Can a kamado sit on a wooden table?

Only with a gap under it. Big Green Egg says its Egg is designed to be used in a metal nest or a metal table nest, so hot air can move underneath.

What the maker says

Big Green Egg's table nest page says the Egg is designed to be used "in a metal nest or with a metal table nest, providing an air gap below the Egg." It also warns that the low-profile table nest is not meant to be a freestanding support. It's for an Egg that sits inside a table, an island or some other surround.

Big Green Egg's own acacia table page tells you to place the Egg in the table on a table nest "for necessary air circulation."

What builders do

• Jen Woodhouse built a cedar table for a Vision kamado and set a paver stone under the grill. She says it "didn't even feel hot" afterward, and that the grill itself can reach upwards of 800°F. She also warns the paver can't raise the grill so high that you can't reach the pull-out ashtray.
• A forum member, Kent8621, built a wood table with a concrete top. He said a nest makes any table you build much safer, and that setting the Egg directly on pavers can crack it faster.
• Another member runs a wood table with a nest and stays at the table when he's cooking above 275°F, with a spark screen on.

Those are individual reports, not tests. They agree with the maker on the part that counts, which is an air gap and something that doesn't burn directly underneath.

What would settle it

We haven't found a published temperature reading taken under a kamado on a wood table. If you build one, that's a number worth measuring before the first long cook, and Big Green Egg and Kamado Joe both have contact lines for exactly this kind of question.

Planning to build it into an island instead? Same idea, bigger project: built-in islands.

Sources: Big Green Egg table nest page, Big Green Egg acacia table page, Jen Woodhouse, Egghead Forum table plans thread. All read Nov 4, 2026.