Down below is the steel charcoal grate upon which you place your fuel. Since 1995, Epicurious has been the ultimate food resource for the home cook, with daily kitchen tips, fun cooking videos, and, oh yeah, over 33,000 recipes. Whether you’re grilling a big batch of burgers, a delicate whole fish, or a ton of cherry tomatoes, the grill basket’s got your back. This simple, inexpensive tool will help you take on grilling’s biggest challenges with none of the stress.
“My father knew that one of the best ways to bring families together was through a shared meal enjoyed in the great outdoors,” his son Jim Stephen, now chairman of Weber-Stephen Products, once said. I’ll continue to use my gas grill for weeknight dinners, but turn to the Weber when hosting things that I want to feel more like an event. In doing so, hopefully my kids will absorb the same Dad-imbued, charcoal-infused summertime impressions that waft through one’s memory for a lifetime. Whatever grill you choose, do not rely on the built-in dial thermometers, which can be off by 50°F to 100°F (10-38°C). These dials are usually located in the lid, not down on the grill surface where the food is—and you’re not eating the lid, so its temperature is irrelevant.
In fact, most of the time the temperature hovered between 220 degrees F and 230 degrees F. As a result, ribs cooked in the Weber came out tender, juicy and full of smoky flavor. Next, we tested each grill’s medium heat cooking capability by roasting whole chickens. The weber q trick here is to keep the grills at a hot enough temperature to cook a chicken for upwards of two hours. We placed two steaks on each grilling grate near the center and seared them for five minutes before flipping them over and searing for another five minutes.
If you’re looking for the fanciest kettle grill out there, this one might just be it. We tested the 22-inch in black, but Weber also offers an 18-inch version of its original kettle design. There are certainly fancier and more expensive grills to use for cooking, but for a balance of affordability and quality, you can’t go wrong with this classic. 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.
In the case of kettle models, we arrange coals in a semicircle around the grill’s inner wall. The charcoal briquettes form a line two coals wide and two coals deep. On cart-style grills, we modify the snake to run in right angles to match their rectangular-shaped fireboxes. Napoleon delivered excellent cooking results in our ribs test.
Sam Sifton, editor for the Cooking section of The New York Times , joined us for these tests. These are just a small selection of things that I love to make on my weber q. This grill makes me happy—it looks like a classic Weber grill (the core design—inspired by nautical buoys—is timeless) but has a few updates that earn big points for user-friendliness. The 26-inch Original Kettle® Premium is the charcoal grill you want at your next party. It’s large enough to grill an entire dinner during the week, or a bunch of burgers at your next barbecue. With premium features, such as a hinged cooking grate for easily adding charcoal while grilling, and the One-Touch™ cleaning system with high-capacity ash catcher.
I also consider look, feel, functionality, durability, and price. Given the enormous variety of products and designs, there is no one-size-fits-all test. Weber’s grill covers cost close to $100, while these off-brand ones are about half that. Our outdoor kitchen design experts have helped thousands of customers transform their backyards at no extra cost. If the ash catcher is even slightly warm, the ash inside is still a fire hazard.
During our cooking tests on the Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill, hamburgers cooked to a medium rare temperature and our chicken ended up juicy, with a solid sear on the outside. Other grills we tested either ran hotter and overcooked the hamburgers, or they weren’t hot enough and barely seared or cooked the meat. The Blackjack Kettle Grill also features two air vents, and it was easy to control the grill temperature with them. 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.
Consumer Reports also pointed out the ash catcher, cleaning system and dampers that help control airflow as key features. If you’re committed to charcoal, but envious of your neighbor’s shiny gasser, the Napoleon Charcoal Professional Cart Grill may be the answer. Only a few premium and luxury BBQ brands offer stainless steel charcoal grills. Napoleon’s Professional portable bbq is one of the more beautiful models we’ve seen in this price range. This stainless steel charcoal burner feels right at home in a shiny outdoor kitchen ensemble. It has 605 square inches of cooking surface, with an adjustable-height charcoal grate that has several notched height positions to place the heat closer to or further from the cook surface.