Modernize your home with the latest news on smart home products and trends. Note, that you should remove as much grease as possible before burying the grill. Surely you’ve seen — and possibly owned — one of these little guys in the past. The Weber Smokey Joe is a staple at park cookouts and on camping trips and that’s for good reason.
The Ranger’s 176 square inches of cooking space fits about six burgers, which isn’t enough to feed a crowd but is more than enough space to feed two to four people. We actually liked the reduced cooking area compared to other portable pellet grills we tested because it makes the unit more compact. After locking down the lid, this 13- by 21-inch tabletop grill fits easily into the storage compartment of your RV or on the floor in the passenger side of a car. That said, it does weigh 60 pounds and doesn’t have any carry handles, so it is a little difficult to transport.
They also make a flat iron griddle which you can swap-in for the grill grates, a cover to keep the Q 1200 clean between uses and an adapter that’ll let you use it with larger, refillable tanks. Considering all of this, it was a no-brainer to name this our Best Portable Gas Grill. If you want portable charcoal grilling in a truly portable package, this is the best grill to buy. At under 2kgs, it’s one of the lightest portable grills on this page though you will need to wait for it to cool down before you can fold it up and be on your way.
When the timer expired, I measure the internal temperature of each burger using a probe thermometer in hopes that they were all within 5 to 10 degrees of each other. I then assessed the char pattern and grill marks of each weber charcoal grill burger to see how the grill grate’s material contributed to the test. Stainless steel grates tend to be easier to clean, but they don’t transfer heat as well as cast-iron grates, which create more pronounced grill marks.
The Grill2Go’s cooking grate can grill up to six large burger patties at a time. The Q 1200’s small fold-out side tables are handy for keeping grill tools within reach, though we wouldn’t feel confident resting a large tray brimming with meat or other heavy things on them. The thermometer in the dome lid is nice, but it isn’t necessary other than for letting you know when the grill is hot and ready.
The grill’s internal fans disperse the heat and smoke created by the burning pellet fuel around the grill, surrounding your food and heating the inside of the grill similar to a convection oven. For the price, you really can’t go wrong with this portable charcoal grill. It’s large enough to use as your primary grill if you have a small outdoor space and portable enough to bring with you to tailgating events or camping. Because of that, we have no hesitation in naming it our Best Portable Charcoal Grill. This portable model features a 14.5-inch stainless steel grill grate, an adjustable air vent on the porcelain lid and an integrated carry handle that won’t scorch your hand when you grab hold of it. At 20 pounds, the Char-Broil Grill2Go is 10 pounds lighter than the Weber Q 1200, even though it has a larger, 17¼-by-11¾-inch grilling grate.
Although the Weber Smokey Joe did a fantastic job of grilling our food, it lacked a few features that would have bumped it up in our rankings. You can get a premium version that has a lid lock, but the basic version provides no way of carrying the grill. That means when it’s full of hot coals, it stays where it lies until it cools down. We were pretty happy with the way the vents were positioned, but the ash catcher isn’t removable, making it pretty difficult to clean when you’re done cooking.
Nicole Papantoniou is the director of the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Kitchen Appliance and Culinary Innovation Lab where she oversees all kitchen appliance content and testing. This is her third season testing grills for Good Housekeeping and has had her hands on at least 35 grills and counting. She’s a professional, trained cooked, recipe developer and grill aficionado. The summer is favorite season, mostly because she can put one of her many grills to the test nightly. Small it might be, but make no mistake about it, UNA Grill is big enough to fit a steak.
When it came to performance, Traeger’s reputation preceded itself. The burgers cooked evenly throughout the cooking surface while the chicken drumsticks prepared on the Ranger were the best out of all the grills we tested. The Ranger has a heat deflector plate that prevents direct searing, but everything we cooked on this pellet grill was infused with smoky flavor from the pellets. The eight-pound pellet capacity is plenty for a regular grilling session, and we had more than half the pellets left in the hopper after hours of testing.