It weighs 75 pounds, making it by the far the heaviest grill I tested, but the double-handle carrying system makes it easy for two people to carry it. The problem is that the 13-inch grilling surface of the MiniMax can only grill for about four people. The Nomad ships with a single grate, giving you 212 square inches of cooking space, slightly less than the Jumbo Joe above.
I tried to cover both the “portable” part and the “grill” part in my testing. For those grills with wheels, I walked them around a large, uneven lawn with plenty of divots to see how they rolled. It has two magnetic vents which, when set to half open, allow the grill to stay at 250°F for an hour. I checked the grill every 20 minutes and was able to keep it at that temperature on less than a full chimney of charcoal.
For your other outdoor needs, check out our guides to the Best Camping Gear, Best Tents, Best Rain Jackets, and the Best Binoculars.
While slow-cooking on the Takibi would be challenging, you can at least adjust the grill height to control temperature. No thermometer is included, and Weber does not make a storage cover for the Jumbo Joe. If you want to do any indirect-heat cooking, you’ll want to buy the hinged grill grate for $35 so you can feed in fresh fuel without removing the top grill, and the $23 charcoal basket is also useful. The KettlePizza add-on kit ($250) is fun, but way more expensive than the grill itself; there’s a cheaper basic version, but it’s currently out of stock. Do yourself a favor, throw away your lighter fluid and get a charcoal chimney starter ($27).
It’s pretty faff free and you can’t control its temperature, so it’s just a case of lighting it and waiting for it to be ready for your food. Though it is the most expensive grill on our list, you can often find it on sale around the $250 to $300 mark, FYI. I’m Annie and I’ve tested all three of these portable weber q grills in this guide. I live just outside the city (London!) and I have a tiny amount of patio space where I reviewed these grills. I’ve ranked each one based on how well I think it performed and its features. I used these grills to cook everything from burgers to corn and joints of meat, too.
Its cooking space is circular which gives the grill a bowl shape meaning that you can’t use it to indirectly cook foods, but no biggie. It was ready to cook within just 15–20 minutes and it stays hot for a good while, so I used it to batch cook for an entire party of people. I loved how the lid can be used while you’re cooking or it can sit on the hinge and guard the grill against wind. If you put charcoal in it for a day trip, I am almost positive it would spill out in your car. Cuisinart’s Venture portable gas grill looks like something Apple would make, if Apple got into grills.
I managed to smoke nine chicken breasts, and another time I fit two racks of ribs. If you need to grill for a crowd, pick up the second grill grate for $128, but even without it I never felt cramped while cooking for five (two adults, three ravenous children). Since you’ve come here looking for a portable grill, we thought it made sense to recommend one for those of you who prize portability above all other features. Everything but the grill grate on the GoBQ is made of flame-retardant fabric, and the whole thing weighs nine pounds and packs easily into something about the size of a knife roll.