As you might know, starting a charcoal grill usually begins with simply getting the coals warmed up in a chimney starter. It comes with an auto-start gas ignition that consistently lit the coals for us. You can place the lid in different positions for the best top damper placement, with the bottom damper easy to adjust when your flame gets too hot. During our smoking test, we were able to keep the grill within a range of 10 degrees for several hours, making this a great option for cooking with indirect heat. Food cooked on our Char-Broil test unit was good, though slightly less crispy and seared than the Weber.
My medium rare steaks were perfectly cooked, and the burger patties were browned evenly across the entire range. The addition of the burner to the side meant I could cook up some delicious BBQ beans at the same time as the meat, and I didn’t need to bounce from inside to out to keep everything cooking. I made three racks of ribs one night over indirect heat, taking up almost every bit of its 529-square-inch cooking weber portable grill surface without overwhelming it. I also appreciated that size, efficiently cooking for two like my E-310 does at home and capably handling larger parties. The warranty covers the firebox and lid assembly for 12 years and covers the stainless steel burner tubes, cooking grates, and Flavorizer bars (burner hoods) for 10 years. To get the longest life out of your grill, be sure to clean and care for it properly.
Whether they were charcoal or propane, stationary or portable, all of our favorite Weber grills had some things in common. High-quality Weber grills are easy to assemble (although as with weber bbq most other brands, the charcoal grills have fewer parts and are simpler to put together than gas models). The best grills are intuitive to use, without confusing bells and whistles.
The Spruce Eats Editor Siobhan Wallace compiled testing data from our official Lab as well as insights from our home testers’ full product reviews to compile this roundup. Jason Horn, The Spruce Eats commerce writer, also contributed to this roundup. Raised in Chicago, he knows that hot dogs should never be topped with ketchup.
Sun, rain, snow, hail, and wind are bound to take a toll on the outer surface of your grill, so it’s important to pick a material that’s very durable. While stainless steel can discolor from high heat, it won’t rust or corrode with rain and snow. Enameled or powder-coated steel is durable, but eventually, it can crack or chip, leading to rust underneath. That impressive performance begins the moment this arrives at your door. After a straightforward set-up, all you need to do is push the ignition button and connect it to the Weber Connect app on your phone.
Despite those annoyances, this barbecue grill offers plenty of practicality and power for a very reasonable price. Char-Broil uses what it calls Tru-Infrared, a set of perforated emitter plates that separate food from flame to evenly distribute heat and reduce flare-ups. There were definitely fewer flare-ups compared with other models in our testing, but you won’t be able to see the flame when you’re lighting the grill or adjusting the temperature, so keep that in mind.
Charcoal is easy to pick up at just about every grocery store, home improvement store, or gas station, so you won’t need to make a special trip. But you’ll need to have a charcoal starter on hand, will have to wait for everything to cool down before you can dispose of it, and need to deal with the messy ash afterward. For this recipe, we use the KettlePizza attachment to make a crispy crust grilled buffalo chicken pizza on our Weber Kettle charcoal grill. Those temperature probes are connected to a data logger and laptop with software that records the internal temperature of each chicken breast every two seconds. Each chicken cooks until the temperature in both breasts reaches a food-safe 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times.
There you’ll see the ambient temperature, as observed by its very accurate built-in thermometer, and monitor the temperature of your food via the two included probe thermometers. The app doesn’t allow you to alter the flame, one of the few drawbacks to the EX-325S. When cooking, the grate has a hinged design to add more charcoal.
An average 15- or 20-degree difference across the quickest and slowest patties in a batch was the norm in our testing. Red flags are raised when we begin to see differences in the 30- to 40-degree range. We measure out 5.3 ounces of 80/20 ground beef and press them into uniform patties. Those patties go into a grill basket and we insert a temperature probe into the center of each patty at a 45-degree angle. Weber’s feels like a cash grab at $90, but I own one, and it has suffered several years of the crazy heat and sun of my porch in the summer and Seattle’s wet winters.
Since wood pellet grills work by indirect heat, you’ll be able to smoke food as well, without any accessories. You will need to make sure there’s an electric outlet nearby since most need to be plugged-in for the ignition and the auger. It’s an anecdotal round, so there isn’t a connected thermometer set or software capturing specific data. We preheat each grill on high for 10 minutes before turning it down to low, indirect heat.