Even if you just have an apartment balcony to work with, portable grills take up minimal space and can often be compactly stowed away after use. The 25 x 12-inch cooking surface will hold a lot of burgers, dogs, or whatever your preference. And, if you want to mix things up, the grill grates swap out for griddle or stove grates (available separately). The burgers came out with fantastic coloring and that “cooked over charcoal” taste.
Controlling the temperature in a charcoal grill is all about vent placement, since you can’t turn coal heat down. But vents are also important for the airflow required to keep your coals lit. We found that a vent in the top of the lid and another in the belly of the firebox created the best air circulation.
Smaller grills in the 100- to 150-square-inch range are suitable for one or two people, maybe three in a stretch. The NOMAD sports a modern design, folding together like a briefcase for carrying, with heat dissipation portable bbq in mind to keep the exterior cool while cooking. Like the PKGO, the NOMAD can function as a closed grill, or you can use each side independently as a hibachi-style cooker, doubling the cooking space.
And the single-tube 8,500 Btu burner runs along three edges for better heat distribution, so all of that space is usable. More space between the coal bed and the grilling grate lessens your chances of ending up with charred food. The extra room also allows for more coals, so you have the option of longer cooking time. You can also create hot and cold spots for searing and indirect cooking.
The side and top handles are made from custom molded heat resistant glass reinforced nylon. The ergonomic design provides easy handling, and special holes added to hang GoBQ portable grilling tools (which are in development!). If you want portable charcoal grilling in a truly portable package, this is the best grill to buy. Give your picnic pals the same experience with Heston’s natty BBQ box. Neat and tidy by design, the bamboo lid doubles up as a prep board, with a storage tray beneath.
The charcoal bin is pretty deep, letting you stack a significant amount of the fuel to reach pretty high temperatures for a portable grill. A vent at the bottom of the grill further helps you to control the temperature of the cooking space. It’s extraordinarily easy to carry thanks to its three separate handles and light 14-pound design. We’ve tested a range of grills capable of packing up and grilling hot dogs, burgers and much more at the campground, park, or tailgate. The tiny Cuisinart CGG-180T Petit Gourmet Portable Tabletop Gas Grill suffered major flare-ups when cooking burgers, and turned into a raging grease fire when cooking chicken pieces.
The Weber Jumbo Joe is our pick for best portable charcoal grill for most people thanks to its affordable price, capable size, and lid locking feature. If you can stretch your budget the PKTX is larger, has greater temperature control, and comes with an excellent foldable cart. We grilled bone-in chicken to test for flare-ups and how well both the gas and charcoal grills could sustain a medium-low cooking temperature over 45 minutes. With its rectangular shape and easy-carry handle, the Cuisinart Venture looks a bit like an insulated cooler, but it does the exact opposite. It’s a small grill and doesn’t have a heck of a lot of power, but it’s also extremely compact and easy to carry down to the beach or toss into your backpack. There’s a wooden cutting board/serving tray that sits on top of the grate when the grill’s not in use, but it’s completely open to the elements while cooking.
Being a single-burner grill, the Venture made it a little tricky to manage heat when cooking thicker meats like bone-in chicken, as it’s hard to get away from the heat for longer, indirect cooking. We set the burner on low for the 100 percent beef burgers we grilled, flipped them once, and then turned up the heat to imprint sear lines from the cast-iron grate. Generally, we found it relatively easy to grill thinner foods and, even better, convenient to turn on and off as needed over the course of an afternoon. Traeger wood pellet grills offer precise temperature control that gas and charcoal simply can’t match.