The fan is electric, of course, but that doesn’t mean you have to be tied to an outlet—it can also be powered by four AA batteries. LotusGrill stands out from the pack by serving up a charcoal BBQ with a built-in battery-powered fan system. Thanks to this bit of technical wizardry, your charcoal will be ready to cook in record time, while producing far less smoke than a regular fanless charcoal grill. You can even dial in the fan speed to change the heat intensity as you see fit. Weber’s pared-back barbie combines form and function in a portable porcelain package. Good to go and for roasting at home, the compact cooker’s enamel coating keeps temperatures consistent while resisting rust.
It’s also worth noting that you’ll be getting more of a broiled result versus a traditional grill since there is no actual flame so don’t expect char marks on your oblong burgers. There are a few sizes, including this mid-size GoSun Go and the larger GoSun Survival if you’re planning on cooking for a group. weber q Carrying a dusty, dirty charcoal grill around isn’t usually an attractive proposition, but the creators of the GoBQ have mostly solved the issue through intelligent design. The entire unit folds out and up in about 20 seconds and then wraps up again after you’re done, securing all the nasty cooked charcoal.
If you want portable charcoal grilling in a truly portable package, this is the best small grill to buy. The Cuisinart gas grill is definitely lighter and a bit more portable than the Weber. It also feels slightly less sturdy while grilling, but is not flimsy by any means. At just over $100, it is the best portable grill on a budget — especially if you don’t plan to use it more than a handful of times per summer.
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.
Both Weber gas grills I tested were effective and easy to cook on, but the nod goes to the Traveler here for its passionate embrace of portability. When folded up, the legs become a handle that you can pull behind you as if you’re walking with a nice roller bag. The legs on one side of the grill become a sort of handle when the grill is folded up; you can walk with it, kind of as if you’re pulling a nice roller bag. It has some other nice design touches, like the ability to transition the grill from folded to cook-ready with one hand, and a lid that locks automatically for transport and storage. The Weber Traveler heated up quickly, and I met no resistance when turning food on the porcelain-enameled cast-iron grates.
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 portable bbq 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.
300 Square inches of cooking space is enough to feed around four people at once, with smaller surface areas obviously being better suited for feeding smaller groups. When shopping for a new grill I usually recommend people consider the same 5 or 6 factors. You can find out more about this in our guide to the best charcoal grills. Other than that aspect, it’s a solid choice for a portable, easy-to-use charcoal grill. The cooking grate is 240 in.², too, so there’s plenty of space for food, and the grates are made from coated porcelain.
We also had a few more flare-ups with the Grill2Go than with our other picks. Of all the portable propane grills we tested, the Weber Q 1200 grilled foods the most consistently, with a cast-aluminum firebox that evenly held and reflected heat throughout. It had the fewest hotspots of all the grills we tried, due in large part to the U-shaped burner, which evenly heated the grate. While the high heat setting perfectly seared burgers without burning, the Q 1200 also outperformed the competition at steady medium-low heat for items such as bone-in chicken and large sausage links.
It had the same solid construction, the same easy-to-work-with grates, and it even had a chimney vent on top that provided excellent temperature control. The charcoal basket was on adjustable hooks, so I could bring it closer or further from the grates depending on how hot I wanted them. But the things that made the Rambler a great grill are also the things that made it harder to move. Carrying it two blocks was not impossible (and considering the quality of the grill, it may be an effort worth undertaking) but it required more exertion than any of the other charcoal grills. It also required more assembly of the wrench and screwdriver type, though it still only took about 30 minutes. The value of your portable grill depends on your cooking needs and your intended usage.