Propane grill recommendations

[iceclimberx15]

The enamel is pretty bomber on all their grills.. Unless you chip the enamel...

[iceman]

Cooks Illustrated just came in the mail and they did a review of gas grills for under $500. and the Weber Spirit E-310 won, hands down.

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/equi...er-500-dollars

[El Chupacabra]

I'm going to pick up a Weber Genesis EP330 or S330 (painted vs stainless, grates and burners are identical), if my experiment this weekend doesn't pan out - -

I found replacement burners for my old grill on Amazon, and bought a set. $35 for the three cast iron burners. I've never replaced the burners, and the old ones weren't putting out flame on half of two of them. That probably explains the low heat I've been getting out of the grill.

Going to clean out the old grill thoroughly and try the new burners this weekend, and see what happens.

[::: :::]

Cooks Illustrated just came in the mail and they did a review of gas grills for under $500. and the Weber Spirit E-310 won, hands down.

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/equi...er-500-dollars

Is CI behind a pay wall?
Link not working for me...

[snapt]

If you're keeping it outside in harsh conditions its hard the beat the Q3200, small footprint, durable, and gets super hot. We often come out the morning after grilling to grouse huddling on it for residual warmth.

[nickwm21]

Is CI behind a pay wall?
Link not working for me...

Yes. Money well spent if you like cooking and cooking gear

[iceman]

Is CI behind a pay wall?
Link not working for me...

Yeah I thought it might be, sorry, maybe try cutting and pasting this into google:

site:cooksillustrated.com gas grills under $500

Bottom line is the Weber was the only "Highly Recommended" one, and good for both direct and indirect heat.

[The Tortoise]

I'm going to pick up a Weber Genesis EP330 or S330 (painted vs stainless, grates and burners are identical), if my experiment this weekend doesn't pan out - -

Going to clean out the old grill thoroughly and try the new burners this weekend, and see what happens.

Well, if you don't buy a Weber this year you will be one year older when you do.

[Pegleg]

Well, if you don't buy a Weber this year you will be one year older when you do.

Truth. I dithered about the cost of a Weber Genesis versus other cheaper options, and finally went with the Weber. Couldn't be happier, and it's been 8 years. The thing still looks and cooks like new, and it sits out on my patio in Colorado year round (under a cover when not in use). Haven't had to fix or replace a thing. Even the igniter still works.

From a cooking perspective, what I love about it is that it's super even in its heat distribution - you can line the whole surface with kebabs, and they'll all brown at about the same rate. No hot or cool spots, which makes cooking very easy. My only complaint is that it doesn't get super ragingly hot for searing purposes, but that's not really gas grills' strength - if I want a super hard sear, I can always pull out the charcoal grill. It gets plenty hot for all normal applications. If getting a super hard sear is important to you, you might consider the options that come with an infrared burner (though that takes space away for normal grilling purposes, I think).

I didn't go with a side burner because my last grill had one and I literally used it once in five years. It's an option that sounds nice, but if your kitchen is just a few steps from your grill then it's not something that gets much use.

[KQ]

HOW WE TESTED
It’s easy to drop several hundred dollars on a gas grill and not get what you need. We’ve cooked on models that never got hot enough; models that were too small to cook more than a couple of burgers at once; models that rusted, wobbled, and warped; and models that couldn’t handle anything beyond the simplest jobs—never mind roasting a holiday turkey or smoking tender ribs. The bottom line: For the best results, you need a well-designed, responsive, durable grill.

The winner from our previous gas grill testing was discontinued, so we went shopping for some new models to test, priced at $500 or less. We focused on six major brands, asking them to help us choose their best contender. The grills in our lineup were outfitted with three to five burners, as well as two wing-like side tables. All but one grill were equipped with side burners set into one of the wings. All were fitted with warming racks, narrow wire shelves suspended across the back of the grill, and all featured built-in lid thermometers. You can buy a gas grill fully assembled or opt to put it together yourself. After trying both, we would strongly encourage you to order your grill assembled. Some stores do it for free.

We fired up the grills to cook (and smoke) a variety of foods, from burger patties to thick strip steaks to 5-pound pork butts. We checked that a 12-pound turkey fit under each lid with room to spare. We used slices of white bread to map each grill’s heating pattern, and we checked the accuracy of the grills’ lid thermometers with a calibrated thermocouple.

