Her expertise builds on a lifelong career in the culinary world—from a restaurant cook and caterer to a food editor at Martha Stewart. She is perfectly happy to leave all that behind to be a full-time kitchen-gear nerd. The tiny Cuisinart CGG-180T Petit Gourmet Portable Tabletop Gas Grill suffered major flare-ups when cooking burgers, and turned into a raging grease fire when cooking chicken pieces. Everything we cooked on this grill had a dark, sooty film and tasted like torched fat.
And it took us less than a minute to set up its three pieces, including a wood top, grill body with handle, and base. The top and base combine to form an attractive prep surface that clips alongside the grill. The single 9,000-BTU burner is fueled by a 16-ounce propane canister that conveniently stores in the base. Being a single-burner grill, the Venture made it a little tricky to manage heat when cooking thicker meats like bone-in chicken, weber charcoal grill as it’s hard to get away from the heat for longer, indirect cooking. We set the burner on low for the 100 percent beef burgers we grilled, flipped them once, and then turned up the heat to imprint sear lines from the cast-iron grate. Generally, we found it relatively easy to grill thinner foods—this is ideal for cooking burgers, hot dogs, boneless chicken, or fish at an intimate meal some place special or tailgating at the game.
This creates set-it-and-forget-it functionality—you don’t need to fiddle with dials or vents to reach the desired temperature. It also means you’ll need access to an electrical outlet, so keep that in mind before picking up a portable pellet grill. Pellet grills weber charcoal grill are usually used at low temperatures to smoke meat, but they can also be used at higher temperatures. Most manufacturers cap out between 400°F and 500°F, which is comparable to cooking over gas but the grill won’t get quite as hot as cooking over charcoal.
We grew frustrated at the number of times we had to re-light this model in high winds. The Weber Q 1200 comes with a disposable aluminum drip tray insert that you can place in the more permanent drip tray. This is nice for aiding with cleanup, but it’s not very wind-resistant, so it usually ended up on the ground after flying away in windy conditions. This can be remedied by doing away with this disposable part or just by putting a rock in it. The Char Broil Grill2Go is unique in that, for transport, you can carry fuel cans inside the lid.
This portable grill comes with a 10-year warranty, and it’s the clear choice for anyone who loves Weber’s full-size kettle grill. 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.
Available in four colors, Everdure designed this Cube Grill in collaboration with British chef Heston Blumenthal. It’s a stunning portable grill that consists of a porcelain-enameled firebox, a built-in bamboo prep tray, and a small storage compartment for carrying charcoal or cutlery. Although I was never a big fan of gas grills I gotta say I’ve been seeing them more and more lately. A few weeks ago a friend of mine brought his and it blew me away. You can start grilling the food sooner, there’s less stuff to clean up and even the taste of the food was great.
The 18 x 13-inch enameled, cast-iron grate can fit 12 burgers with room to flip them—more than enough for a meal or small gathering. Even though the Jumbo Joe isn’t the smallest or most compact charcoal grill we tested, it is lightweight and easy to carry. weber q The lid-locking metal handle tightly holds the grill together for transport and pulls double duty as a convenient lid holder. And since the spacious firebox fits a full chimney starter’s worth of coals, you can get two or three rounds of grilling per load.