For cooking certain foods you need specific tools. Pizza and smoked meats are some of them. After managing to cook Pizza for 20 years with different ovens, I am finally able to cook it the right way! Also, I always wanted to smoke meats and with my Kamado, I have done Brisket and few other meats few times. Although it has been a learning curve, but I am getting awesome results. One of the learning items for me was my charcoal, don't be trying to reinvent the wheel! For the price and quality, you can not beat Kamado Joe's bags of charcoal. They burn hot and clean. This is my great toy gift to myself and my family couldn't be happier!