Along the way, we observed design elements of each grill that made cooking easier or more complicated. Scrubbing down grills after cooking and emptying grease trays showed which were simplest to maintain. And rolling them in and out of our grill garage over bumpy pavement revealed grills that fought us and rattled to pieces—literally—while others glided steadily and remained sturdily intact.

The Heat Is On
Most people choose a gas grill because it’s convenient: Turn a knob and you can start cooking in minutes. But whether that grill performs as it should is another matter. For simple grilling, the most important requirement is strong heat that spreads evenly across the grates. To determine which grills met the mark, we preheated each grill on high for 15 minutes (our standard method) and mapped the heat by covering the entire grill surface with white sandwich bread. Top grills gave us evenly browned toast. The worst made an uneven patchwork of black, brown, and white toast. Others dried out the bread, leaving it white with black stripes. Wrecked toast is no big deal, but when we grilled a quartet of pricey, thick New York strip steaks, the same thing happened. Spreading 4-inch burger patties across the hot grills, we saw those heat patterns a third time.

So what made the difference in how well food cooked? While manufacturers may try to dazzle customers with their burners’ high BTUs (British Thermal Units, a measure of heat output per hour), in our tests this number turned out to be less relevant than the grill’s construction and heat distribution. All gas grills share a similar construction: At the bottom, perforated metal tubes (the burners) produce a row of flames when the gas is ignited. Above them are metal heat diffusers shaped like inverted Vs. As we used the grills, we realized that these tent-like bars are very important. First, they shield burners to keep fallen food from clogging holes. Second, when dripping fat hits them, the fat turns into smoke that makes food taste grilled (they are sometimes called “flavorizer bars” for this reason). Third, and perhaps most important, they help spread heat horizontally across the grill. The flames’ heat wants to rise straight up, and without these tent-like bars to deflect it there would be distinct hot spots directly over each burner and cooler zones everywhere else.

All of the grills we tested had bars right over each burner, but our top-performing grills had further design tweaks to help spread out the rising heat for more even distribution and much-improved cooking results. One achieved this with extra bars between the burners, while the other featured a full layer of perforated stainless-steel plates beneath the grates, which, like the tent-like bars, diffused heat.

While powerful, even heat is critical in a good grill, so are a few other factors. First up: capacity. Sometimes you want to feed a hungry crowd. When we packed our grills with hamburger patties, the results were surprising. While the grills in our lineup featured different numbers of burners, more burners didn’t always correspond to more cooking space. The “smallest” grill—the only one with just three burners—held 19 burgers, while one of the four-burner models fit just 15 burgers. As it turned out, the four-burner grill was only 2 inches wider than the three-burner model (they were the same depth), a negligible advantage that was negated by the fact that the four-burner grill’s wide warming rack blocked access to the back of its cooking grates. Other grills shared this design flaw.

Grate material also mattered: Our two highest-ranking grills had cast-iron grates, while most of the lower-ranked ones used stainless steel. Cast iron did a better job of transferring heat for crisp, flavorful grill marks. Finally, the angle of the open lid also mattered. Curved, low-angled lids directed smoke right into our faces, even when fully open. Our favorite grills had lids that opened wide to let smoke flow straight up.

[KQ]

Slow Down
Direct cooking is important, but a good gas grill must also excel at cooking with indirect heat for roasting large cuts of meat or smoking them low and slow. To do this, after preheating the grill, you leave one burner on, turn off the rest, and set the meat over the unlit burners. For our test, we put wood chip packets over each lit burner and set pork butts (each cut into three pieces) over pans of water on the cooler side of each grill, maintaining a temperature of 300 degrees by watching the grills’ lid thermometers. All of the roasts should have reached an internal temperature of 200 degrees in 4 hours, yet even after a whopping 7 1/2 hours, some roasts still weren’t done. Others yielded tender meat but no smoke flavor. Only one grill rendered the meat both tender and smoky.

We realized that the problem causing this almost-uniformly poor performance lies in the grills’ construction and is, in fact, endemic to gas grills.

For indirect grill-roasting or barbecuing on charcoal, you push all of the coals to one side of the grill, put the meat on the other side, and then adjust the vents to customize heat level and airflow, putting the lid vent over the meat on the cooler side to draw heat and smoke over it. But all of this control is out of your hands with gas grills. The clamshell-shaped “cookbox” on a gas grill has nonadjustable vents, and all of those vents are in one place: across the back of the box. That means hot air and smoke flow in one direction when the lid is closed: straight out the back of the grill. This didn’t cause a problem with our previous winning grill (nor with several other models from our last testing). Its burners ran from side to side, so we could send the smoke and heat over the meat by turning on the burner in the front of the grill, putting the wood chips on this burner, and putting the meat directly behind. Heat and smoke traveled front to back, over the meat, on the way to the vents. But the burners in all of the grills for our current testing run from front to back. We’re not sure why manufacturers have all gone this route, but it means that the lit burner with the chip packet is always to the side of the meat, and so heat and smoke travel straight back to the vent—bypassing the meat.

