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2022-05-28 17:28:40 By : Mr. Tracy Han

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. How we test gear.

These are the 17 best charcoal, gas, and pellet grills available right now.

We often hear that things were better decades ago—the food was fresher, the sky bluer, and all you needed was a big brick barbecue in the backyard. But patio cooking has been reanimated. Across this great land, people are searing, roasting, braising, and smoking. Grills have proliferated. When it comes to buying your next grill, there’s no shortage of product to chose in a range of prices and features.

Check out quick info below on a selection of the best grills from our testing—from homeowner-grade appliances to gourmet options—then scroll down for buying advice and in-depth reviews of these and others.

Editors’ Note: We reviewed our picks of the best grills on May 12 and still stand behind these recommendations.

It’s not difficult to select the right grill. The most important thing you can do is think about what you want to cook and how. If all you want to do is grill a few hot dogs and hamburgers at the campsite, there’s no sense in getting carried away. Buy an inexpensive grill and use some common sense in preparing that food. If that’s where you are now, but you want to, say, move on to grilling seafood or smoking brisket, you’re going to need a grill that has the capacity to take you where you want to go. The most important thing for making more sophisticated food on any grill—gas, charcoal, or pellet—is the ability to control the heat source. For charcoal grills, that means plenty of space for fuel and the means to either add more charcoal, raise and lower the cooking surface, or mound the charcoal up on one side for indirect cooking. For gas grills, you need two or more burners. For pellet grills, it’s a bit easier, because they have automated temperature control systems.

All of these grills are mobile to one extent or another. However, if mobility is one of your main needs, pay close attention to the portable grills we tested. These are ideal for tailgating and do double duty to expand your firepower in the backyard when your main grill doesn’t have enough surface area to cook everything you need when company is expected.

The grills here represent an astonishing range of price and industrial design. Some are stainless steel. Others are stamped sheet steel. Two of our test grills are ceramic-lined. One has a cast-aluminum body and is built more or less as it was designed in 1952. Another is solid cast iron—and we mean solid. These appliances are fired by charcoal, hardwood pellets, and propane gas.

Watch: Dave Joachim’s best grilling tips.

We grilled almost everything—swordfish, lobster, some kind of spicy Portuguese sausage, more steak than you could shake a pair of tongs at. We also grilled bone-in-chicken, hamburgers, vegetable skewers, and vegetable patties. Hot dogs? Sorry, we skipped those. No offense.

We grilled in a blizzard. We grilled in the dampness of early spring, the smell of cold mud competing with brisket. We grilled in early summer, morning, noon, and night, dragging these contraptions in and out of a barn, running test after test. We grilled in a parking lot, on a picnic bench, even hauled a couple of these appliances off to sporting events.

To evaluate heat distribution, we covered each cooking surface with white bread. This is a seemingly unconventional choice for grill testing, but white bread is ideal because it will clearly show where cold spots can produce under-cooked food.

We did all this to deliver a report with timeliness and authority. We ran these appliances as hard as we run lawnmowers and power tools. We came to many conclusions, the most important of which is this: There’s a grill here for you.

Fuel: Wood pellets | Cooking surface: 811 sq in.

The Woodwind Wi-Fi 24 is an attractive, versatile grill that fits better in tight spaces due to its vertical legs and small footprint. During testing ,we found it more convenient to maneuver and reposition where we had issues with other grills. A nice propane-fueled griddle attaches to the side (hence its Sidekick name) and runs independently of the pellet grill controller. Heat distribution was even, as evidenced by our white-bread test. And the sear zone was perhaps the easiest to use, with a slide that pulls out to expose the center of the cooking grate to the direct heat of the flame. The color LCD control screen allows you to set the temperature and the amount of smoke produced. (You can also do that on the grill’s app.) We appreciated all the features, but they add to the cost—the Woodwind Wi-Fi 24 runs $800 without the Sidekick.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 560 sq in.

