This Weber’s plated steel cooking grate is hinged so that it’s easier to load charcoal, even while cooking, onto the heavy-gauge steel grate below. With this method, the coals take about 10 minutes to light and another 10 for the grill to get hot. The Weber kettle grill has been around since the early 1950s, so chances are good you’ve eaten a burger, a hotdog, or portable bbq a steak cooked on one. As a kid, our family had a gas grill, while the neighbors had a Weber. Their food was always a little bit tastier, so I made the Weber Original my first grill when I got a home of my own. Essentially just a grate sitting between two pieces of metal atop a tripod, it’s hard to imagine a simpler cooker beyond just an open fire on the ground.
This grill ran red-hot and was nearly impossible to slow down the temperature on no matter what we did to make airflow adjustments. The Char-Griller has a noticeably deeper kettle — the deepest of the entire pool we tested. Despite the distance from the heat, meat still seared well on this grill because it ran so hot. It took over an hour to get this grill from 400 degrees Fahrenheit to the 300-degree range. The Napoleon Freestanding Charcoal Kettle Grill took the longest to set up, clocking in at an hour and five minutes of build time.
Just like a lot of modern charcoal grills, it has an ashtray to help speed up cleaning. It’s big enough to take on quite a lot, so you shouldn’t have to empty it too frequently. What really sets the Kettle apart from the rest through is its vents. Also called dampers, these vents sit both at the bottom and the top of the grill chamber.
While this grill does come with an included cart, which added to setup time, we also found the instructions hard to follow, and the amount of hardware included felt a bit overwhelming. If you’re going to purchase this grill, then we’d advise looking into having your local hardware store build and deliver it to you. The 22-inch Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill lives up to Weber’s storied history. The Weber charcoal grill has been around for nearly 70 years and, while the design of the kettle has barely changed, it’s easy to see why. It has an inbuilt temperature gauge, although I do always recommend getting your own grill thermometer for the best and most accurate results. In any case, the gauge helps you monitor internal temperatures without having to lift the lid and disrupt the cooking temperatures in your grill chamber.
For the indirect-cooking test, we cooked a whole chicken at as close to 500 °F as we could get (emulating Barbara Kafka’s famous oven-roasting method). We moved the remaining coals to one side of the coal grate and added half a chimney’s worth of freshly lit coals. 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. Because of its dominance, the Weber kettle has spawned a lot of copycats.
Their kettle style grills are one of the most popular charcoal grills of all time, and this is due to Weber’s solid performance and dependable quality. Weber charcoal grills are portable, lightweight, and our huge selection includes all the sizes and colors available from Weber. We tested six kettle-style charcoal grills because when it comes to grilling, simpler is just better. After a handful of cookouts over the last few weeks, there were two clear winners. Smoking is a process in which meats are cooked at a much lower temperature for an extended period. A Weber charcoal smoker is a great option for larger cuts of meats like brisket and ham, while charcoal grilling may be a better option for classic grilling dishes like hamburgers, hot dogs and more.
The Nexgrill definitely gets hot enough to create a nice sear, but you do have to work a little harder than you do with the Weber to avoid overcooking your meat. You can also raise the Nexgrill’s adjustable charcoal tray basket to its highest position. We tested several brand-name models to find out which is the best charcoal grill for your next cookout. For one, the screws are not much bigger than those that hold eyeglass frames together. When you think about the ash catcher’s job—to capture hot ashes and embers—the tiny screws don’t inspire much confidence. Also, the instructions are faulty, suggesting that you need to insert the screws yourself—after fruitlessly searching for them in the parts bags—when in fact they’re preinstalled on the vent assembly.
That said, this Weber takes under 10 minutes to set up and requires no hardware. Like the Weber Original Premium grill, hamburgers tested on this grill cooked up to a perfect medium rare. The chicken we grilled took four minutes of sear time weber charcoal grill and 25 additional minutes on indirect heat to come up to a safe internal temperature. If you’re looking for the best affordable charcoal grill under $100 that will cook your meat to a perfect temperature, then this Weber is for you.
All of our tests were designed and run by Wirecutter senior writer Lesley Stockton, who has over a decade of experience in professional kitchens, many of them spent on the grill station. Lesley conducted the testing with senior staff writer Tim Heffernan, who wrote this guide, and Michael Sullivan, weber q a senior writer on the kitchen team. Sam Sifton, assistant managing editor at The New York Times, also joined in and added his extensive knowledge. The Weber Original Kettle Premium Charcoal Grill 22″ is a classic for good reason. Plus, you can get it in a few different color and size combinations.
We then oiled the grates and distributed 10 to 12 six-ounce patties across the whole cooking surface . While the burgers cooked we kept an eye out for undesirable flare-ups, which can char the meat and create acrid smoke, and examined the evenness of cooking on the different areas of the grates. After about 10 minutes of cooking , we compared how well each grill had seared the burgers, looking for any patties that were charred or unacceptably raw, and took a taste. There’s nothing quite like the combo of enjoying the great outdoors while smelling the delectable aroma of fresh-grilled foods. A Weber charcoal grill makes the perfect addition to tailgate parties, camping adventures and backyard entertaining. When purchasing a new charcoal grill or smoker, understanding the different styles of Weber charcoal grills and what each type can do is important.