The cooking grate on the premium grill has two hinged edges that allow more coal to be added without lifting the entire piece. Its lid also features added heat protection below the handle, and its side handles feature tool holders. Speaking of Slow ‘N Sear, this company was built on their innovative charcoal insert, mentioned above. It’s a high quality, stainless steel accessory that instantly upgrades Weber kettles and many other round, charcoal-burning cookers by enhancing two-zone separation and intensifying sear power. Toss in some wood chunks and smoke ribs low and slow on the opposite side over smokey, indirect heat.
To use one, load up the space on the bottom with a piece of newspaper or two, pile coals in from the top, then light the newspaper. The fire and heat from the newspaper ignites the bottom coals, then the fire builds up. When the top coals are covered with gray ash, you’re ready to go. Recently, they changed the company name to SnS Grills and introduced their very own Slow ‘N Sear Kettle Grill. If you add the cost of a Slow ‘N Sear insert to a Weber Performer the Slow ‘N Sear Kettle is about the same price. This makes it a solid package deal that’s definitely worth the consideration of folks on the lookout for a new charcoal burner.
The bottom vent functions like most kettle grills, but the top vent is styled more like a traditional smoker vent. You mainly control the temperature on this grill from the bottom vent. We also found the built-in temperature gauge to be accurate. This grill gave both our burgers and chicken a really nice sear.
The rectangular shape offers a lot of cooking area and allows coals to be distributed quite evenly. The grate hinges to better allow for the addition or moving around of coals. In our test, both chicken and steak cooked deliciously with beautiful sear marks and barely any flare-ups.
In cooking performance, the Weber was the best and most hassle-free grill in our tests. For the indirect-cooking test, we cooked a whole chicken at as close to 500 °F as we could get (emulating Barbara Kafka’s famous oven-roasting method). We moved the remaining coals to one side of the coal grate and added half a chimney’s worth of freshly lit coals. In effect we were testing whether the grills could function as ovens—a really nice feature in the hot summer months, when you may not want to warm up your kitchen. But what really sets the Premium version apart from the standard 22-inch kettleis the enclosed ash catcher, which makes cleanup easy and eliminates concerns about stray embers. Assembly is dead simple, and the construction and materials are sturdy.
Dial thermometers are mechanical so they do not respond to changes in temp instantly like digital thermometers. Cook delicious burgers, juicy steaks, game-day hot dogs and yummy veggies to perfection with a new Weber charcoal grill from Ace Hardware. With the ultimate grilling machine, mastering the art of grilling for special occasions and creating delicious, everyday meals are as simple as lighting the fire on your charcoal grill. Ceramic cookers offer some of the best insulation on the market and result in rock steady temperature control, according to Lilly.
The catcher can be removed, eliminating the need to move the entire grill to catch the ash. Starting with the 1994 model year, Weber switched to a two-letter alphabetic code representing the model year of weber charcoal grills, using the word “AUTHORIZED” as the key. As with the previous code scheme, this two-letter code was stamped into the lid damper of each charcoal kettle.