Cons
- The only other thing that the Longhorn shares with its combo grill namesake is a weight problem. It’s another heavy grill, and as it also weighs more than two hundred pounds, unless you want to do yourself a serious injury in an ill-judged moment of masochistic madness, once you’ve positioned the Longhorn in your yard, it won’t be going anywhere else ever again.
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#4. Oklahoma Joe’s Judge Charcoal Grill
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Grilling doesn’t have to be complicated, and Oklahoma Joe’s Judge has been engineered to keep things simple and straightforward.
It isn’t a grill that’s been made to reinvent the wheel or to help you figure out the underlying base code of the universe, the Judge was created to do one thing and do it better than ninety-nine point nine nine percent of its competition. It was made to grill.
Using the same height-adjustable charcoal tray as the Rambler, the Judge offers you the option of cooking at low, medium, or high heat and helps you to control the flame with its simple to use set of dampers.
Whatever level of heat you choose, the five hundred and twenty square inches of cooking space will enable you to transfer every degree of the charcoal fueled flames into whatever it is you’re grilling.
And thanks to the Judge’s chamber mounted temperature gauge, you’ll be able to confidently monitor and keep control of the heat inside the Judge, like everything that Oklahoma Joe’s makes, the Judge was engineered to last. Its solid steel construction and easy to access and empty ash pan makes it simple to use, reliable, and easy to clean.
Sometimes, that’s all you want or need. A reliable, durable grill that’ll make cooking for your friends and family effortless.
Pros
- It’s a straightforward, no-frills charcoal grill that’s been designed to make your grilling life easy.
- With five hundred and twenty square inches of grilling surface area, the Judge has more than enough room for you to cook everything that you’ll need to feed your friends and family.
- And thanks to its rugged steel construction, it’ll probably outlast you and all of your descendants and end up in a museum as part of a historical exhibition that charts the development and advancement of humanity in the twenty-first century.
Cons
- While Oklahoma Joe’s claim that the Judge is easy to move around your yard thanks to being mounted on wheels unless you’ve been benching some serious weight in the gym, you won’t be able to shift it’s two hundred plus pounds anywhere. The Judge is just as heavy as every other grill that Oklahoma Joe’s makes.
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#5. Oklahoma Joe’s Highland Offset Smoker
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Oklahoma Joe’s originally smashed their way into the grilling scene with their smokers, and the Highland is one of the staggering be-all, end-all smokers that helped to cement their reputation among the grillers in the know.
As good as it ever was thanks to the tweaks and modifications that have been made to it throughout its working life, the Highland is a powerhouse offset smoker that would fit proudly in any grillers yard.With one thousand square inches of combined total cooking space (seven hundred and twenty in the primary chamber and two hundred and eighty in the firebox), this offset smoker is designed to be rust-resistant, has porcelain coated grilling racks, and has been made to flawlessly channel smoke and heat from it’s offset box into the main chamber.
And all of that heat and smoke that it makes? You’ll be able to control it with ease thanks to it’s simple to navigate system of dampers, that’ll make sure that you remain firmly in control of the smoking process from beginning to end. When your smoking session does come to an end, the Highland is also easy to clean as it uses the same simple to remove and empty ash pan and charcoal basket that all Oklahoma Joe’s smokers do.
The Highland is where Joe’s story started, and it’s an ideal smoker for you to start your Oklahoma journey with too.
Pros
- One of the first tenets of grilling wisdom revolves around adhering to the idea that if something isn’t broken, there’s no need to fix it. And it’s a philosophy that Oklahoma Joe’s has taken to heart with the Highland. Maybe you should too. It was one of the first Joe smokers, and it’s still one of the best.
- With one thousand square inches of total cooking space, this simple to use and easy to clean smoker has all of the grilling and cooking power that you’ll ever want or need. As we said, it’s the be-all and end-all of smokers.
Cons
- It suffers from the same problem that all Oklahoma Joe smokers do. It’s catastrophically heavy, and while it isn’t quite in the same weight league as some of their other machines, at nearly one hundred and fifty pounds, it’s still too heavy to be considered “portable”
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Oklahoma Joe’s Grills – Buyer’s Guide
Which Oklahoma Joe’s Grill Is The Right One For Me?
As most of the grills, bar the Rambler, that Oklahoma Joe’s make fall within a similar budgetary level, the only questions that you really need to ask yourself when it comes to choosing one of their grills, is how versatile you want it to be, and how much cooking space you’ll need your grill to have.
That said, if you were to ask our opinion, we’d always point you toward the Oklahoma Joe’s grill and smoker that we’ve always put our faith in, and that’s the Longhorn.
Regardless of whether you choose the combination grill or the offset reverse smoker, it’s an all-purpose and all-powerful grilling giant that will never let you down.
Because when all is said and done, there’s only one way to grill, and that’s the Oklahoma way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who Are Oklahoma Joe’s?
It all started with two thousand dollars and a dream. Having fashioned twelve meat smokers using every penny he had, Joe Davidson took the fruits of his labors to the Oklahoma State Fair in nineteen eighty-seven and on the first day, sold all twelve and took orders for one hundred more. It was the beginning of Oklahoma Joe’s.
In the three decades and some spare change since that fateful day, Oklahoma Joe’s has become one of America’s premier manufacturers of grills and smokers and continues to push the envelope of everyday smoking and grilling technology to its limits.
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