Because of this, the integrity of the cookbox—specifically the box material and the number and position of the vents—became essential to success. Even though we had confirmed that the lid thermometers were all accurate and we had been adjusting the heat as needed to maintain a temperature of 300 degrees, we realized that the thermometer was only monitoring the air behind it and not the entire cooking surface. Lower-performing grills had row after row of vents that perforated the back of their cookboxes (some even lacked full back panels). The boxes themselves were thin, with lids that closed loosely over the grates. This translated to an inability to retain heat. When we tried a second time, placing meat much closer to the lit burner, the recipe timing and meat tenderness improved, but smoke flavor was still absent from most.

By contrast, our top grill—the only one that gave us smoky, tender meat—has a cookbox with its bottom and sides made of thick cast aluminum and a heavy, double-layered steel lid. The lid seals tightly, and the box has just one narrow vent across the back. Meat cooked properly in a timely manner every time because this fortified construction and minimal venting forced most of the smoke and heat to stay in the box with the food.

In the end, this grill’s competence and versatility, its sturdiness, and its easy cleanup (including the largest, most stable grease tray, which can be lined with a disposable pan) earned it the top spot. The Weber Spirit E-310 ($499) is an updated three-burner version of our former favorite. Weber moved the control knobs to the front, freeing up space on the side table, and added a hook that holds the propane tank and shows the fuel level at a glance. This grill is fairly basic, with no side burner (available on model E-320 for about $50 more), but it does the job. For the same price, you may buy a bigger grill with more frills, but you won’t get a better one.

METHODOLOGY:

We tested six gas grills priced under $500. Grills appear in order of preference. All were purchased online.

Burners: Gas grills heat via perforated tubes called burners that emit flames when ignited. Grills are described by their number of burners, though we found that this did not correlate with performance or capacity.

Grates: The grill grates are made of either cast iron or stainless steel.

Size of Main Cooking Grate and Heat Output: Manufacturers typically list the combined total square inches, including warming racks and side burners. More usefully, we list the dimensions of the main cooking grate and how many 4-inch burgers each can fit. Similarly, we only list the BTU (British Thermal Units—a measure of heat output per hour) numbers of the main burner.

Features: Some grills offer more extra features than others.

Grilling: We grilled hamburgers and steaks over direct heat, looking for distinct grill marks, well-browned crusts, and moist interiors. We mapped the heat pattern of each grill by covering its preheated surface with white bread slices and examining the toast.

Indirect Cooking: We prepared pulled pork, keeping the grill at 300 degrees for more than 4 hours. Thermocouples confirmed whether lid thermometers were accurate. We rated the pork on smoky flavor and tender, moist texture.

Design: Grills received higher marks if their designs made it easier to set them up and cook.

Durability: Models that were hard to roll; lost wheels, doors, or other parts; or showed greater wear and tear received lower scores.

Cleanup: We rated whether grates were easy to scrub clean and whether grills had secure, large grease trays and catch pans that were easy to reach.

[Tippster]

Is CI behind a pay wall?
Link not working for me...

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/equi...code=MCSCD00L0

Maybe this'll work.

Love my Spirit 300 series grill. It's hooked into the house NG line so I never have to worry about tanks running out during a long cook.

[KQ]

WINNER
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED


Weber Spirit E-310 Gas Grill
Our winner put a crisp, brown crust on burgers and steaks. It was equally good at barbecue, rendering tender pulled pork with real smoky flavor. Tasters raved: “Perfect smoke, supermoist and tender” and “the texture is spot-on.” With a heavy-duty cookbox of thick cast aluminum and enameled steel and just one narrow vent across the back, it was easy to keep heat steady and distribute smoke. The angle of the lid when open kept smoke out of our faces. Its large, secure grease tray made cleanup easier; the sturdy, compact cart rolled without a struggle.
BURNERS
3 Grates: Enameled cast iron
CAPACITY
19 burgers
FEATURES
Fuel gauge, six tool hooks, thermometer
SIZE OF MAIN COOKING GRATE
24” x 17”
HEAT OUTPUT OF MAIN BURNERS
32,000 BTUs
MODEL NUMBER
46510001

