(I was able to get up to 592 degrees off a digital thermometer.) There’s very little smoke, though I do suggest using it in a well-ventilated area if you’re indoors. I grilled everything from pork chops to asparagus and was quite happy with the results. If you want to expand the City Grill’s capabilities, you can buy a flat top surface for $135 that you can use to cook up a pancake breakfast. No thermometer is included, and Weber does not make a storage cover for the Jumbo Joe. If you want to do any indirect-heat cooking, you’ll want to buy the hinged grill grate for $35 so you can feed in fresh fuel without removing the top grill, and the $23 charcoal basket is also useful.
If you’re solely interested in cooking, lump charcoal would be a faster way to get to grilling over a bed of coals. Setting the grill bridge about four inches up worked nicely for us, with our burgers right over the coals. Chicken on the bone needs to be set a little higher to be sure it cooks evenly. With the Takibi, once the cooking is done, remove the grill bridge, throw on some more wood, and you’ve already got your campfire going. The Lodge Cast Iron Sportsman’s Grill L410 is a longtime favorite of Wirecutter senior staff writer Lesley Stockton for its intense heat.
For the gas grills, we also placed slices of white bread over the entire surface to map out the heating pattern. Grills with even heating really shined here, creating predictable patterns without noticeable hot or cold spots. The Biolite’s grill surface is only about 130 square inches, so it isn’t as large as some of the other portable grills we tested for this guide.
This means you don’t have to obsessively babysit your barbecued chicken to prevent excessive charring. Porcelain-coated cast-iron cooking grates are best at searing foods. Though cast iron adds an extra 5 to 10 pounds to the total weight of a grill, we think the flavorful dark crust on burgers weber genesis 2 and steaks makes it worthwhile. We also prefer an open grate design that allows ambient heat from the firebox to brown the areas in between the grill marks. We found that stainless steel solid grates with small perforations don’t let enough ambient heat through to brown the food properly.
New for this year, a keenly priced single-burner gas offering from one of America’s favourite barbecue manufacturers. For a snip under £300, this barbie is a great choice, especially if you’re looking for a product that’s built better than most no-name brands. Although Traeger says its maximum temperature is 230˚C, we noticed that the actual highest temperature reaches about 241˚C and with a roaring flame beneath the heat shield. This means it could feasibly be used to sear steaks, too; something pellet grills usually don’t excel at. Although portable, you wouldn’t want to carry this model too far and, of course, you will need an electricity supply to operate it.
Like the Q 1200, the Traveler has a single gas burner and cooks over cast-iron grates. This means it can’t be used with indirect heat, but the lowest heat setting was low enough to cook our chicken drumsticks to golden-brown perfection. With its 22-inch diameter and 360-square inches of cooking surface, the Grill Ultimate Bundle is as large as a full-sized charcoal grill. Although it’s more expensive than most charcoal grills, we were extremely happy with the Solo Stove Grill’s performance on both direct and indirect heat cooking.
As for the weight, the Q-series grills are a bit heavy for moving around often. If you prioritize portability over cooking performance, weber q consider our runner-up pick. The Weber Q series may be the best grills we’ve tested, but they’re also the most costly.