The 8 Best Charcoal Grills of 2022

Under the lid it looks more like a gas grill than a charcoal grill thanks to 549 square inches of porcelain-coated cast-iron grates plus a secondary steel rack for warming or indirect cooking. This grill has enough room for a three-zone weber genesis 2 charcoal fire—and a handful of beer-can chickens, multiple racks of ribs, or 20 burgers. It’s also a great grill for slow cooking a whole pork shoulder and then some with or without Char-Griller’s optional side fire box.

weber charcoal grill

In our chicken test it held a high temperature for longer than any other grill in the lineup. But the biggest problem is that the instructions completely portable bbq overlook what we found to be a potentially dangerous design flaw. The Napoleon’s vent assembly consists of two metal collars, one inside the other.

They answer the phones 7 days a week between 7 am and 8 pm Central Time. 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. What you will have to do after each use is remove unused charcoal and ash that falls to the bottom. Buy a wireless digital meat thermometer, you’ll be much happier over the long run. One feature you also don’t get with the Original Kettle is a thermometer in the lid.

Next, we light each grill’s snake at one end of the chain with five lit briquettes . We set all air vents on each grill to the halfway-open position. Lastly, we place one rack of ribs on each grill for indirect cooking, with the meat not sitting directly above the coals. The best charcoal grill for steak searing in our lineup was the Weber Classic Kettle. The steak had nice grill marks while keeping a medium doneness on the inside. The worst was our Tacklife review unit, which didn’t hold much heat and didn’t sear while cooking.

It has a cooking area of 240 square inches and features a carry handle for portability, the brand says. The grill has steel cooking grates and dampers that help you control the temperature inside the kettle, according to Weber. 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. You’ll weber charcoal grill need to purchase a bag of briquettes, and either lighter fluid or a handy charcoal starter. We filled it up to the top with briquettes and then put newspaper underneath, which we lit on fire and then allowed the coals to heat up for exactly 15 minutes. Once your briquettes are fired up and ready to go, you then dump them into the base of the kettle grill.