RECOMMENDED



Char-Broil Commercial Series 4-Burner Gas Grill
Unique, heat-spreading zigzagged steel plates beneath cast-iron grates made this grill the best at direct grilling. But its unusual interior layout left us struggling to figure out where to put water pans for indirect cooking, and there was nowhere to prop wood chip packets above the flames. Pulled pork roasted to tenderness but lacked smoke flavor. If you don’t care about indirect cooking, this is a great grill. One quibble: While we liked the side burner, its high, domed cover ate up space.
BURNERS
4 Grates: Enameled cast iron
CAPACITY
24 burgers
FEATURES
Side burner, heat-spreading radiant steel plates under grates, cast-iron griddle, cleaning tool, thermometer
SIZE OF MAIN COOKING GRATE
29½” x 17”
HEAT OUTPUT OF MAIN BURNERS
32,000 BTUs
MODEL NUMBER
463242715

NOT RECOMMENDED



Dyna-Glo 5-Burner Propane Gas Grill with Side Burner and Rotisserie Burner
This handsome, roomy grill had five burners plus a side burner, but it ran hot and cold in different zones. Burgers got wedged under a protruding rotisserie burner in back, and a low warming rack blocked our spatula. The grease collection tray didn’t channel fat, creating a mess. A big 2-inch gap at the back of the lid, open holes in the sides, and an open back panel let too much hot air and smoke escape. While the pulled pork texture was “nice,” it lacked smoky flavor: “Not particularly grill-obvious at all,” said one taster.
BURNERS
5 Grates: Stainless steel
CAPACITY
28 burgers
FEATURES
Side burner, rotisserie burner (rotisserie available separately), thermometer
SIZE OF MAIN COOKING GRATE
29” x 17”
HEAT OUTPUT OF MAIN BURNERS
55,000 BTUs
MODEL NUMBER
DGA550SSP-D



Nexgrill 4 Burner Liquid Propane Gas Grill
It was the least expensive grill we tested, so we were dubious about its value. Toast was white with black stripes. The back of the grill surface was hotter than the front. We got visible grill marks on some burgers, while all steak came off the grill pale and soft. The open lid’s shape sent smoke straight into our faces. The cookbox was thin and flimsy, and nine large vents and a 2-inch gap across the back let smoke and heat escape; no surprise that the pork butt roast was still tough as a rubber ball after 6 hours of cooking. We repeated the test, putting meat just 7 inches from the lit burner; this time it was tender but “smoke was completely absent.”
BURNERS
4 Grates: Stainless steel
CAPACITY
15 burgers
FEATURES
Side burner, thermometer
SIZE OF MAIN COOKING GRATE
26” by 17”
HEAT OUTPUT OF MAIN BURNERS
48,000 BTUs
MODEL NUMBER
720-0830H

[KQ]

NOT RECOMMENDED Cont.



Broil King Baron 440
Heating was uneven: Toast and burgers were randomly blackened or pale, and we threw about one-quarter of the burgers away, deeming them unfit to serve. Indirect cooking was more successful, with pork rating well for tenderness and lower for smoke flavor, but the grill needed constant tweaking to stay at 300 degrees, due in part to the thin construction of the cookbox. Also, the side holes and wide slit at the back let the smoke escape. Grates scrubbed down easily, but the grease tray was tiny. The deeply curved lid sent smoke into our eyes. The cabinet door fell off every time we rolled the grill.
BURNERS
4 Grates: Cast iron
CAPACITY
22 burgers
FEATURES
Side burner, thermometer
SIZE OF MAIN COOKING GRATE
25” x 17”
HEAT OUTPUT OF MAIN BURNERS
40,000 BTUs
MODEL NUMBER
922164



KitchenAid 3 Burner Gas Grill & Side Burner
The direct heat over most of this grill’s cooking surface was weak: Toast was too light, and burgers cooked unevenly. Meanwhile food on the back row scorched. Steak was “pretty sad,” with flabby, pale crust. The weak heat was a boon for barbecue, which came out tender and moist, but there was “no smoke.” Abundant vents channeled heat and smoke out of the cookbox, which was thin stainless steel. A very shallow grease tray was a hazard to move, and grease didn’t channel effectively, leaving the grill interior a gummy mess. A wheel popped off the cabinet halfway through testing.
BURNERS
3 Grates: Stainless steel
CAPACITY
20 burgers
FEATURES
Grill cover, side burner, tool hooks, thermometer
SIZE OF MAIN COOKING GRATE
24” x 19”
HEAT OUTPUT OF MAIN BURNERS
36,000 BTUs
MODEL NUMBER
720-0787D

