Weber Original Kettle 22 Inch Charcoal Grill Review

The new PK 300 also comes with cast-aluminum lugs and legs, so nothing is bound to fall apart or buckle like it would on a cheaper grill. It handles about five (crowded) burgers on the grate, so it’s plenty for a normal carload of people, which we find is just right. There are tons of portable grills out there, but the most basic and familiar is the miniature version of our top recommendation, Weber’s 14-inch Smokey Joe. We like the Kamado Joe (KJ) Classic II because it makes few, if any, concessions in quality, but is priced well.

Charcoal is easy to pick up at just about every grocery store, home improvement store, or gas station, so you won’t need to make a special trip. But you’ll need to have a charcoal starter on hand, will have to wait for everything to cool down before you can dispose of it, and need to deal with the messy ash afterward. The difference between the two was largely in the crispiness of the skin, with the Weber producing the superior results.

You may be wondering, why not just use a pellet grill that regulates heat much better? As much as we at Insider Reviews adore pellet grills and the flavor they offer, they just don’t stack up to good old-fashioned charcoal. I love cooking portable bbq outdoors over live fire and smoke whatever the weather, using various grills, smokers, and wood-fired ovens to produce epic food. My goal with this site is to help as many people as possible enjoy and be good at doing the same.

If you’re looking for the best affordable charcoal grill under $100 that will cook your meat to a perfect temperature, then this Weber is for you. Starting a charcoal grill is definitely not as easy as starting a gas grill, so it’s important to understand how to do it correctly. You’ll need to purchase a bag of briquettes, and either lighter fluid or a handy charcoal starter. We filled it up to the top with briquettes and then put newspaper underneath, which we lit on fire and then allowed the coals to heat up for exactly 15 minutes. Once your briquettes are fired up and ready to go, you then dump them into the base of the kettle grill.

weber charcoal grill

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 22-inch Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill lives up to Weber’s storied history.

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. At the end of each hour-long test, we noted the depth and evenness of browning, and finally we did a taste test, again paying special attention to the breasts—ideally, they’d be fully cooked but still juicy. Because of its dominance, the Weber kettle has spawned a lot of copycats. In our research, most proved to be cheap knockoffs that weren’t worth the minor savings. We resolved instead to find a kettle that could compete with the Weber on performance, price, and value. But we also opened our search to include charcoal grills of different designs.

A cover will protect your grill from getting stained by rain and rusting. Ribs cooked on the Nexgrill had lots of bark but were juicy and tender inside. We dismissed the many cheaper knockoffs of the Weber kettle, including models by (or branded as) Kingsford, Char-Broil, PizzaQue, and Grill Zone. They’re not much cheaper than the Weber, and the quality just isn’t there. If the ash catcher is even slightly warm, the ash inside is still a fire hazard. We backed this reporting up with comprehensive research—the in-depth, professional reviews at AmazingRibs.com being a standout source—and hands-on time with grills at the big hardware chains.

That doesn’t mean all charcoal grills are created equal, however. This is a superior grill to most on the market — it’s built to function and to last, and it’s worth every penny. First, you’ll find ample space on the steel cooking great for a whole lotta food. You could readily cook half-a-dozen steaks at once or enough burgers to feed a baseball team, including the relief pitchers. Retailing at around $200, this grill is well-priced considering the upgrades from the original.

The worst was our Tacklife review unit, which didn’t hold much heat and didn’t sear while cooking. The steak on that grill needed an additional five minutes to get to a temperature of 135 F, the minimum for medium rare. Every grill we tested had a hinged grate, a nice feature that lets you add or adjust the coals without lifting the whole grate off. We preferred the Weber and Napoleon designs, which each have a pair of hinged sections, on opposite edges of the grate, that let you directly access the entire bed of charcoal below. We noticed no performance differences, and all worked well, with no notable sticking of the items we cooked. Our experiments ran the gamut from grilling burgers (fast, high heat) to smoking (slow, low heat).