I often have them sent to my folks’ house in New Hampshire and put them through their paces in the summertime while feeding a hungry crowd. One disaster involved a smoker company whose rep promised someone would come to pick it up the day before I was set to fly home to Seattle. I assumed “someone” meant a dude in a truck, not the college kid in a Buick SUV who knocked on my parents’ door. For most models, the basic structure will last for upwards of 10 years, and is covered under a large warranty.
If you’re cooking for large groups frequently, you’ll need a grill with a large primary cooking surface, a warming rack and a side burner. Some of you might also have strong feelings about the cooking grates — you need stainless steel, cast-iron grates, porcelain-coated grates or even porcelain-coated cast iron. The Spirit II E-210 is good for grilling foods that are best suited to intense direct heat, such as steaks, chops, and burgers—we don’t recommend it for indirectly cooking bigger items like whole chickens. The E-210 is a great first gas grill purchase, and it’s a good option for folks who have limited outdoor space. The 22-inch diameter gives 363 square inches of cooking space within the porcelain-enameled lid and base.
Beginners will quickly be able to learn the correct damper positions in order to achieve a consistent temperature, as we did. One thing to note is the inaccurate temperature on the built-in dial. We observed off readings and ended up relying on a secondary thermometer.
Thermometers built into the lid of a grill aren’t fully reliable. They’re usually positioned several inches above the cooking grate, and as a result they don’t accurately report its temperature. Consider getting an inexpensive infrared thermometer to gauge the temperature of your cooking surface. The Weber Spirit II E-310 excelled at every test, producing the best hamburgers—deeply seared, evenly cooked—among all the grills we tested. And it outdid or equaled the competition in grilling barbecue chicken and whole roasted chickens with crispy golden skin. Inside the grill, your grate material is also very important.
In our tests, the Spirit II E-310 produced a better deep-and-crusty sear on hamburgers than even the Weber Genesis II E-310 (predecessor to our current upgrade pick). The smaller Spirit II E-310 concentrates the burners’ heat better, though the Genesis grill addresses that concern with an extra burner for searing. Grates come in a range of materials, and the differences in performance are small.
Mom prefers having seafood cooked outside “so it doesn’t stink up the kitchen,” so Dad and my sister used the side burner to boil lobsters one night and steam clams another. Having that burner there was great for steaming corn on the cob while grilling something else. It being summer, I appreciated more ability to cook outside instead of making an already-sweltering kitchen even hotter. Look for grills in the $400 to $900 range with a cast-aluminum firebox, which holds heat well and won’t rust.
Once the last burger in the basket reaches 145 degrees Fahrenheit, the batch is finished. A good burger in this test is one that has both a nice outside char and a slightly pink center. Grilled chicken should have a crispy skin and meat that is cooked through fully but not dry. We perform this test in three rounds, giving us a solid average cooking time for each grill. Whole chickens are cooked on indirect, medium heat until both breasts reach 165 degrees F. That’s an aesthetically pleasing compromise, but reaching through the side bars and around the panel to open and close the tank was frustratingly difficult.
Depending on the grill size, that means turning one or two burners off completely. To determine the best gas grill and get a feel for how these grills perform in a variety of cooking scenarios, we perform three tests. Based on different meats, methods and heat settings, these tests show us how efficiently and evenly a grill does (or doesn’t) cook.
Though we did miss the true smoky flavor that can only come from wood and charcoal. The size of the Denali is impressive, giving you room to easily cook for an entire party of guests. I especially weber gas grill like the little slots for hanging your drumsticks to let them cook evenly. All the food I tested was tender, and the probes did a good job of pinpointing the right temperature.
Of the 1,000-plus Wirecutter readers we surveyed, over 60% said they owned Weber grills. And of those Weber grill owners, 69% reported that they were extremely satisfied, and another 29% reported that they were moderately satisfied. We assembled the grills alone and in teams of two, noting poor instructions, needlessly complicated screw or bolt sizes, or safety hazards such as sharp edges. For this amount, you can get a great grill without overpaying for unneeded capacity, deluxe materials, or seldom-used add-ons such as rotisseries, side burners, and infrared burners.