[::: :::]

thx KQ for the transposition


i think this came up as a discussion point earlier in this thread or another: orientation of the burners

Its burners ran from side to side, so we could send the smoke and heat over the meat by turning on the burner in the front of the grill, putting the wood chips on this burner, and putting the meat directly behind. Heat and smoke traveled front to back, over the meat, on the way to the vents. But the burners in all of the grills for our current testing run from front to back. We’re not sure why manufacturers have all gone this route, but it means that the lit burner with the chip packet is always to the side of the meat, and so heat and smoke travel straight back to the vent—bypassing the meat.

i was having grill buyer's remorse about my genesis having the old longitudinal arrangement, but it seems like a good arrangement...now, the knobs on the side are definitely an inconvenience

[::: :::]

Yeah I thought it might be, sorry, maybe try cutting and pasting this into google:

site:cooksillustrated.com gas grills under $500

Bottom line is the Weber was the only "Highly Recommended" one, and good for both direct and indirect heat.

I was on the app this morning...hadn't had a chance to go looking yet...

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/equi...code=MCSCD00L0

Maybe this'll work.

Love my Spirit 300 series grill. It's hooked into the house NG line so I never have to worry about tanks running out during a long cook.

that works, thx!

[El Chupacabra]

Well, if you don't buy a Weber this year you will be one year older when you do.

My only complaint is that it doesn't get super ragingly hot for searing purposes, but that's not really gas grills' strength - if I want a super hard sear, I can always pull out the charcoal grill. It gets plenty hot for all normal applications. If getting a super hard sear is important to you, you might consider the options that come with an infrared burner (though that takes space away for normal grilling purposes, I think).

I didn't go with a side burner because my last grill had one and I literally used it once in five years. It's an option that sounds nice, but if your kitchen is just a few steps from your grill then it's not something that gets much use.

You're both right, but if I can get my old grill hot enough with a $35 burner replacement fix, I'm good with it for a couple more years. Everything on it is still in good shape -- 304 stainless everything on the exterior, only a little rust on some rivets that are hidden until you open the cabinet doors, stainless cooking grates.

I don't really need the side burner on the EP330 or S330, but I would want the sear burner that comes with those units, and is not part of the 310 line. I want stainless cooking grates, which means I don't want the E310 or E330 -- the "EP" version comes with nicer parts inside, and doesn't cost that much more.

[Cruiser]

Each Spring the last few years I've gotten some grill lust and this year it's hitting pretty hard. Must resist...

[crackboy]

I have a broil king, and its been great

[k2skier112]

Char Broil from Costco, stainless. Lifetime warranty on burners (3) and cooking grates and flame tamers. I too never use my side burner.
Has a couple of hot and cool spots, nothing worse than charcoal.
Been outside under cover for over 11 years and only has minor rust spots, (may be more from the fucking neighbors cats pissing on it).
Just got my 3rd free set of burners and grates. I grill about 2-3 times a week, year round

add-bought in Feb 2005.

[El Chupacabra]

My Front Avenue (Char Broil commercial rebadged, from Costco) is alive and well. Burner replacement seems to have done it.

[El Chupacabra]

OK, I gave in. Bought a Weber Genesis S-330. All the Genesis models are $100 off at Lowe's and Home Depot, and probably every other retailer. Apparently they are changing the line for next year and unloading all inventory nationally.

Used a 10% discount code, and 6% from Topcashback, and got a solid deal. Giant box sitting in the garage waiting for assembly.

Giving the still functional old SS Char Broil to the kid, who's now in college.

[~mikey b]

You'll like it. Mine's ten years old and still going strong. Replaced rusted out flavor bars last year.

[El Chupacabra]

Assembled the grill today. Frame and doors etc are kind of unimpressive - mostly painted steel, but seems acceptably strong. Hope they don't rust too fast...

Fired it up to test everything out and burn off the shipping oils. Hit 550* in less than 10 minutes (including running the sear burner on full). Happy with that for sure!

[basinbeater]

As noted in the other thread, I too have a Weber. It is a Genesis, and after many years, looks new, cooks evenly, I love it.