Sam Sifton, assistant managing editor at The New York Times, also joined in and added his extensive knowledge. The Weber Original Kettle Premium Charcoal Grill 22″ is a classic for good reason. Under Weber’s leadership, Ducane marketed propane and natural gas grills through big box home improvement and specialty outdoor product stores.
Certain models double as smokers or have integrated thermometers. Others have side tables or are designed to be especially easy to clean. It’s your grill and your food, so decide what’s most important to you. Grilling cooks food quickly using high heat, while smoking uses indirect heat and lower temperatures to cook food slowly.
The pan is not as deep as the Weber Premium’s pan, so it requires more frequent cleaning, which can only be done when the grill is entirely cooled off. The lid sets this grill apart from a weber q traditional Weber kettle, which features an unattached kettle top. We enjoyed the ease of being able to hinge open the lid on the Blackjack for a quick flip of our meat during our tests.
The integrated water reservoir holds a quart of water and provides a humid cooking environment. The Napoleon Freestanding Charcoal Kettle Grill took the longest to set up, clocking in at an hour and five minutes of build time. While this grill does come with an included cart, which added to setup time, we also found the instructions hard to follow, and the amount of hardware included felt a bit overwhelming. If you’re going to purchase this grill, then we’d advise looking into having your local hardware store build and deliver it to you.
With 360 square inches of primary cooking surface, the grill box is larger than the 300 square-inch Classic model, but retains PK’s characteristic flat bottom and rectangular shape. There’s also a unique configuration of bottom left and right adjustable air intake dampers and corresponding top left and right exhaust weber q dampers. The wide flat bottom makes it easy to push charcoal to one side and create two very distinct direct and indirect zones. The air control required for charcoal grills actually makes them dang good smokers, too. This gives smoke plenty of time to leisurely caress foods and impart that magic, smoky goodness.