If you’ve never cooked with charcoal before, the Original Kettle is an excellent grill for discovering this style of barbecue. Some of the ash will fall portable bbq through to the ash catcher a few inches below the bowl. For the rest, Weber has equipped the Original Kettle with its “One-touch” ash removal system.
With 360 square inches of primary cooking surface, the grill box is larger than the 300 square-inch Classic model, but retains PK’s characteristic flat bottom and rectangular shape. There’s also a unique configuration of bottom left and right adjustable air intake dampers and corresponding top left and right exhaust dampers. The wide flat bottom makes it easy to push charcoal to one side and create two very distinct direct and indirect zones. The air control required for charcoal grills actually makes them dang good smokers, too. This gives smoke plenty of time to leisurely caress foods and impart that magic, smoky goodness.
The Professional Cart Grill has an interesting rotisserie design, too, that uses a special charcoal basket across the back for a dedicated rotisserie fire. The Char-Griller Super Pro is a versatile steel barrel charcoal grill with a whopping 850 square inches of total cooking area, if you count the top warming rack. The main grates are made of heavy-duty cast iron and resemble the grates of some of the best gas grills we tested this year. Like the Char-Griller Classic, the Super Pro can also be converted to a proper smoker by attaching an optional side fire box, and the enameled steel body does a great job of retaining heat. Overall, this is a good basic barrel grill, but assembly was frustrating and it lacks many of the features that made the Classic our pick for best upgrade. Starting a charcoal grill is definitely not as easy as starting a gas grill, so it’s important to understand how to do it correctly.
A couple of downsides discovered during testing were that the lid can detach while cooking and the lack of a built-in thermometer means you’ll need to have your own. Lifting the meat a few inches further from the heat source makes temperature maintenance less of a pain. Speaking of Slow ‘N Sear, this company was built on their innovative charcoal insert, mentioned above.
If you have any questions, or any words of advice to give others concerning the original kettle, please do drop them in the comments section below, I’ll be sure to answer every comment. But, that’s the beauty of charcoal; you can get a lot for a little because they’re so simple. Additionally, weber q I can cook just about anything I like thanks to the ample diameter and the bulbous dome. Weber has a lot of confidence in its products, and they back it up with an exceptional warranty. There are many appealing, well-thought-out features, despite it being a basic grill.
The new spring-loaded hood design is a significant improvement over earlier models. Simply light a charcoal chimney of charcoal, arrange your briquettes or lump charcoal based on what you’re grilling/smoking, adjust your vents, and you’re off to the races. In the case of kettle models, we arrange coals in a semicircle around the grill’s inner wall. The charcoal briquettes form a line two coals wide and two coals deep.
Equipped with a Tuck-Away™ lid holder for convenient lid placement, taller legs, and Char-Basket™ fuel holders. The oval shape of the grill made it easy to cook multiple types of food, from skewers to roasted corn. After she was done testing, cleanup was a breeze, whether using a grill brush or removing the grate to clean in the kitchen sink.