Frequently Asked Questions

For most people it's a 22-inch kettle. It does direct high-heat searing and low-and-slow two-zone cooking, the parts last, and replacements are easy to find years later. Fancier grills exist, but very few give you enough extra to justify several times the price for everyday backyard cooking.

You can get a genuinely good, do-everything kettle in the rough range of a hundred to a couple hundred dollars, and that's the sweet spot for most buyers. Spending more mainly buys heavier steel, tighter seals, and convenience features, not a fundamentally better cook. Spend the least that avoids the compromises that would annoy you every time you grill.

Some are, some aren't. A thin-steel grill can cook fine for a season or two, but if it rusts through, warps, or leaks so much air that it burns fuel fast, the low price wasn't really a saving. We judge budget grills on whether their compromises actually matter for how you cook, and we say plainly which ones to skip.

Gas wins on convenience and precise, instant heat; charcoal wins on flavor, higher searing temperatures, and a lower purchase price. If you want to fire up dinner on a weeknight with minimal fuss, gas makes sense. If you're here for the taste and don't mind a 15-minute startup, charcoal is the better pick, and usually the cheaper one.

Briquettes are uniform, burn steady and predictable, and are ideal for long, even cooks and holding a set temperature. Lump lights faster, burns hotter, and leaves less ash, which suits high-heat searing and kamado-style grills. Neither is 'better' outright, so keep briquettes for low-and-slow and lump for hot-and-fast, or just pick the one that's cheaper per pound where you shop.

It's the single best cheap upgrade you can make. A chimney lights charcoal quickly and evenly with a couple sheets of newspaper and no lighter fluid, which means no chemical taste and no waiting around. It costs very little and pays for itself in fuel and frustration saved.

For food safety, yes: an instant-read thermometer in the meat is the only reliable way to know it's cooked, since color and time can fool you. A separate grill-chamber thermometer is also handy for holding a target temperature, though many grills include a lid gauge. A cheap instant-read is one of the highest-value accessories you can own.

Use a chimney starter. Stuff a sheet or two of crumpled newspaper (or a natural fire-starter cube) under the chimney, fill the top with charcoal, and light the paper. In roughly 10 to 15 minutes the coals at the top will be ashed over and gray, and you pour them into the grill ready to cook, with no fluid smell.

Under $200 you can get a full-size 22-inch kettle or a well-made mid-size grill that will handle nearly everything a home cook wants. This is the range where value peaks, because you get durable, do-everything performance without paying for premium extras. There's also a solid tier under $100 if space or budget is tight.

Any high-heat grilling can create compounds called HCAs and PAHs, mostly from charring meat and from fat dripping onto coals and flaring up. You can cut your exposure a lot by trimming excess fat, avoiding flare-ups and heavy charring, flipping more often, and not eating the burnt bits. Grilled in moderation with those habits, it's a normal part of a balanced diet for most people.

It depends on the fuel and how much air you give it. A chimney of briquettes typically gives you around an hour or so of good high-heat cooking, while a controlled low-and-slow setup with the vents choked down can stretch a full load for many hours. Lump tends to burn hotter and a bit faster than briquettes.

A kettle is cheaper, lighter, and does 90% of what most people need. A kamado's thick ceramic holds heat and moisture better and sips less fuel on long cooks, but it costs several times as much and is heavy and fragile. Unless you do a lot of long, precise low-and-slow cooking, a kettle is the smarter budget choice.

Two levers: how much lit charcoal you use, and how far the air vents are open. More open vents mean more oxygen and a hotter fire; closing them down cools it. Building the coals on one side to create a hot zone and a cooler zone (a two-zone fire) also lets you move food off direct heat, which is the key to not burning things.

A standard 22-inch kettle. It's forgiving, hard to permanently mess up, cheap to buy and run, and there are more beginner guides and videos for it than any other grill. Learning two-zone cooking on a kettle teaches you skills that carry over to every other charcoal grill you'll ever own.

Burn off and brush the cooking grate while it's still warm, and empty the ash once the coals are completely cold, since leftover ash traps moisture and causes rust. Wipe out the bowl occasionally, keep the grill covered or under shelter, and store it fully dry. Ash disposal matters most: always be certain the coals are dead cold before you bin them.

It's more involved than grilling but not as hard as people fear, especially a bullet-style vertical smoker, which is designed to hold a low temperature steadily for hours with little fiddling. The learning curve is mostly about managing airflow and getting comfortable with long cook times. An instant-read thermometer and a bit of patience get most beginners a good result on the first or second try.

For hot, direct grilling like burgers or steaks, a full chimney of coals spread across the grate is plenty for a typical family meal. For low-and-slow, you use less lit charcoal but add unlit coals so the fire feeds itself over hours. It's better to start with a bit too much than to run short mid-cook.