The Best Charcoal Grill to Buy in 2022: Tested and Reviewed

It has over 305 square inches of cooking surface—that’s big enough for a whole turkey! Plus, it’s lightweight and easy to set up if you need a portable option for outdoor parties or tailgating. Cart-style grills have a handle and wheels that make them easy to move around, and the Char-Griller Patio Pro BBQ Grill is a compact and budget-friendly option for your deck or patio. It features a modest 250 square inches of cooking space, but it has all the features you need to whip up a delicious meal.

With the 18-inch Weber Original Kettle Grill, you can still get the full Weber charcoal grilling experience for under $100. Perfect for those looking to save space, Weber electric grills are compact, durable and built to last. All you need is access to a power outlet to create mouthwatering dishes that rival those cooked on gas or charcoal Weber grills. Deanna McCormack has reviewed dozens of products for The Spruce and thoroughly tested her portable grill out in her backyard and a beach campsite. You’ll also want to wipe down the inside of the lid and bowl using a mild soap.

After she was done testing, cleanup was a breeze, whether using a grill brush or removing the grate to clean in the kitchen sink. A couple of downsides discovered during testing were that the lid can detach while cooking and the lack of a built-in thermometer means you’ll need to have your own. For a lower price weber q point and a little less grilling space, check out the Weber Original Kettle 18-Inch Charcoal Grill. Charcoal grills are a staple for home chefs because charcoal is a relatively inexpensive fuel source that gives your food a beautiful, smokey flavor, from hot dogs and hamburgers to pizza and pulled pork.

Cooking on a charcoal grill is a bit more complicated than using a gas-powered model. First, you’ll need to measure out an appropriate amount of charcoal briquettes—this will depend on the size of your grill, what you’re cooking, and how hot you want the grill to get. Next, you have to light the charcoal using a chimney starter or other tool. This particular kamado grill has triple-walled steel construction and features 314 square inches of cast-iron grill space, as well as a removable warming rack. It includes a built-in thermometer and can be used to cook at temperatures ranging from 200 to 700 degrees.

Salt appears first in the ingredients list because law says the order is by weight, not volume, and salt is a heavy rock. The amazing Karubecue is the most innovative smoker in the world. At its crux is a patented firebox that burns logs above the cooking chamber and sucks heat and extremely clean blue smoke into the thermostat-controlled oven. Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for high quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 2,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner to subsidize us. Weber BBQ Kettles enjoy evergreen popularity from one generation to the next because they are durable and you can cook just about anything you want on them.

The Char-Griller Super Pro is a versatile steel barrel charcoal grill with a whopping 850 square inches of total cooking area, if you count the top warming rack. The main grates are made of heavy-duty cast iron and resemble the grates of some of the best gas grills we tested this year. Like the Char-Griller Classic, the Super Pro can also be converted to a proper smoker by attaching an optional side fire box, and the enameled steel body does a great job of retaining heat. Overall, this is a good basic barrel grill, but assembly was frustrating and it lacks many of the features that made the Classic our pick for best upgrade. Compared to gas grills, the anatomy of charcoal grills is quite simple. To help you choose the right one, we sent a few of the most popular models to the homes of our testers.

weber charcoal grill

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. A classic, gas Weber grills make for convenient grilling options all year long. Easy to turn on and off, gas grills make it simple to cook up delicious meats and veggies.

Is there a portable grill that works as well as a full-sized one? Get easy-to-follow, delicious recipes delivered right to your inbox. Sarah Vanbuskirk is an accomplished writer who tested her grill out on her family of seven to weber q see if it could live up to the rigors of feeding a large family. These are not paid ads, they are a curated selection of products we love. Since then Weber, like many others, has outsourced manufacturing of more product lines.