The stand is easy to operate, with clear indicators for raising and lowering it. Since the base is included, you won’t need to hunt for a safe cooking surface or crouch down to flip burgers, but it requires a little more storage space and room in your trunk. Like the Q above, Weber’s Traveler uses a single burner that wraps around the entire bottom of the grill. That’s covered by a two-piece cast iron grill grate that’s solid where it runs over the burner, which acts as a heat diffuser and keeps the burner from getting covered in grease. Speaking of grease, it has a slide-out grease trap that’s easy to empty.
She’s done firsthand testing of the Weber Q2200, which took the overall spot on this list, as well as the Masterbuilt Bluetooth Digital Electric Smoker and more. Our experts test thousands of products each year using thoughtful test plans that bring out key performance differences between competing products. And, to assure complete independence, we buy all the products we test ourselves. Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions.
In my testing, the Mini Big Green Egg has excellent heat control and, like the larger version, is extremely fuel-efficient. I wanted a charcoal grill that did not rapidly lose heat because Expert Grill Combo Grills its materials were too thin. I wanted a gas grill that kept a nice even temperature once it was set. I tried to cover both the “portable” part and the “grill” part in my testing.
Its dual-sided cast-iron grates can hold up to 18 burgers at a time, with its nearly 14,000 BTUs of power split between separately controlled left and right burners. That means you can, say grill chicken at lower heat on one side while you char asparagus on high on the other, or leave one side off completely for successful indirect grilling. There are more types of small grills now using every fuel source imaginable, including the sun. Portable grills are perfect for campers, city folks living in apartments and anyone without a big backyard or who finds themselves often on the move. Most grills performed about as well as advertised, with some topping out at as much as 100 F hotter than others. The better grills also generally ended up reading out a more consistent temperature throughout cooking.
Sturdiness is a big factor for safety and sanity when considering a tabletop or pop-up model. A grill that rocks and wobbles will provide significant challenges when you attempt to cook on it. As a rule of thumb, a grill with thicker construction will retain and spread heat better than one with thin walls and bottoms, with some exceptions. The Everdure CUBE, for example, has thinner construction but is specifically designed to distribute heat evenly. One of the only problems encountered was correctly positioning the grates. Still, we found it heated quickly and was ready to cook in 10 minutes after adding lit charcoal from a chimney, while side vents gave us greater control over lower-temperature cooking.
Control is the criteria that most distinctly separates the highest performers from the rest of the contenders. For gas and electric, this metric was scored based on how many burners each product has and whether they can be adjusted to high, medium, and low temperatures. For charcoal, we assessed how easy it was to maneuver the coal bed to create heat zones.
The Weber Traveler heated up quickly, and I met no resistance when turning food on the porcelain-enameled cast-iron grates. Of all the grills I tested, the Traveler was the easiest to set up and use. Like most portable gas grills, it uses small propane canisters, but it can also use a full-size propane tank with an adapter, so it’s backyard ready if you want to use it as your primary grill.
In general, gas or propane grills make for the best portable grills since they’re clean, easy and fast to get fired up. Charcoal is a fine alternative but the charcoal is heavier and messier than a small propane tank and charcoal generally takes longer to light. Small electric grills are also an option and while they sound great, remember you might not always have access to power, especially if you’re camping or spending a day in the park. Plus, you won’t get any of that flame-grilled goodness since there’s no, well, flame. This sleek portable gas grill from Weber is superior in almost every category and was a fairly clear winner as the best portable grill overall.
We conducted two sets of tests for scoring, depending on whether the grill was gas-fueled or charcoal. The first step for each was to assemble the grill, rating it on the clarity of instructions and how easy it was to accomplish the task. Next, we judged the grills’ portability, such as how easy they were to move and if lids or grates fell off easily.