Grills equipped with an accessible coupling for 1-pound liquid-propane canisters are a must. One-pound canisters are lightweight, inexpensive, and available at most hardware stores. Lugging around a 20-pound propane cylinder isn’t our idea of portability. If you wind up wanting to use a larger tank, you can purchase an adapter with a Type 1 connector for a 20-pound refillable propane tank. The heat generated is perfect for roasting all meat including poultry. The Dome Extension and Chicken Roasting Stand offer a great alternative to traditional roast chicken.
In addition, you don’t want a grill with bottom vents that sit above the coal bed; this design reduces airflow and can extinguish the fire prematurely. Portable gas grills come equipped with a coupling that fits 1-pound liquid-propane canisters . These mini propane cylinders are lightweight and packable, and they’re available at most hardware stores.
For its Portable Charcoal Grill, Masterbuilt employed a simple version of technology it developed for its larger 560 Digital Charcoal Grill. With the use of a fan and a separate charcoal firebox, you can have this grill hot enough to cook in about the same time it takes to heat up a portable propane grill. We loaded the firebox with charcoal from The Good Charcoal Company, which was a consistent medium size and perfect for the small, 1.5-pound-capacity firebox. We lit the charcoal with a torch for about 60 seconds, turned the fan to medium, closed the firebox, and in 15 minutes we were grilling burgers. 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.
There’s so much to love about this lightweight, versatile portable gas grill. The Cuisinart Petit Gourmet Portable Gas Grill stands out from the crowd thanks to its unique design, which converts from a freestanding weber genesis 2 model into a tabletop model in seconds. The compact design is easy to bring to a sporting event or out camping, yet the porcelain-enameled cooking grate can still fit up to eight burgers at a time.
Excessive flare-ups are annoying and can make food taste like burnt oil. We think the ideal capacity on a portable grill is enough to accommodate a full meal for two or a main course for a small crowd. In spring 2017, Tim and then Wirecutter writers Lesley Stockton and Michael Sullivan spent over 40 hours testing full-size gas and charcoal grills, as well asgrill accessories.
However, we were able to fit and cook four burgers over direct heat or four chicken drumsticks when the coals were arranged to indirect heat. This portable grill can be used with either wood or charcoal and, as its name suggests, if you remove its grill grates, it can be used as a firepit. However, the feature that really blew us away with the BioLite is its built-in battery-powered fan.
This fold-flat fire pit comes with a grill bridge that fits over the top and is adjustable up or down for optimal distance to the coals. Like using charcoal, cooking on the Takibi requires a little patience—ideal conditions come once the bare flames die down and the wood is reduced to glowing coals. We used oak firewood cut down to eight-inch chunks to get a hot bed of coals, which took about 45 minutes.