This guide is filled with charcoal, gas, pellet and electric barbecues of regular and large proportions. Before or after each use, crank it up to high for five or 10 minutes to incinerate all the drippings and stuck-on food. Scrape the hot grates with a grill brush, wipe them with a wet rag to remove the soot, and brush them with vegetable oil.
When unfolded, the grill measures 43.6 inches tall, 23 inches deep, and 37.2 inches tall. Depending on the size of your balcony, it may be a good option there, too. This award-winning weber charcoal grill barbie uses a built-in battery-powered fan to get the whole thing up to cooking temperature in three and a half minutes flat, and with no choking smoke in the process.
In addition, you don’t want a grill with bottom vents that sit above the coal bed; this design reduces airflow and can extinguish the fire prematurely. Portable gas grills come equipped with a coupling that fits 1-pound liquid-propane canisters . These mini propane cylinders are lightweight and packable, and they’re available at most hardware stores.
While the standard fare was quite easy, the chicken cooked over indirect heat required a little more manipulation of the charcoal, which wanted to settle to the middle of the basket. Nevertheless, once we sorted out how to strategically set the charcoal, we could reliably create an indirect heat zone. The GoBQ grill is a great option for traveling, tailgating, or even for folks with small apartments, given its ease of packing, stowing, and carrying. Pellet grills tend to cost more than gas or charcoal grills because they use onboard computers with expensive components to fuel the fire. This creates set-it-and-forget-it functionality—you don’t need to fiddle with dials or vents to reach the desired temperature.
We tested five propane models, and the Weber Q 1200 Gas Grillis the best portable gas grill for most people. In our tests, the Q 1200 outperformed the competition at both high-heat searing and low-and-slow grilling, with the fewest flare-ups. The Q 1200 has a cast-aluminum firebox that evenly distributes heat across its 189-square-inch grilling grate. We like the spacious dome lid, because it has a built-in thermometer that lets you know when it’s hot and ready to grill.
Since the heat deflector plate prevents direct searing and grill marks, the food crisps up like it would when roasted inside a high-temperature oven. To use the grill, the pellets are loaded into a hopper, located on the side of the grill. An electric-powered auger transfers the pellets to the fire pot inside the grill. The ignited wood pellets produce flames until the grill reaches the set temperature. Once the desired temperature is reached, the auger’s rotation slows, dropping fewer pellets into the pot to maintain the heat. The grill’s heat deflector plate acts as a physical barrier to keep the food from being exposed to the flames.
However, we were able to fit and cook four burgers over direct heat or four chicken drumsticks when the coals were arranged to indirect heat. This portable grill can be used with either wood or charcoal and, as its name suggests, if you remove its grill grates, it can be used as a firepit. However, the feature that really blew us away with the BioLite is its built-in battery-powered fan.