There are two features about the Nomad worth mentioning when it comes to cooking. The first is the twin air vents. In single-sided mode, you end up with one air vent at the bottom and one at the top. If you have both sides open, they're both at the bottom. They're much smaller vents than what you'll find on typical grills, but they work well because of a second feature: the longitudinal raised slats. These ribs running the length of the grill pan hold Nomad's special charcoal cylinders off the bottom of the grill, making the air flow around them better and allowing you to maintain higher temperatures even with the lid closed.
The bad news is that if you use regular charcoal briquets, the airflow isn't as good and you won't be able to get temps as high. I cooked my way through the sample box of Nomad charcoal in about four cooks and then switched to the regular Kingsford briquets you can buy almost anywhere. I was never able to get the Nomad back up above 400 with the lid closed. But I can't think of many situations in which you'd want to get temps that high, aside from perhaps baking a pizza. If that's your use case, you can always buy more charcoal from Nomad. It's $36 for a 10 pound box.
While I do not like bespoke charcoal (I can't even believe I had to type the phrase “bespoke charcoal”) because of the price, Nomad's charcoal is better than what you get at the big-box stores. It's denser, burns hotter and longer, and gives off less smoke. My kids even discovered it's fine enough to double as art charcoal. If you've got the money to burn (literally), Nomad charcoal is worth it.
Since the Nomad can be closed up, suitcase-style, it can be used to smoke as well as grill. Smoking with the Nomad is a little trickier than with Weber's Jumbo Joe, at least at first. It took some careful tweaking of the vents to get the air flow to the point that it was maintaining the temperature I wanted, but once I had it dialed in, the temp held well—better than the Weber, in fact.
The only thing I found annoying about smoking in the Nomad was needing to lift off the entire grill grate to feed in some fresh fuel. A hinged grill grate would be a nice option, especially since the magnets would hold it securely in place the rest of the time.
It's also worth noting that as a smoker, you have slightly less room than on the Jumbo Joe. A single side of the Nomad is 212 square inches, while the Jumbo Joe manages 240 square inches. In practice, this isn't a big difference. I managed to smoke nine chicken breasts, and another time I fit two racks of ribs. In fact, even without the second grill grate I never felt cramped while cooking for five (two adults, three ravenous children).
Easy Clean
When I pulled the Nomad out of the box and looked inside, my first thought was, “What a nightmare to clean.” This turned out to be only partly true. Cleaning the Nomad on-site is a bit of a pain. Flipping over a 28-pound suitcase to dump out the ash is awkward. The good news is that if you're just out for the day, you can close up the Nomad and head home without doing a thing. You don't even really need to wait for it to cool, since the outside never gets more than warm.
Once you're home, a hose will make quick work of cleaning up the Nomad. A pressure washer will work even better, but I've been getting by just fine with a hose.
The grill grate takes a bit more effort to clean. I do not recommend using anything but bristle-free scrapers. I've been cleaning mine periodically with a green scrubber and occasionally throwing some wood in at the end of a cook to burn off the grate. Follow that up with a fresh seasoning and your grate should be clean and ready to go for your next cook.
The Weber Jumbo Joe remains a very good grill at a faction of the price of the Nomad. Still, the Nomad is the best portable grill I've used, and if you do buy it, you won't be disappointed. If you're in search of some grilling guidance, we love American's Test Kitchen cookbooks.