With a temperature range of 150 to 700 degrees F, the 560 Digital Charcoal Grill is a multipurpose backyard cooker. Using an innovative design, charcoal is stored in a vertical hopper on the end of the grill, where it is gravity-fed and burned from the bottom. Flames and heat are drawn horizontally into the grill, where they enter a large heat diffuser and then rise to the grates. Temperature is maintained with a digital thermostat that controls the fan feeding air to the fire. Masterbuilt also has an app that pairs with the 560 to set and monitor the grill remotely. It comes with one temperature probe, but there are ports for three more.

Smoking in the 560 is as easy as setting the temperature and a timer. Using lump charcoal will provide a smoky flavor, but if more smoke is needed, you can add wood chips to the ash bucket, where they’ll burn slowly as embers fall on them. On our first cook, a small brisket we had on for almost 6 hours at 220 degrees developed a fantastic crust—it was so easy, and so tasty. Grilling burgers, we set the temperature to 500. We found this to be a nice temp, between a sear and a slower cook, that gave our burgers a deep, brownish red color, with dark grill lines. Chicken on the bone cooked to perfection in about 40 minutes placed on the racks above the grill grates, away from the heat, and with the temp backed down to 400. If you love the taste of charcoalgrilled food, but cleaning up ash has held you back, Masterbuilt managed to take that hassle out of it. Due to the vertical hopper, the charcoal flows down as it burns, with the ash simply falling into a bucket at the bottom. Just open a door and empty the bucket—it’s that easy.

Fuel: Propane, charcoal, wood | Cooking surface: 726 sq in.

This grill—although calling it a grill is like calling a multitool a pocket knife—from Kalamazoo is both impressive and intimidating. The Hybrid Fire can run off of propane, charcoal, or wood, so you can cook just about any way, or anything, you like. And to be honest, it’s so versatile, it would take weeks to fully test it. Kalamazoo grills are made by hand in Michigan using very heavy-gauge 304 stainless steel that’s three to four times thicker than most grills—ours weighed about 500 pounds. The Hybrid Fire features three, 25,000-BTU, cast-bronze burners sitting below a full-width “grilling drawer” where the charcoal or wood goes. With this setup, lighting the wood or charcoal is super easy using the burners. Our test grill came with three optional laser-cut, stainless-steel cooking surfaces, one each for meat, vegetables, and fish. There are also two 18,000-BTU side burners and a built-in rotisserie system with an infrared burner.

To test the Hybrid Fire, we grilled burgers, chicken, and steaks using propane, charcoal, and wood, as well as whole chicken on the rotisserie using charcoal and the infrared burner. We filled one side of the grilling drawer with split oak logs, and the other with hardwood lump charcoal, then lit both with the gas burners. The process was easy, and we backed down the burners, and eventually turned them off. You can opt to leave them on as well to keep heat consistent. To cook with indirect heat for longer, lower-heat sessions, we shuffled the charcoal or wood in the grilling drawer to keep a portion of it empty. Wet-down wood chips can go in the drawer as well, if smoking is the order of the day. We noticed that it took a little longer than we expected to get up to our target cooking temperatures for grilling, which is due to the significant mass of the cooking surface that needs to heat up—not a fault but a characteristic of this particular grill. Aside from the burner controls, or the material burning in the grilling drawer, controlling air flow via a vent on top of the grill also helps control heat within the grill. We enjoyed the process of figuring out how to use each fuel source alone or in combination with others and were able to produce some amazing, delicious burgers, chicken, and steak we were proud to serve. We cooked a whole chicken using the rotisserie with the infrared burner. To keep temperatures low, we had the burner set low and used indirect heat from charcoal, off in one side of the grilling drawer. The skin became a nice, dark, brownish gold with some blackened highlights—for our first time testing a rotisserie, we couldn’t have been happier.

The Hybrid Fire is expensive, and the price will scare many folks away. There’s no getting around that. But it’s a lot more than a grill. It’s a sophisticated piece of outdoor cooking equipment with unparalleled versatility—and it’s made by hand in the good old U.S. It can grill, sear, smoke, barbecue, or roast just about anything, and do it well in the right hands. Made from durable materials throughout, it should be the last grill you (and your children) would ever need to buy.

