To a degree, all grills suffer from this problem, because the burners don’t extend all the way to the front of the firebox. But the Spirit II E-310 offered the most consistent heating across the entire grate surface. On the Napoleon grill, meanwhile, some of the front burgers were nearly raw in the center, while the rear burgers were well-done.
Considering that most people do not leave reviews for purchases, Weber must of sold hundreds of thousands of these grills to have received that many reviews. With a data set of that size I have plenty of confidence that the story they tell can be trusted. The reason that the right side table on the Spirit II is not designed to collapse is that it is built with a slot for holding the digital iGrill3 temperature sensor (sold separately). I am not a fan of the iGrill3 system but, if you are into gadgets, this is a feature you should be aware of. One reason that some people buy a two burner grill is because they do not have much space.
Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial, and help keep this site alive. Register your grill and gain quick and easy access to manuals, replacement parts and warranty. Easily fold down the left side table of the grill whenever you want to save space and need extra room to work with. Just click the button and flip the table down – making it ideal for smaller balconies. I hope you found this review helpful on your grill buying journey! If you are still interested in the Spirit grills after reading this then there is another model that you owe it to yourself to look at, the Weber Spirit SP 335.
Sam Sifton, then food editor of The New York Times, also joined in the testing and added his extensive knowledge. In 2018, we tested Weber’s new Spirit II E-310—successor to our char broil performance previous pick, the first-gen Spirit E-310—against our upgrade pick for the best gas grill. Open your door to the world of grilling with the sleek Spirit II E-210 gas grill.
If it spills over, you’ll be cleaning grease out of the inside of your grill for an hour. After years of testing grills, we can’t think of a better deal for a great grill than the Original Weber Kettle, which has been our favorite charcoal grill for almost 10 years. Cooking with charcoal is not as convenient as turning a dial and walking away, but we love a Weber kettle for its simplicity and durability.
But it is expensive to run a website with more than 2,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner to subsidize us. The easy-to-read fuel gauge located next to the gas tank lets you see how much fuel is left in the tank. The Spirit II grills have the same GS4 system and 10 year warranty of the more expensive Weber Genesis grills. It only takes two minutes to watch and gives you a close up look at all of the features. I find it much easier to roll the Spirit II grills around, especially over a surface like a back deck where there are lots of uneven surfaces from the spaces between boards. The original Spirit grills are mounted on four small caster wheels, two of which are locking.
Those are parts that should be easy to find and can be purchased for a reasonable price—preferably from the company that made the grill. Any solid grill maker will have those available for purchase, even if your grill is 15-plus years old. We grilled the chicken with the lid down for 45 minutes, occasionally checking for charring, and redistributing the pieces as necessary. After 45 minutes, we flipped the chicken parts, slathered on a coating of barbecue sauce, and closed the lid for another 15 minutes. Throughout, we monitored the grills’ temperatures according to their built-in thermometers; the goal was a steady hold at 375 °F with little or no burner adjustment. While the burgers cooked, we kept an eye out for flare-ups—which can char the meat and create acrid smoke—and looked at the evenness of cooking across the grates.
When comparing the two materials—without taking anything else into consideration—cast iron holds more heat, so it will leave darker sear marks on your food than stainless steel. But the difference is minimal, especially if you’re not doing a side-by-side comparison of the two. Some folks think cast-iron grates distribute heat better across the grilling Blackstone Adventure surface than stainless steel. But in our research we found that the design and the materials that make up the grilling system (firebox, burners, burner hoods) are what determine heat distribution. The Spirit II E-210 Gas Grill integrates Weber’s iGrill Digital Grilling Technology by building in a side shelf mount specifically for the iGrill 3.
For our 2022 update, we relied mostly on research and reporting, as well as our rigorous testing from years prior. We combed big-box home-improvement stores—including Home Depot and Lowe’s—and Big Apple BBQ in New York to view anything new. And we again chatted with Joe Salvaggio at Big Apple BBQ to get his expert opinion of the gas grills available for 2022. Overall, we found weber spirit 2 that the core function and design of grills we’ve covered in the $400 to $900 price range hasn’t changed. More-recent models have the same bones as their predecessors, with minor tweaks like redesigned cabinets, handles, and control panels. Weber’s Smart Grill revolution may be mostly a Genesis-line upgrade, but they did spread the wealth to the Spirit series with the SX-315.