What the extra four inches buys
Two whole packer briskets, side by side.This is the headline. A packer brisket is a long, awkward piece of meat, and on the 18-inch grate one fits with some bending and the second does not fit at all. On the 22 you get two on, flat, with room for air to move around them — or four pork butts across the two grates.
A noticeably easier overnight hold. More body volume means more air and more fuel mass at a given temperature, so the fire is less sensitive to a gust of wind or a small vent adjustment. A well-loaded 22 will run through the night on a single charcoal ring more comfortably than an 18 doing the same job. That is the difference between setting an alarm for 3am and not.
Genuine crowd capacity. Two full-size grates is a lot of ribs, a lot of chicken, or a mixed cook where the bottom grate does the long items and the top does everything else.
What it does not buy is better barbecue. The 14, 18 and 22 are the same cooker in three sizes, with the same porcelain-enameled construction, the same water pan principle and the same vent system. The food off a well-run 18 is identical.
How a bullet actually works
Fire in a ring at the bottom, water pan directly above it, two cooking grates above that, domed lid on top. The water pan is the trick: it absorbs heat and holds the chamber near the boiling point of water, which is conveniently just below the temperature band you want for barbecue. That is why bullets hold 225-275°F — the USDA’s recommended range for smoking meat and poultry — with so little intervention.
You light it with the minion method: fill the charcoal ring with unlit briquettes, hollow a well in the middle, bury a few wood chunks at different depths, and tip in about a quarter chimney of lit coals. The fire spreads outward slowly and eats through the ring over many hours. Full detail on the fuel side is in our how much charcoal guide.
Then you barely touch it. Bottom vents set the burn rate, top vent stays open, and the water pan absorbs your mistakes. This is why we send beginners to bullets rather than offsets: it is the cooker that forgives you.
The details Weber got right
Porcelain enamel throughout. Lid, bowl and center section. It does not peel, it does not need painting, and after a decade outdoors it still cleans up. On a cooker you are keeping for a long time, this is the specification that matters most.
A removable fuel door. Comes off entirely, which makes adding charcoal mid-cook a genuinely easy job rather than a contortion.
A silicone grommet for a probe. A small hole with a heat-resistant grommet, so your probe leads pass through without being crushed in the lid or run through a vent. It is the sort of detail that reveals whether the people who designed a cooker have actually used one.
The lid thermometer is fitted, and still not the number to trust. It reads the dome, not the grate. Put a probe at grate level next to the meat.
The case against buying it
Price. This is the most expensive cooker we recommend anywhere on this site, and on a site built around value that has to be earned. For most households it is not: the 18 costs meaningfully less, cooks the same food, and handles everything short of two packers at once.
Size and weight. Roughly four feet tall and heavy enough that moving it is a deliberate act. It does not tuck into a shed corner, and it wants a cover and a spot.
Fuel. A bigger chamber takes a bigger fire. If you routinely cook two racks of ribs, you will be burning a 22-inch load of charcoal to do an 18-inch job.
The 14 exists too.For one or two people, the smallest bullet is a better object than either — cheaper, faster to come up to temperature, and perfectly capable of ribs. Our 14 vs 18 vs 22 comparison lays the three of them out side by side.
So who is it for?
Three groups, and if you are not in one of them, buy the 18.
People who cook whole packer briskets. If that sentence describes you, the 22 is the smallest Weber bullet that does it without folding the meat, and folding a brisket produces an uneven cook.
People who cook for crowds regularly. Family events, a supper club, a neighborhood thing every month. Two full grates changes what is possible in one session.
People who want to sleep. The overnight hold is genuinely easier, and if that is what stands between you and cooking brisket properly, it is a reasonable thing to spend money on.
For everyone else: the 18 is the smarter buy, and the money saved buys a good dual-probe thermometer, several bags of good briquettes and a cover, all of which will improve your barbecue more than four extra inches of diameter.