Fuel: Charcoal | Cooking surface: 205 sq in.

This is a phenomenal small grill, a kettle-shaped classic. A bottom vent and an aluminum top damper allow precise airflow. Despite the small kettle’s volume, there’s enough room to manipulate the coal for accurate cooking: Mound charcoal on one side for indirect heating and rotate the lid to place the top damper so it draws smoke past the food. Its setup and cool down are simple, precise, and fast. Years of experience with this grill have convinced us that some classics can’t be improved upon.

Fuel: Charcoal | Cooking surface: 200 sq in.

For this Portable Charcoal Grill, Masterbuilt employed a simple version of technology it developed for its larger 560 Digital Charcoal Grill. With the use of a fan and a separate charcoal firebox, you can have this grill hot enough to cook in about the same time it takes to heat up a portable propane grill. We loaded the firebox with charcoal from The Good Charcoal Company, which was a consistent medium size and perfect for the small, 1.5-pound-capacity firebox. We lit the charcoal with a torch for about 60 seconds, turned the fan to medium, closed the firebox, and in 15 minutes were grilling burgers. The fan is electric, of course, but that doesn’t mean you have to be tied to an outlet—it can also run off of four AA batteries. When we tested using the battery, with the fan set on medium speed, we were able to grill for over 3 hours. The grill features a porcelain-coated, cast-iron cooking grate that helps provide even heat—and we found very easy to clean. We were able to roll the grill around easily, with the collapsible cart. And with the dedicated firebox and locking grill lid, we didn’t spread ashes wherever we went with it. The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal Grill makes grilling with charcoal easy, fast, and clean.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 360 sq in.

If you like traditional gas, this is your grill. Its cast-iron grid sits above large inverted V-shaped deflectors to keep drippings off the burners. The deflectors are easily to remove and coated in porcelain for easy cleanup. And while we’re talking cleanup and convenience, bonus points to Weber for the generously sized stainless-steel side shelves that give you an ample and easily cleaned surface for food prep. The Weber’s heat distribution is good. Two burner tubes run front to back, and a third connects them to keep heat rising toward the warming rack at the rear. Assembly? Clean, simple, and straightforward. The instructions are among the best of the bunch, complete with thoughtfully rendered illustrations.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 725 sq in.

As evidenced in our bread test, Char-Broil’s Tru-Infrared four-burner grill has remarkably even heat distribution. This is largely due to the burner design, featuring four stainless-steel heat emitters (plates that absorb and emit infrared energy). Above those emitters is a set of porcelain-coated, cast-iron grates that imparted a typical wide sear mark. The grill takes a little longer to heat up because there’s a lot of mass to heat in those emitters and cast-iron grates. It also takes longer to cool down, something to keep in mind if the temperature gets too hot for what you’re grilling. But the even heat meant we were able to cover the grill with burgers and have them all ready at the same time. Plus, we could turn one or more of the burners off or use the warming racks for indirect cooking while employing direct heat on the grates.

Fuel: Charcoal | Cooking surface: 221 sq in.

This somewhat simple, unassuming grill turned out to be the “sleeper” in our test. We were really impressed by how easy it was to grill with either direct or indirect heat. The charcoal tray is adjustable, hanging from a ladder rack that can quickly raise or lower the coals as needed. The burgers we grilled had fantastic coloring and that trademark cooked-over-charcoal taste. To cook chicken slower, we shuffled the coals to one side, put the chicken on the other, and closed the lid. You can manage heat with the damper on top and monitor it with a large, easy-to-read thermometer. As far as portability, this table-top grill doesn’t break down to take up less space—what you see is what you get, and it might be difficult to transport in some smaller cars. We were surprised to find that the Rambler is nearly 50 pounds. That might seem a tad heavy, but it has cast-iron grill grates, and it’s fabricated from thick-gauge steel instead of cheap stamped sheet metal. It’s built to last. We just wouldn’t suggest hiking into the woods with it.

Fuel: Charcoal | Cooking surface: 262 sq in.

