Shop Weber Charcoal Grills And to learn more about how we tested and what we looked for, scroll to the bottom. At $129, Weber's original, kettle-style charcoal grill continues to stand the test of time. In our high-heat searing tests, Weber delivered the best balance of seared exterior and medium-rare interior steak. The Weber kettle grill gave us tasty chicken too, with crispy chicken skin. The Weber can also smoke low and slow at a rock-steady cooking temperature. The Smokey Mountain Cooker™ smoker has two cooking grates for smoking multiple items at once, and dampers that adjust easily so that you’re always in control of the heat—and your feast. Make grilling season easier on yourself and clean your grill at the start of each grilling session, not at the end. Start by lighting your coals and letting your grill heat up for about 10 minutes. This should heat the grates enough that any crusted-on food can be easily removed with a grill brush. After you clean the grates, oil them using a paper towel dipped in oil and held in tongs. Plus, the size-to-weight ratio is fabulous; there’s a lot of grate space, but it’s light enough to move it around to wherever I feel like grilling. When it comes to cleaning the lid and bowl, burning charcoal and cooking food will cause carbon to accumulate on them. This is normal, and if you’ve used charcoal before, you’ve seen it; it looks like peeling paint. Some of the ash will fall through to the ash catcher a few inches below the bowl. For the rest, Weber has equipped the Original Kettle with its “One-touch” ash removal system. It’s a rotating group of three blades you turn with a handle projecting from near the bottom of the bowl. Salt appears first in the ingredients list because law says the order is by weight, not volume, and salt is a heavy rock. If you have questions related to barbecue or grilling, please post them to the comments section at the bottom of any page. Our talented team of paid moderators will be with you shortly. If you have business or tecnical issues, please contact us with this email form. Is the first propane smoker with a thermostat, making this baby foolproof. All you need to do is add wood to the tray above the burner to start smokin’. The Smokey Mountain Cooker™ smoker has two cooking grates to smoke two large items at once or plenty of ribs. The fuel door is removable so that adding charcoal and wood is easy, and the dampers allow you to be in control of the heat for tender, fall-off-the-bone meat. 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 dampers. The wide flat bottom makes it easy to push charcoal to one side and create two very distinct direct and indirect zones. With charcoal grills, I test for effective air control by smoking low and slow at 225°F, roasting in the mid-range around 350°F, and letting 'er rip with a blazing, red hot fire. It has 605 square inches of cooking surface, with an adjustable-height charcoal grate that has several notched height positions to place the heat closer to or further from the cook surface. A front door allows easy access to the charcoal during cooking and the double-lined hood is a nice feature to help hold in heat. The Professional Cart Grill has an interesting rotisserie design, too, that uses a special charcoal basket across the back for a dedicated rotisserie fire. The true original Weber grill, the Weber Original Kettle Grill, can be purchased for under $100, making it our top pick for best budget grill. This grill measures 18 inches wide, which is a noticeable surface-area difference from the 22-inch grill. The Cuisinart Black Kettle Grill is one of the smallest we tested with its 18-inch kettle. It’s similar in size to the Weber Original Kettle Charcoal Grill, though unlike that grill, it comes with an ash pan and a thermometer. However, a major downside to this grill was that the built-in thermometer barely worked. The Cuisinart was also the only grill with which we experienced grease flare-ups when cooking. Though you only have to endure setup one time, build time is definitely relevant if you’re picking up a charcoal grill for a last-minute barbecue. The Weber Original Premium Grill took 15 minutes to assemble, while the Weber Original Grill took only 10 minutes. Invented by Weber's founder, and loved around the world, this is the essence of charcoal grilling. The main cooking grate is actually three separate pieces that can be lifted off of the grill for access to the charcoal tray—which has holes big enough to brush ash through. Below, a slide-out ash tray/shelf/drawer runs the entire width of the grill. This grill hits the sweet spot size-wise too since it’s lightweight and fairly compact, but still has plenty of room to create both a high-heat and indirect-heat zone. The round grate has ample cooking space for an entire Thanksgiving turkey, at least 10 burgers , or a few beer-can chickens. One downside to this grill is the ash pan, which can only be emptied by reaching into the grill and lifting it up and out of the kettle.