What makes this grill special is that the telescoping VersaStand holds the grill at ideal cooking height, yet shrinks down for easy transport and storage. Our tester did find the grill was a bit wobbly at its full height, but it put great sear marks on a variety of food, from tofu to Brazilian-style steak skewers, with minimal sticking. It has two magnetic vents which, weber q when set to half open, allow the grill to stay at 250°F for an hour. I checked the grill every 20 minutes and was able to keep it at that temperature on less than a full chimney of charcoal. The 31-pound Weber Q 1200 is still surprisingly portable due to its useful handles. The Petit Gourmet has telescoping legs that fold up neatly, and it’s easy to carry in one hand.
Like the Traveler, the Weber Q2200 can also accommodate a full-size propane cylinder with an adapter. The push-button ignition is battery powered, which I actually found slightly easier to use. A portable grill could be just mobile enough to load it in and out of your truck bed with a friend, or it might be compact enough to fit inside a large backpack. We then put ourselves in your shoes and put each model through an array of creative real-life cooking scenarios. The GoBQ also performed well, cultivating a steady and hot fire, and has a robust 185 square inches of grilling space. It’s a little more expensive than some on the market, but it’s built to last.
The cast iron grates are easy to scrub clean with a grill brush and the drip pan (located inside the grill) removes so you can wash it before storing. Some portable grills are meant for tabletop use—they can also be used on the ground if you’re comfortable with that, but it may not be as convenient. They’ll often have fold-out legs and built-in carrying handles for easy storage and set-up. Grills with tall legs let you work at a comfortable standing height, but the legs add weight and bulk, so they’re not as convenient to carry. The legs also might not be as stable and wobble a bit while you’re cooking.
Despite that, we loved cooking with this portable pellet grill – it is the perfect addition to an RV setup. Weber has a reputation for building grills that gracefully blend cooking performance and reliability, and that tradition is rolled into a portable package with the impressive Weber Q 1200. Simply put, this model let us grill with more precision, predictability, and control than most of the other models we bought and tested. Take your portable grilling game to the next level with the Gourmia GBQ330 Smokeless BBQ.
We found the u-shaped burner of the Camp Chef Portable BBQ to be one of the best single burners in our review. The large surface of the Cuisinart All Foods Roll-Away gives the cook multiple heat zones to work with while grilling. The infrared burner of the Solaire Everywhere heats the entire grill surface to about the same temperature.
The porcelain-coated cast-iron grill grate is quite non-stick, with even delicate fish filets releasing pretty easily. The only part about using the Nomad that I didn’t love was emptying it. Because it needs to be emptied while completely open, it was hard to lift when attempting to dump the ash into a bin. On its website Nomad suggests using a shop vac to get all the spent charcoal out.
The Everdure Cube by Heston Blumenthal is a cute little charcoal grill that’s easy to carry and comes in a number of color options. It’s easy to handle the grill even when lit because of the cool-touch handles. Ultimately, I found food fell in between the bars of the grate too easily and the grill itself was too small to be useful. If you’re looking to cook a whole lot of food at once, you can’t top the Camp Chef Portable Pellet. Between the main grill and the upper shelf, this model offers 500 square inches of cooking space. If you like the idea of grilling large hunks of meat on one shelf while roasting veggies on the other, this is the grill for you.
They’re built with #8 high polished 304, 18-8 stainless steel, which is ideal for resisting the extra corrosion brought on by saltwater exposure. Unlike most of the charcoal models reviewed here, the Masterbuilt features a charcoal hopper and fan to regulate its temperature, similar to a pellet grill. While it’s 52 pounds, it’s easy to move for such a heavy grill thanks its stand and wheels. This portable gas grill has been a Kitchen Appliances and Culinary Innovation Lab favorite for years.
That might seem a tad heavy, but it has cast iron grill grates and is fabricated from thick-gauge steel, instead of cheap stamped sheet metal. It’s built to last, though we wouldn’t suggest hiking into the woods with it. The single 9,000-BTU burner is fueled by a 16-ounce propane canister that conveniently stores in the base.