Best Gas Grill

I like the Weber Genisis.

We have a stainless steel natural gas grill from Sams Club, that is well made and is holding up well. It a little larger than you describe, but I like that as it has enough capacity when I have guests.

The other nice feature of it is a smoker tray, it works very well as a meat smoker. I buy cheap meat like beef brisket, and get a great fatty smoked meat after 16 hours.

They sell both propane and NG grills.

Check out

All ceramic cooks and smokes just great.

I quit using the $350 propane guzzler when the gas hit $3.10/Gal. My old $20 Sunbeam, with a little remedial welding works fine, and cheap. Bugs

I just went through the exercise. I first bought a $299 "Thermos" stainless steel grill from Target that was absolute junk, although when I paid for it, I thought it was pretty good for the money. Poor design and put together with pop rivets. A lot of the parts inside were painted steel. Took it back without even opening the box after doing quite a bit more research and looking at the floor sample more carefully.

Absolutely the best grill I found out there for the money is a $299 "PerfectGlo Pro Series" stainless grill from BJ's warehouse. I bought one and couldn't be more pleased. It's head and shoulders above any other grill I found, even up to around $600. All welded construction (no pop rivets -- OK, I found two, holding the handle onto the studs that it attaches to). Four (!) grilling burners plus a side burner -- gives lots of options for direct and indirect grilling. Individual lighters for each burner built into the valves. Includes a very heavy rotisserie (the one from Target did not and, even though it had mounting holes for one, the lid was too low to clear anything on the spit), stainless steel warming grid, cabinet below for the cylinder and other stuff. Large working surfaces on left and right (the right one's over the side burner, but I never used the one on my old grill. Cooks like a dream compared with the old Thermos cast-aluminum grill I replaced -- just as good as my friend's very expensive Ducane. Heavy stainless steel tubular burners with heavy gauge ss flame tamers (we'll see how well they hold up, but almost all of the high end ss grills use virtually identical components. The only features it doesn't have that the higher end grills have is a radiant back grill for the rotisserie, and a smoker drawer for wood chips.

What would I change? The only major thing I would prefer would be a ss cooking grid instead of the enameled cast iron one this comes with. Except for this cast iron grid, virtually everything else on it is ss (don't know what grade, but no rust after four weeks so far). The side burner is on the right, where I like to lay stuff down being right handed, but I never used the one on the old grill, so I can lay stuff on top of the cover for it. I would like a tray or hangers to keep tools. It has some very crappy little hooks for tools, but hell, I can make something better than that with all my metalworking stuff.

It isn't a $699 Ducane, but it compares very favorably with the one Home Depot sells for that price. I still can't believe that it's as good as it is for $299.

Anyone here ever build their own BBQ? What about burner? What metal would you use for this?

I have been through more barbecue grills in my lifetime than I can remember. I now have a three burner Vermont Castings, and love it. It starts first time every time, regulates heat very well, has good temperature controls, porcelain racks, and is a pretty blue.

Steve

I'm trying to decide on a new gas grill right now as well. I'm not a big fan of consumer reports, but I've been told they recently did a grill shootout and picked the Costco stainless grill (don't remember the make) as the best.

We want one that will do well with a rotisserie, as we cook this way quite a bit. Costco has one with a rotisserie and rotisserie back burner for $700 and a smaller one without a rotisserie and no rotisserie backburner for $400. But it looks like you could buy an add-on rotisserie and bolt it to the $400 model.

However, it seems to me that the backburner could be pretty important to good rotisserie cooking performance? Seems like you could be burning up a lot of gas while a turkey or several chickens are turning away in that large cavernous undercover area. More heat on the rotisserie the better??? Anybody do much cooking with a rotisserie on a gas grill???

Thanks Wayne

I have a Weber Genesis and has really been happy with it. At first I was upset because I can't just turn on the left burner and cook a small steak. I had to use 2 or more burners.

But then I really learned how to use direct and indirect heat, and find the three burner system great. Also, I can cook a thick steak, and get the outside well seared, but the inside perfect.

I've been using the indirect heating system more. The middle burner is off, and the front and back are on, with the meat in the middle. I combine the direct searing with the indirect when I want to make sure a thick piece of meat is cooked.