By now, you’ve probably seen or heard of the Big Green Egg, the product largely responsible for popularizing kamado grills here in the U.S. Kamado grills are traditionally charcoal-fired, dome-topped ceramic ovens with a temperature range from about 200 to over 700 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s low enough to cook or smoke low and slow and high enough to sear steaks and cook pizza. The package we tested included a ceramic baffle for indirect cooking, and a stand with locking wheels. It also came with lump charcoal and charcoal starters. Ignition is one of the perceived hassles of charcoal, but the fire starters made it easy. Now, here is the thing with the Big Green Egg: It’s incredibly versatile, but you have to manage the airflow in the bottom and exhaust out the top to get, and maintain, your target temperature. We did our research beforehand, so we had an idea where to set the vents, and had reasonable success in those first couple of cooks. The more we used it, though, the better we got.

With the technique sorted out, we dove into cooking our burgers and chicken. The burgers took on some dark reddish highlights, mingled with darker grill lines, and had the “cooked-over-charcoal” flavor you only get cooking with fuel made from real wood. For our chicken, we put in the ceramic “convEGGtor” to cook with indirect heat over about 45 minutes, with every piece cooked clear though and nice, darkened skin. We also smoked a brisket in this fashion, bringing the temp way down to 225. But we found it difficult to keep it there, as it rose back toward 300. We later realized we had let the fire get too big before shutting the vents down. The brisket was still good, but we didn’t get quite the result we were aiming for. A couple of days later we tried again with a turkey tenderloin, closed the vents down earlier, and were able to keep the temp in the low 200s. If you cook out a lot and really want to be involved with the process of cooking—just about anything from bread to smoked sausage—then this versatile kamado grill is a great way to go.

Fuel: Hardwood pellets | Cooking surface: 790 sq in.

Nexgrill’s Oakford 790, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity to monitor your grilling remotely, represents a significant value among pellet grills. Pair it with Nexgrill’s free app and you can set target temperatures for the grill and meat probes, as well as check current temps and set a timer—capabilities often found on more expensive models. App control is one of the features we’ve really come to like, especially when smoking or cooking low and slow because you don’t need to be tied to the grill for the day. With its temperature range of 160 to 550 degrees Fahrenheit, you can smoke, bake, roast, and grill on the Oakford. After we seasoned the cast-iron grates, we grilled some burgers at the high end of the Oakford’s range, followed by chicken on the bone at just under 400 degrees. We found controlling temperature via the app and the panel on the grill equally effective and produced excellent results in both cases. The grill’s construction is sturdy and everything fit well when we assembled it. The front fold-down shelf on the Oakford is kind of unique, in that when folded out, it meets the side shelf, creating a large useful place to shuffle plates and utensils on and hold food off the grill as you cook.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 234 sq in.

There’s no need to carry this stainless-steel Roll-Away gas grill from Cuisinart. The stand folds down flat for maximum portability, so it can roll behind like a roller bag at the airport—plus, it can hang on a wall for storage. When set up, it has a relatively small footprint of 18 x 34 inches that makes it ideal for apartments or places with limited space. Once open, two shelves swing out to provide handy staging areas on either side of the grill. The single 15,000-BTU burner sits beneath a metal cover to help distribute heat evenly under the grill grate. Our bread test revealed that there were two hotter spots, to the front and back of the cover, where the heat rose around it. Knowing this, it was easy to see where to cook things like chicken with indirect heat. The 18-x-13-inch enameled, cast-iron grate can fit 12 burgers with room to flip them—more than enough for a meal or small gathering.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 529 sq in.

This is a great gas grill with user-friendly assembly; we put ours together in under an hour. The Spirit is ideal for the everyday griller. It’s simple to use and versatile, with three cooking zones. We experienced minor unevenness of temperature on the cooking surface, but that’s certainly not a deal breaker. The build quality of the grill is very high, with all parts exhibiting excellent fit and finish.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 192 sq in.

