Camping Grills & Portable Grills It has two plastic temperature knobs on the front of the grill; one knob controls in the inner flame ring and the other controls the outer. The cast iron grates are easy to scrub clean with a grill brush and the drip pan removes so you can wash it before storing. This portable gas grill has been a Kitchen Appliances and Culinary Innovation Lab favorite for years. These grills require open air for proper ventilation, as they can give off carbon monoxide. If you want to cook inside, you'll want to look for an indoor grill, which are typically electric. That said, most of the time when I hit the road I grab Weber's Connect Smart Hub ($100). It's not as sophisticated as the SmartFire, but it's more portable, and two probes is generally all I need on small grills. Three portable grill subjects assembled and ready for testing. If you like the look of this and need a fire pit on top of a charcoal grill, I say go for it. At just 18 pounds, the Jumbo Joe is easy to carry from garage to car to campsite. The bar clip creates a handy holder for the lid when it’s not in use. One-pound propane cylinders take up very little space for transport. Charcoal is bulky and heavy, but open fire does provide flavoring from the terpenes in the wood. Running out of gas without a refill can bring your cookout to a halt, while foraging for firewood may prove possible when the charcoal burns out too soon. There's no correct answer; it depends on your preference for space and ease of use. In spring 2017, Tim and Wirecutter writers Lesley Stockton and Michael Sullivan spent over 40 hours testing full-size gas and charcoal grills, as well asgrill accessories. With all this knowledge in hand, Lesley and Tim spent 16 hours, over the course of two days, testing nine portable grills. Most portable charcoal grills have a very small cooking area, so they are only good for direct grilling of items like steak or burgers. To do any smoking, you'd need a 2-zone fire with the briquettes on one side and food on the other. After continued use, it may look as if paint is peeling or flaking off the inside of the lid. The flakes you see are just accumulated cooking vapors that have turned into carbon. Use a high-quality hardwood charcoal to ensure you get a good fire. Charcoal briquettes made from maple, oak, birch, or elm woods burn cleanly with very little smoke or unpleasant odors. Never move or transport the grill when in use or not fully cooled. We loved that we could light it by simply turning each burner’s knob to the ignition setting—there was no need to fiddle with an ignition button. With 276 square inches of cooking surface and two burners, it has more capacity than most portable grills. We liked the consistent heating and thoughtful features on the Q1200. At 189 square inches, the Q1200’s cooking surface isn’t the largest, but it is certainly above average. The porcelain-coated cast-iron grates reduce flare-ups by shielding the flames and channeling grease and drippings around them while still allowing ambient heat to brown between grill marks. In our tests, burgers from the Q 1200 had the most seared surface area of all the burgers we grilled, and more browning means better flavor. This superior grate is one of the big differences between the Q 1200 and our runner-up pick, the Char-Broil Grill2Go, whose perforated stainless-steel grate produced mostly lackluster browning. Of all the portable propane grills we tested, the Weber Q 1200 grilled foods the most consistently. More space between the coal bed and the grilling grate lessens your chances of ending up with charred food. The extra room also allows for more coals, so you have the option of longer cooking time.