The auto-starter works well. After four years, I have to press the started twice, but every other grill the started failed completely.

I do have to replace the Flavorizer bars. Mine have holes in them.

The Weber cookbooks are very useful as well.

I don't see how anything could be different.

You have extreme heat cycling dehydrating the metal, and then storage in a nightly condensing atmosphere. Top it off with salt contamination (from cooking).

This is a recipe for any burner to corrode in months or a year or two.

As mentioned previously, the burner in my Char-broil 100 is now 11 years old and still going strong. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Any recomendations on a natural gas BBQ? When we converted the house from all electric to NG/electric we had the installers drop a NG pipe on the back deck, I have been waiting a couple of years for the old propane BBQ to give up the ghost, and I think this is the year I can finally justify replacing the old beast (yes, it was an old beast, that wasn't quite good enough to convert over to NG.)

I'd appreciate any comments along this same thread, but using NG vs. propane recomendations.

Thanks!

-D

We've had a Weber Genesis 1000 for almost 12 years now. Never a problem. It has been stored outside out of the rain all this time. I live in San Francisco, so the climate is mild.

The only maintenance I have had to do over those years, is replace the enameled "flavoriser bars" with stainless steel ones. The original ones finally rusted through. And I had to clean out all the holes in the three burners once, with a small reamer.

The igniter has never failed.

Being from Holland, where nobody (or at least very few) had a yard when I was growing up, and absolutely nobody grilled anything, this has been the perfect grill for a total beginner. I'm a regular Yankee now, thanks to my Weber, it makes me feel so American. :)

Every year at Thanksgiving (a nonexistent holiday in Holland) I grill the family turkey on it (I hate turkey), and am told every time, that it is juicy and perfect.

If you want something that lasts forever, have a look at:

Well we went with the Weber Silver B model. I still am not convinced that its worth the retail price but it seems that no matter where you buy them they are within a few bucks of each other so your not really saving much. Places that list them at $400 want an additional $140+ for shipping etc.

I did manage to save a few bucks from HD though. I am not a supporter of paying assembly fees, nor prone to buying items that are assembled by store personel even if its done free, so we looked long and hard around this area for one in the box, but had to settle for one already assembled. Just a quick look over revealed lots of loose fasteners, fasteners not installed, and fasteners without washers etc according to instruction sheet, so I brought this to the dept managers attention, telling him I am buying a inferior product due to the lack of whoever assembled it to follow instructions and it will be me or whoever it is in the end that buys it thats gonna bite the bullet on improper installation / assembly. He agreed, and knocked off an additional $75 bucks from their price.....I can handle that just fine, but the folks that assemble things for customers in these stores sure do leave a lot to be desired. I seen a vaccuum trailer for a lawn and garden tractor that was preassembled in Lowes, and inside the trailers enclosed body was a heap of left over hardware, mainly washers, and spacers etc........which on such items made out of thin soft steel washers are almost a must have to help prevent distortion and pull tthrough of bolted items.....

So anyhow, we have used it 5 times already, and it seems to work fine, and as well built as it is, its still a lot of money for what you realy get, IMHO......but as long as the wife is happy, thats what counts.

I have a ffunny bbq related story. I was tinkering around with a weedwacker motor one day and it was seized up bad. I tapped on it and soaked it with oil for a few days. No luck. I drained all the oil out of the cylindr thru the spark plug hole and put a little water in there. The ports were completely blocked. Spark plug back in and on the barby it goes. I figured it would just ease the piston out becaus the flame was on very low. WRONG. after about 15 minutes I hear a loud explosion and run outside to find that the piston had sjhot right thru the side of the lid and all the way across the street. My neighbors were not pleased

WOW! What a timely thread. My wife and I have been discussing exactly this subject, and yesterday the accountant informed us that we were actually going to get a tax refund this year. (Yes, I know, my own money back that someone has been using interest free for a year. Grrrr.)

Looks like the Weber Genesis Gold is first choice at this point. Has the stainless cooking surface and flavorizers. Still undecided on B (without) or C (with) sideburner.

Thanks,

Bill

Can't beat the Weber Genesis or it's first cousin, the Broil King. Both are made just down the road from me by Onward Machine (T.A.W.Co) in Kitchener Ontario.