We chose grills with fireboxes made of cast aluminum because the firebox is a major part of the grill, it’s difficult to replace, and aluminum is resistant to rust and corrosion. Cheaper grills have thin enameled steel fireboxes Blackstone Adventure that are prone to damage and holes from rust. Once your grill has a rusty hole in the firebox, it’s destined for the scrap heap. Since the Spirit II E-210 has only two burners, indirect cooking may present a bit of a challenge.
Now, another feature of the grilling system is the porcelain enameled flavorizer bars. The flavorizer bars then allow these drippings to evaporate, adding extra flavor to the food. Porcelain-enameled cast-iron cooking grates make cleaning and maintenance easy while the Flavorizer bars help promote more flavor from the food’s Blackstone Adventure drippings. 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. They took the quality of the Spirit line and added their new Weber CONNECT technology so you can monitor how quickly your food is cooking via the included probe thermometer.
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. On the positive side, it has welded steel pieces and provides a sturdy base for the grill.
Grills with more burners are usually overkill, and two-burner grills can feel cramped. Gas grills cook faster and are easier to use than charcoal grills because you can turn on the flame with the press of a button and control the heat with the turn of a knob. They don’t produce much smoke, and they’re simpler to clean than charcoal grills, since you don’t have to dump any ashes.
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 weber spirit 2 surface than stainless steel. But in our research we found that the design and the materials that make up the grilling system are what determine heat distribution.
Though there’s no debating that, some experts argue that lump charcoal is potentially carbon neutral. If you want to read more about comparing grilling fuels, we found helpful articles from The Atlantic, Slate, and NPR. If a burner seems to be running cool or creates patchy flames, use a thin piece of wire to clean out the gas ports . There’s nothing inside the burners to break, so don’t feel like you have to be delicate. Check the grease trap after every use , and don’t let it get too full.
More convenient is a battery-operated electronic igniter, which usually ignites the gas on the first try. Some grills also have lighting holes, on the side of or beneath the grill, that can be used with a match should the igniter fail. While burners remain the grill’s most-replaced part, most are warranted for only 3 to 5 years. An indication of the sturdiness of the gas grill, based on our rigidity test and judgments of our expert testers.
It’s doable, but it requires more attention from the griller to make sure the chicken is evenly cooked. Cooking with indirect heat on a three-burner grill is more hands-off because the food sits over the middle burner, which you leave turned off. The right and left burners surround the food with heat—basically creating an outdoor oven. But with a two-burner grill, cooking with indirect heat means the food gets heat from only one side, while it sits over the other, inactive burner. So you have to maneuver and rotate your chicken or roast to make sure it cooks evenly throughout. This is not impossible, but it definitely takes some attention and finesse.
Weber, which makes all three of the grills we recommend, guarantees all parts on its Spirit II series for 10 years. So we expect our top and budget picks to hold up for at least that long. Weber also guarantees major parts on its 2022 Genesis grills—including the grates, hoods, burner tubes, lid assembly, and cookbox—for at least 10 years. Weber’s other new addition to the Spirit line, the Spirit SP-335, is basically the S-315 with a built-in side burner and a dedicated high-heat searing area on the grill. We don’t recommend grills with side burners because we don’t think that extra feature is worth the $100-plus markup. We think you’re better off saving over $200 with the Spirit II E-310.
Despite this, you would be surprised to see how many other brands don’t bother with such an important function. The product experts atReviewedhave all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram for the latest deals, reviews, and more. Thanks to this sale that’s sweeter than steak sauce, you can head on over to Best Buy to order a Spirit II for delivery or pick-up at your local store. The battery-powered crossover ignition ensures that all your burners light with a single button push.