Expert BBQ Reviews & Grilling Guides for Every Backyard
Here’s a funny thing about charcoal grilling. The best first grill is the one that looks like it was designed in 1952, because it more or less was. The round, dome-lidded kettle has survived seven decades of gadgets, apps, and pellet-fed wizardry. It’s still the grill most reviewers point to when someone asks where to … Read more
Picture the sound first: a thick ribeye hitting a screaming-hot grate, that sharp crackle that makes the neighbors lean over the fence. That sound is the whole game. It’s what a good charcoal grill for searing steaks is built to deliver: fierce radiant heat, a grate that holds onto it, and vents that let you … Read more
Here’s the uncomfortable truth, and it may save you a few hundred dollars and a lease violation. In most U.S. multifamily buildings, a charcoal grill for apartment balconies is not legal to light on the balcony itself. Section 308.1.4 of the International Fire Code bars charcoal burners and other open-flame cooking devices from combustible balconies. … Read more
A barrel drum charcoal grill for low and slow smoking is a vertical, lidded steel cooker. Charcoal burns in a basket at the bottom while meat cooks on grates or hangs from hooks above it. Adjustable intake vents and a lid exhaust hold a steady 225–275°F for many hours, with almost no fuss. That’s the … Read more
A charcoal grill under $500 for backyard parties is a freestanding, briquette- or lump-fueled cooking unit — usually a kettle, barrel, or gravity-fed smoker-hybrid — built with enough cooking surface, side prep space, and airflow control to feed a crowd without pushing your budget past the $500 line. That’s the textbook version. The real version … Read more
Somewhere between “just wing it with a $40 tin bucket” and “mortgage a kidney for a $2,000 pellet rig,” there’s a sane middle ground — and that’s exactly where a good charcoal grill under $200 for a small family lives. A charcoal grill under $200 for a small family is a grill priced below $200 … Read more
Somewhere between “I’ll just use my gas grill” and “I bought a $3,000 stick burner on a whim,” there’s a smarter path — and it runs straight through a well-chosen offset charcoal smoker for backyard brisket. An offset charcoal smoker is a horizontal cooker with a separate firebox attached to one end, so the fire … Read more
Somewhere around your third scroll through grill reviews at 11 p.m., you’ve probably hit the wall every beginner hits: charcoal grill vs pellet grill for beginners, and nobody seems to agree on the answer. That’s because there isn’t one universal answer — there’s an answer for you, and it depends on how much fiddling you … Read more
Nothing says game day quite like the smell of charcoal smoke drifting across a stadium parking lot two hours before kickoff. If you’ve ever hauled a full-size backyard kettle out of your trunk and immediately regretted every decision that led you there, you already understand why picking the right portable charcoal grill for tailgating matters … Read more
Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you move into an apartment with a patio the size of a yoga mat: you can still grill like you mean it. A charcoal kettle grill for small patios isn’t a compromise — it’s arguably the smartest way to cook outdoors, because the round kettle shape was never … Read more