Outdoor > Weber Grills > Weber Charcoal Grills

You may be wondering, why not just use a pellet grill that regulates heat much better? As much as we at Insider Reviews adore pellet grills and the flavor they offer, they just don’t stack up to good old-fashioned charcoal. I love cooking outdoors over live fire and smoke whatever the weather, using various grills, smokers, and wood-fired ovens to produce epic food. My goal with this site is to help as many people as possible enjoy and be good at doing the same.

That doesn’t mean all charcoal grills are created equal, however. This is a superior grill to most on the market — it’s built to function and to last, and it’s worth every penny. First, you’ll find ample space on the steel cooking great for weber q a whole lotta food. You could readily cook half-a-dozen steaks at once or enough burgers to feed a baseball team, including the relief pitchers. Retailing at around $200, this grill is well-priced considering the upgrades from the original.

If you’re cooking something light like a filet of white-fleshed fish, you can get away with about a third of a chimney starter. When in doubt, though, just fill your chimney starter and shape the bed of coals as makes sense. It won’t cost you too much to err on the safe side, and eventually, you’ll get a feel for how many coals you need for the type weber genesis 2 of cooking you’re doing. Charcoal will take about 15 to 20 minutes to light and turn into embers, but that can vary a good deal depending on what type of charcoal and how much you’re using. The main thing to look for is that the coals are covered in a light grey ash. Once you’re done grilling, close your grill and any vents your grill may have.

weber charcoal grill

Charcoal is easy to pick up at just about every grocery store, home improvement store, or gas station, so you won’t need to make a special trip. But you’ll need to have a charcoal starter on hand, will have to wait for everything to cool down before you can dispose of it, and need to deal with the messy ash afterward. The difference between the two was largely in the crispiness of the skin, with the Weber producing the superior results.

The worst was our Tacklife review unit, which didn’t hold much heat and didn’t sear while cooking. The steak on that grill needed an additional five minutes to get to a temperature of 135 F, the minimum for medium rare. Every grill we tested had a hinged grate, a nice feature that lets you add or adjust the coals without lifting the whole grate off. We preferred the Weber and Napoleon designs, which each have a pair of hinged sections, on opposite edges of the grate, that let you directly access the entire bed of charcoal below. We noticed no performance differences, and all worked well, with no notable sticking of the items we cooked. Our experiments ran the gamut from grilling burgers (fast, high heat) to smoking (slow, low heat).