Equipped with a Tuck-Away™ lid holder for convenient lid placement, taller legs, and Char-Basket™ fuel holders. Be ready for any get-together with the trusty Weber 22 in Master-Touch Charcoal Grill. This gourmet BBQ system features a heavy-gauge plated steel hinged charcoal cooking grate and glass-reinforced handles for durability.
Our editors selected these deals and items because we think you will enjoy them at these prices. If you purchase something through our links, we may earn a commission. Pricing and availability are accurate as of publish time. After four years of testing and 115 hours of research, we’ve found that Royal Oak Ridge Briquets are the best charcoal for your grill. Add the extra money you pay for the Napoleon grill over the Weber kettle that it emulates, and the Weber model’s superiority is even starker. The classic Weber Kettle grill treated racks of ribs right.
It also has a built-in lid thermometer and lid handle with heat shield and an aluminized steel one-touch cleaning system for easy clean up. For our tests, we cooked hamburgers on direct heat for four minutes on each side and then compared their level of doneness. The two Weber grills both portable bbq cooked our hamburgers to medium rare, while the Oklahoma Joe’s, Cuisinart and Char-Griller all ran slightly hotter and cooked our test hamburgers to medium. We cooked burgers on the Napoleon grill with the cooking grate at its highest level, which was pretty far away from the briquettes.
And sadly, the ribs it produced came out burned, charred and overdone. We noted similar temperature performance from the Nexgrill, along with similar rib results. Cooking ribs low and slow on the Nexgrill required just 4 hours, 30 minutes.
As the chicken cooked we monitored the grills’ temperatures, using the built-in thermometer where available and a probe thermometer where not. The goal was a steady hold at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and we adjusted the vents to get as close to that as we could. After 45 minutes, we flipped the chicken parts, slathered on a coating of barbecue sauce, and closed the lid for another five minutes. We repeated this step twice more, rounding out the cook time at an hour flat. Then we had a taste, paying special attention to the breast meat—a long cook can dry it out. At $129, Weber’s original, kettle-style charcoal grill continues to stand the test of time.
They carry regular charcoal grills, kamados (charcoal-burning griller-smokers, usually made of heavy ceramic, the most familiar being the Big Green Egg), and griller-smokers that burn wood pellets . Salvaggio spent an hour explaining the fundamentals of charcoal-grill design, function, materials, and maintenance to us. And because he’s an independent retailer, he was able to speak freely about what he sees as the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various designs. It takes some effort to light and arrange the charcoal, and you have to empty the ashes regularly. Vents above and below need to be adjusted, oftentimes during cooking. A charcoal grill is harder to cook on, too, since you can’t just turn a mound of burning charcoal from “low” to “high” like you can with the flames of a gas grill by simply turning a knob.
Toast to the authenticity of charcoal grilling, classic design, and taste loved around the world—the Original Kettle. Its ultra-durable, porcelain-enameled lid and bowl retain heat, while the dampers can be easily adjusted for precise temperature control. For the low-and-slow, whole-grate test, we let the same batch of coals burn down to the white-ash portable bbq stage with the lid open, which took about 20 minutes. We then reoiled the grates and distributed a whole cut-up chicken—two each of breasts, thighs, drumsticks, and wings—skin side down. Then we closed the lids for 45 minutes, occasionally checking for charring and redistributing the pieces as necessary (ideally, it wouldn’t be necessary at all).