Marks and grilled-on food were easy to remove but you’ll definitely need a scraper to get this done. Everyone on the test day got a sample sausage and they all agreed that these were pretty much perfect. They had a gorgeous char on the outside but we succulent and tender on the inside, maintaining the right amount of moisture. However, you might be wondering why there’s relatively few slices of veg on the grill. This won’t be a problem if you’re mostly grilling burgers or sausages, but could be if you’re grilling slices of veg or smaller meat dishes like chicken wings.
Wondering which fuel is best, how to clean a bbq or after beginner’s advice? It’s easier to build and more reliable, igniting without fuss every time. The food it weber portable grill makes is better, and depending on sales, it costs $200 less. It has 10,000 five-start reviews on Home Depot, so you know it’s not just me who loves this grill.
It wasn’t as bad as other grills we’ve tested, but you might need a partner or a friend on hand to help you build it. This grill is easy to use and made the best food of any we’ve tested. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the competitors, but it doesn’t need them. Finally, although we looked at grills from high-end makers such as Hestan, Lynx/Sedona, and MHP for comparison (and a sense of what’s possible in a grill, for a price), we did not test them.
Weber is no longer producing our former upgrade pick, the Weber Genesis II E-310. But this model is still available for purchase at big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s. For one thing, this grill has an externally mounted propane tank, which is easier to install and replace than traditional, under-grill tanks (like on our current upgrade pick). And this type of tank also frees up the area under the grill for storage of tools and other items.
Since the Spirit II E-210 has only two burners, indirect cooking may present a bit of a challenge. It’s doable, but it requires more attention from the griller to make sure the chicken (or roast, or what have you) is evenly cooked. Cooking with indirect heat on a three-burner grill is more hands-off because the food sits over the middle burner, which you leave turned off. The right and left burners surround the food with heat—basically creating an outdoor oven. But with a two-burner grill, cooking with indirect heat means the food gets heat from only one side, while it sits over the other, inactive burner.
Adding a few small chips of wood to the charcoal will give your meat a more traditionally smoked flavor. Placing a pan of water underneath the grates where you will be putting your meat will help to catch drippings, keep the meat more moist, and enable the smoke to adhere better to the meat. If you know that you’ll be cooking multiple different types of food or meats, you might also need to consider multiple burners on a larger grill.
Most grills have multiple measurements listed in their specifications, including the total cooking area, primary cooking area, and cooking racks. The Weber Genesis EX-325S is essentially the same grill as our pick for best investment, the Weber Genesis E-325S, but it has added smart features that are sure to please any tech-savvy grillers. Once it’s connected to your smartphone, the grill can send you real-time food temperature alerts, flip weber portable grill reminders and serve notifications so you never overcook another burger. This grill produced consistently good results during testing, responding well to heat adjustments and cooking food evenly — though we did wish some of the char marks were more pronounced. The sides and front of the grilling surface were slightly cooler than the center, but overall, we found it was easy to operate, even for those with minimal grilling experience.