This roundup was written by Camryn Rabideau, product tester and grill expert for The Spruce Eats. She’s done firsthand testing of the Weber Q2200, which took the overall spot on this list, as well as the Masterbuilt Bluetooth Digital Electric Smoker and more. These grills require open air for proper ventilation, as they can give off carbon monoxide. If you want to cook inside, you’ll want to look for an indoor grill, which are typically electric. Luckily, with the Coleman Roadtrip 285 Stand-Up Propane Grill, you don’t have to choose. This versatile portable grill has a large number of features, allowing it to be used in a wide variety of situations.
The better grills also generally ended up reading out a more consistent temperature throughout cooking. To evaluate these grills I assembled each one from scratch and then cooked an array of foods at various temperatures to see how they performed. Foods cooked included steak and burgers, which do best with a hot sear. Charcoal, with its inherent messiness, may not be ideal depending on your portable grill needs but this is a workhorse that will get the job done and last you a good while. Plus, it clocks in at a budget-friendly $48 , making it my pick for the best cheap portable charcoal grill. It’s big enough to roast a chicken, sear a couple of large steaks at a time, or fit about six 12-inch skewers.
Next, we narrowed our selection to create a manageable yet comprehensive list of the best products available. We bought all these products at retail cost to allow us to conduct an extended, objectively honest, and comparative review. These review editors rigorously assessed these grills and distributed them to friends to gather a fresh perspective. In terms of cooking, it performed almost identically to the Traveler. But the Q2200 is a tabletop grill and it is so wide, even with the two side tables folded, that I wouldn’t want to carry it too far.
We also had a few more flare-ups with the Grill2Go than with our other picks. We put all nine portable grills, gas and charcoal, through the same tests. We loaded the grates with 6-ounce burger patties and assessed the evenness of the heat, the temperature control, the searing performance, and any flare-ups. British weber q thermal units are a measure of maximum heat output over the course of an hour. The output on portable gas grills ranges from 4,000 to over 13,000 Btu. But more heat alone doesn’t equate to better grilling performance, as a grill’s performance is based on a combination of output, design, and quality of materials.
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If you want to expand the City Grill’s capabilities, you can buy a flat top surface for $135 that you can use to cook up a pancake breakfast. 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. In spring 2017, Tim and Wirecutter writers Lesley Stockton and Michael Sullivan spent over 40 hours testing full-size gas and charcoal grills, as well asgrill accessories.
However, the surface area of the grill also plays a significant role in uniform heat distribution. In fact, most modern grills optimize the ratio between the two for the best performance. Also, do keep in mind the amount of food that you will be cooking and choose the cooking surface area accordingly. There are a few choices when it comes to the best portable propane grill. Our top pick, the Weber Q1200 portable grill, is great for anyone looking for an all-around capable grill with plenty of built-in features. Setting up the Davy Crockett took more time than a standard portable grill but still wasn’t difficult.
The porcelain-coated cast-iron grates reduce flare-ups by shielding the flames and channeling grease and drippings around them while still allowing ambient heat to brown between grill marks. In our tests, burgers from the Q 1200 had the most seared surface area of all the burgers we grilled, and more browning means better flavor. This superior grate is one of the big differences between the Q 1200 and our runner-up pick, the Char-Broil Grill2Go, whose perforated stainless-steel grate produced mostly lackluster browning. With 189 square inches of grilling area (17 by 12½ inches), the Weber Q 1200 has enough space to grill a full dinner for two or the main course for a small gathering.
The Everdure Cube by Heston Blumenthal is a cute little charcoal grill that’s easy to carry and comes in a number of color options. It’s easy to handle the grill even when lit because of the cool-touch handles. Ultimately, I found food fell in between the bars of the grate too easily and the grill itself was too small to be useful. We grilled bone-in chicken to test for flare-ups and how well both the gas and charcoal grills could sustain a medium-low cooking temperature over 45 minutes.