The 8 Best Charcoal Grills of 2022

The wood does impart flavor to the meat, like charcoal, and you can substitute different types of wood to adjust the taste — but the flavor level is “medium to light,” according to Horsman. While this grill is more budget friendly, it is still a high performer, according to Consumer Reports, which gave the grill “Very Good” ratings in all of their cooking tests. It has a main cooking space that’s 391 square inches, and a charcoal pan that can adjust to six different height levels and hold up to 4.5 pounds of charcoal. To add more coals, you can use the charcoal door instead of opening the lid. Enjoy the great outdoors and barbecue to your heart’s content with charcoal grills from the brands you trust like Masterbuilt, Char-Broil, and Weber.

Our experiments ran the gamut from grilling burgers to smoking . All of our tests were designed and run by Wirecutter senior writer Lesley Stockton, who has over a decade of experience in professional kitchens, many of them spent on the grill station. Lesley conducted the testing with senior staff writer Tim Heffernan, who wrote this guide, and Michael Sullivan, a senior writer on the kitchen team. Sam Sifton, assistant managing editor at The New York Times, also joined in and added his extensive knowledge. I’d say it’s too large, not really portable, doesn’t break down too well and because of its shape isn’t the easiest to pack too.

The opposite is true of charcoal grills, which function best as sealed systems with solid, tight construction for effective air control. Just as with gas, the charcoal fire needs oxygen to burn, and you can use this oxygen flow to your advantage. Shut down the air dampers weber genesis 2 to drop the cooking temp or snuff the charcoal out entirely when finished. Open them wide to flood the fire with oxygen and create a rip-roaring, red-hot coal bed. Lifting the meat a few inches further from the heat source makes temperature maintenance less of a pain.

This grill gave both our burgers and chicken a really nice sear. During our testing, hamburgers cooked to medium, while it took the chicken about 32 minutes to come up to temperature. portable bbq With the ultimate grilling machine, mastering the art of grilling for special occasions and creating delicious, everyday meals is as simple as lighting a fire on your charcoal grill.

weber charcoal grill

Even worse, backyard chefs had to breathe in the excessive smoke from the grill top and the meat rarely had an even cook. Weber kettles combine traditional design with an innovative production. Made of steel and coated with porcelain enamel, the bowl and lid are formed exactly right to allow heat to circulate around the inside weber q of the grill for even cooking. The porcelain enamel is baked on at approximately 1500°F ensuring that your grill will not only withstand the heat, but also resist rust and burn through. The world of the charcoal grill is essentially back to basics – returning to the original experience of cooking over an open fire.

If you’re looking for the fanciest kettle grill out there, this one might just be it. We tested the 22-inch Weber charcoal grill in black, but Weber also offers an 18-inch version of its original kettle design. There are certainly fancier and more expensive grills to use for cooking, but for a balance of affordability and quality, you can’t go wrong with this classic. But what really sets the Premium version apart from the standard 22-inch kettleis the enclosed ash catcher, which makes cleanup easy and eliminates concerns about stray embers. Assembly is dead simple, and the construction and materials are sturdy.

Stephen marketed this first grill as “George’s Barbecue Kettle.” It sold for $29.95—the equivalent of around $270 today. He used the grill frequently to cook for family and friends and sold a few of them, but it took several years and many grill iterations later for the business to take off. “As the story goes,” Kempster says, “he took it home, he fired it up with charcoal, and it didn’t work. The fire went out.” One of his neighbors was watching the spectacle and chimed in saying, “George, you gotta let some air in that thing,” according to Kempster. So the pair grabbed a pick from his tools and punched some holes in the lid.