The Magma Crossover is a modular, portable cooking system, with a base Firebox containing a single propane burner. We tested the Firebox with Grilltop bundle, but there are also griddle, plancha, and pizza oven tops available. The Crossover is designed for portability—you can close up, latch, and easily carry or store the whole ensemble. The system is well thought-out and a good fit for the RV and van-life crowds. For example, if your trek takes you through the mountains, the Firebox has an altitude adjustment for the burner to make sure it runs hot no matter how high up you are. When you open the Firebox, the lid becomes a side shelf for prepping food or use as a cutting board. With the Grilltop in place, we tested the heat distribution and found that at low to medium levels it was fairly even—with the burner turned all the way up, if was hottest in the center. Armed with this important knowledge, we were able to grill burgers with nice sear marks and chicken more slowly and done throughout. There are a number of mounts and stands for the Magma Crossover; we tested the Quad Pod Stand with adjustable leveling feet, which let you set up the grill virtually anywhere.

Fuel: Hardwood pellets | Cooking surface: 906 sq in.

Like all of Oklahoma Joe’s grills we’ve tested, the Rider 900 DLX is built from noticeably heavier-gauge steel than many other brands, giving us the impression that they’re built to last. The Rider has some nice features we really appreciated due to the nature of our testing process. We frequently move grills around, set them up, clean them, and put them away. The Rider has solid rubber tires on its large wheels, making it very easy to move and to do so without a lot of noise. It also has a quick-release hopper bottom that allows all the pellets to drop into a bucket hanging below—super useful if you want to switch to different pellets. And the bucket has a sealable lid to keep pellets dry once removed. The Rider is unique among the pellet grills we tested, with a large round sear zone in the center of the cast-iron cooking grate. A lever on the front of the grill body can be set to smoke, sear, or anywhere in between to get the heat right where you want it. The burgers we cooked were perfect, with honeycomb sear marks from the unique cooking grate. We turned the temps down for the chicken to cook long and slow with excellent results as well. The Rider 900 DLX is a versatile grill and smoker with a wide temperature range from 200 to 650 degrees.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 541 sq in.

With its new Cruise Gas Grill, Char-Broil takes temperature control to the next level. Similar to pellet grills that allow you to set a temperature, like an oven, the Cruise can cycle its burner on and off to maintain a consistent temperature. During testing, we found this worked great for things like chicken that you want to cook over a longer time. The Cruise has porcelain-coated, cast-iron cooking grates, which we found were easier to clean off than plain cast iron. Below those grates are full-width heat diffusers; they helped distribute the warmth but also were less likely to flare up with grease drippings. Between the cast grates and heat diffusers, there’s a lot of material to warm up, which helps maintain an even heat. But one thing we noticed is that if you get them really hot and then want to cook something at a lower heat, you’ll have to wait a bit for them to cool down. We used the single knob on the Cruise to set the temperature for the whole grill, checked the heat distribution with the bread test, and found fairly even heating, with slightly cooler spots at the two front corners. The Cruise also features a timer and self-cleaning mode.

Fuel: Charcoal, propane starter | Cooking surface: 363 sq in.

Here’s everything you love about the classic 22-inch Weber kettle but with a few stylish add-ons, like a large work surface off to the side, a convenient lid holder, and a propane-fired charcoal starter. The pullout bin for storing charcoal is a model of grill engineering.

Fuel: Propane | Cooking surface: 644 sq in.

People often disagree on aesthetics, but it was unanimous among our testers: This KitchenAid is one of the nicest looking grills we’ve used. From assembling it, we could tell it’s well built, with excellent alignment of the panels, doors, and shelves. Resist the urge to pay extra for assembly. Do it yourself, as putting this one together is easier than most. Instead of a blister pack with 101 pieces of hardware, most of it’s already screwed in the place it belongs, so there’s no question of what goes where. During the heat distribution portion of the test, our bread indicated slightly hotter strips over each of the three burners. The stainless-steel grates are spaced a little wider than normal, and we found this helped make them easier to scrub off. It also means there’s less mass to heat and hold heat, so the grill warms up and cools down a little faster than others. Plus, there’s a bonus ceramic sear burner on the side, so you can cook low and slow if you wish and use it to add those dark grill marks.

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