This will fully snuff out your fire and make it safe to remove ashes and spent coals later on when everything has cooled. A scoop, small shovel, or spade can come in handy if your grill doesn’t have an easy catchment and/or removal system. It’s hard not to love the design of the Weber Original Kettle 22-inch charcoal grill. It’s been around for decades with hardly any changes, and it probably belongs in the Museum of Modern Art. Some of the ash will fall through to the ash catcher a few inches below the bowl.
In effect we were testing whether the grills could function as ovens—a really nice feature in the hot summer months, when you may not want to warm up your kitchen. At the end of each hour-long test, we noted the depth and evenness of browning, and finally we did a taste test, again paying special attention to the breasts—ideally, they’d be fully cooked but still juicy. Because of its dominance, the Weber kettle has spawned a lot of copycats. In our research, most proved to be cheap knockoffs that weren’t worth the minor savings. We resolved instead to find a kettle that could compete with the Weber on performance, price, and value. But we also opened our search to include charcoal grills of different designs.
That impressive performance begins the moment this arrives at your door. After a straightforward set-up, all you need to do is push the ignition button and connect it to the Weber Connect app on your phone. There you’ll see the ambient temperature, as observed by its very accurate built-in thermometer, and monitor the temperature of your food via the two included probe thermometers.
The Weber grills were the only grills that didn’t come with a hardware pack. You can easily set up either Weber grill by yourself and it only requires you to use a hammer or screwdriver for attaching the handle and wheels. The rest ranged in setup time from 27 minutes to over an hour, with varying levels weber genesis 2 of difficulty and number of persons needed to complete the task. The Cuisinart Kettle Grill boasts on its box that it only takes 15 minutes to set up; it actually took us 27 minutes to complete the task. Both the Char-Griller Kettle and the Oklahoma Joe’s Kettle Grill took us 45 minutes to set up.
For grilling, the two important rules to follow are that you’ll need about a pound of meat per person and that you’ll need 72 square inches for each of those servings. For a family of four, 400 to 500 square inches is sufficient—that allows enough room for sides, extras, or the occasionally dinner guest without being too big a grill for everyday weber charcoal grill use. For a gas-powered grill, the Weber Spirit II E-310 is our top choice thanks to its three burners, compact design, and useful features. If you’re looking for the classic Weber black charcoal grill, you can’t go wrong with the Weber Performer Deluxe 22-Inch Charcoal Grill. When cooking, the grate has a hinged design to add more charcoal.
Every few cooks, I like to use a Shop-Vac to remove any greasy ashes stuck in the bottom of the grill. As a preventative, you’ll want to oil the meats and veggies before they go on to prevent sticking and extra scraping. A clean grill is essential to flavor, and cleaning the Weber is a fairly simple affair thanks to the ash catcher. Even though it is solidly attached, the catcher pops off with ease, and its deep, bowl-like shape allows you to seamlessly pour the ashes into the trash without much spilling after they have cooled. I managed to get it all in the can every time—something I can’t say about the original plate-style catcher, with which I probably lost an average of about 40 percent of the ashes to the wind.