This portable grill has everything you need to cook up delicious meals, including 280 square inches of cooking space and two folding work tables to make food prep quick and easy. We tried it out, at home and on the road, to grill hot dogs, steaks, and veggies and were impressed with the final results each time. This charcoal grill did take a little longer to heat up than other models, but it still did a great job cooking a variety of food during testing. The only downside is that it doesn’t have a lid that you can use while cooking, but it still exceeded expectations in terms of performance. Plus, the grill was very easy to clean out after use, and its stay-cool handles and light weight made it easy to move around.
The lid, cook box and cast iron grates are all porcelain enameled for added non-stickability, easier cleanup and good heat retention. This Weber grill is a mini version of the brand’s well-loved charcoal kettle. Testers appreciated the solid but portable build and how quickly they were able to set it up.
Cleanup is easy using a top-down approach of wiping the inside of the lid with soapy water, cleaning the grates with a grill brush, and emptying the grease collector. No thermometer is included, and Weber does not make a storage cover for the Jumbo Joe. If you want to do any indirect-heat cooking, you’ll want to buy the hinged grill grate for $35 so you can feed in fresh fuel without removing the top grill, and the $23 charcoal basket is also useful.
This can be remedied by doing away with this disposable part or just by putting a rock in it. Lesley Stockton is a senior staff writer reporting on all things cooking and Charcoal Grills Combo Grills entertaining for Wirecutter. Her expertise builds on a lifelong career in the culinary world—from a restaurant cook and caterer to a food editor at Martha Stewart.
When it comes to cooking with this grill, we’d recommend using only a few coals at first during a handful of test cookouts to really get a sense of how the grill performs. Carrying this grill to various different cookout sites is easier than ever thanks to the Tuck-N-Carry lid lock. She’s an experienced product tester and recipe creator, trained in classic culinary arts and culinary nutrition. She has worked in test kitchens for small kitchen appliance brands and national magazines, including Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal. With the ability to Grill, Smoke, Bake, Roast, Braise, & BBQ all on one grill, there’s no limit to what you can cook.
For instance, the small grill top only has enough space for one or two steaks at a time. Finally — and the most notable problem — the low-heat performance is practically nonexistent. Although the heat is adjustable, we would describe the settings as “High” to “Extremely High.” Furthermore, the only purpose of the lid is portability; you cannot close it while cooking. While it prepares steaks very, very nicely, other foods are nearly impossible to cook well.
Although this portable powerhouse reaches top temperatures with ease, it is more difficult to learn how to harness the heat of the grill surface for foods that require more low-and-slow cooking. But if you hope to regularly grill up delicious meals while on the road, the Weber Q 1200 is an accessible portable grill that is sure to appeal to both novice cooks and professional chefs alike. Over the past seven years, our experts have bought more than 25 of the best portable grills to test side-by-side. This updated review highlights 15 of the top options to help you cook up delicious meals, even while on the road.
After you connect the propane and have checked for leaks, turn on the burner(s). Some grills, such as the Weber Q 2200, have electronic ignition, in which case you simply push the button to ignite the gas. For grills that lack this feature, you’ll need to use extra-long matches or a match holder to ignite the propane and get the burner started. The Napoleon Travelq is the full-featured grill-on-a-cart you need to wheel out onto the sand.