Called the fuse method, or “the charcoal snake,” this trick involves stacking briquettes in a specific way inside the grill. Do it correctly and the charcoal snake will burn at barbecue temperatures and with minimum supervision. With the 18-inch Weber Original Kettle Grill, you can still get the full Weber charcoal grilling experience for under $100. One of the factors that draws so many people to charcoal grilling is the authenticity around it. Not just with the flavors, but the skill and learning curve required to cook with it. It’s cased in a porcelain enamel bowl to help heat retention and distribution.
For the indirect-cooking test, we cooked a whole chicken at as close to 500 °F as we could get (emulating Barbara Kafka’s famous oven-roasting method). We moved the remaining coals to one side of the coal grate and added half a chimney’s worth of freshly lit coals. In effect we were testing whether the grills could function as ovens—a really nice feature in the hot summer months, when you may not want to warm up your kitchen. Because of its dominance, the Weber kettle has spawned a lot of copycats.
Just like a lot of modern charcoal grills, it has an ashtray to help speed up cleaning. It’s big enough to take on quite a lot, so you shouldn’t have to empty it too frequently. weber charcoal grill What really sets the Kettle apart from the rest through is its vents. Also called dampers, these vents sit both at the bottom and the top of the grill chamber.
A built-in thermometer on the lid allows you to monitor the grill’s temperature, while a hinged grill grate makes it easy to add coal or reposition embers for enhanced fire management. And when dinner’s done, an improved ash catcher makes cleaning up the charcoal mess even easier. Read on to see how well the Weber Original Kettle Premium 22-Inch Charcoal Grill performed under fire. The premium version of the original weber charcoal grill kettle measures 22 inches wide and comes in three colors. The premium version also includes Weber’s One-Touch cleaning system, meaning that it comes with a large enclosed ash pan for easy cleanup, and it also boasts a built-in thermometer and lid hook. While we found both Weber grills to cook flawlessly, the upgrades on the premium model make the Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill our top charcoal grill of 2023.
All of our tests were designed and run by Wirecutter senior writer Lesley Stockton, who has over a decade of experience in professional kitchens, many of them spent on the grill station. Lesley conducted the testing with senior staff writer Tim Heffernan, who wrote this guide, and Michael Sullivan, weber genesis 2 a senior writer on the kitchen team. Sam Sifton, assistant managing editor at The New York Times, also joined in and added his extensive knowledge. The Weber Original Kettle Premium Charcoal Grill 22″ is a classic for good reason. Plus, you can get it in a few different color and size combinations.
The bottom vent functions like most kettle grills, but the top vent is styled more like a traditional smoker vent. You mainly control the temperature on this grill from the bottom vent. This grill gave both our burgers and chicken a really nice sear. During our testing, hamburgers cooked to medium, while it took the chicken about 32 minutes to come up to temperature.
This grill ran red-hot and was nearly impossible to slow down the temperature on no matter what we did to make airflow adjustments. The Char-Griller has a noticeably deeper kettle — the deepest of the entire pool we tested. Despite the distance from the heat, meat still seared well on this grill because it ran so hot. It took over an hour to get this grill from 400 degrees Fahrenheit to the 300-degree range. The Napoleon Freestanding Charcoal Kettle Grill took the longest to set up, clocking in at an hour and five minutes of build time.