The best charcoal grills we tested
Best charcoal grill: Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill
Best budget charcoal grill: Weber Original Kettle Grill
Few things are as enjoyable in the summer as the smell and taste of a charcoal grill. These are some of the best grills you can use but they take more time and attention to get things just right. What this means, though, is that when you use a charcoal grill to barbecue, everyone knows you mean business.
This is why it’s important to buy a charcoal grill that allows for easy temperature control and stays as hot as you need throughout the kettle. Less time fussing with the grill means more time spent focusing on actual grilling — it’s not like those grill marks just make themselves. You’ll also want a grill that’s easy to clean, whether you have one of the best grill brushes or prefer wiping it down yourself after a cook.
To find the best charcoal grills, we tested six kettle-style models because when it comes to grilling, simple is better. After several cookouts with each grill, we settled on two clear winners.
The Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill measures 22 inches wide and comes in three colors. It's the easiest grill for controlling temperature, making it our top pick.
Best charcoal grill: Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill
The 22-inch Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill lives up to Weber’s storied history. The Weber charcoal grill has been around for nearly 70 years and while the design of the kettle has barely changed, it’s easy to see why.
In our testing, the Weber Premium was the easiest grill to control temperature on, with the flames inside the kettle responding expertly to any tap of the vents. Temperature control is key to successful charcoal grilling. During our cooking tests, we easily cooked hamburgers to a medium rare temperature and churned out batches of juicy barbecued chicken with a solid sear on the outside. Other grills we tested ran hotter, overcooked the hamburgers, or weren’t hot enough and barely seared or cooked the meat.
The premium version of the original kettle measures 22 inches wide and comes in three colors. The premium version also includes Weber’s One-Touch cleaning system, meaning it comes with a large enclosed ash pan for easy cleanup and boasts a built-in thermometer and lid hook. While we found both Weber grills to cook flawlessly, the upgrades on the premium model make the Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill our top charcoal grill for this summer.
Best budget charcoal grill: Weber Original Kettle Grill
The true original Weber grill, the Weber Original Kettle Grill, can be purchased for under $100, making it our pick as the best budget charcoal grill. This model measures 18 inches wide which feels a lot smaller than the 22-inch model above. It doesn’t include a lid hook or thermometer, and the ash catcher is not enclosed. But this Weber takes under 10 minutes to set up and requires no hardware. Like the Weber Original Premium grill, hamburgers tested on this grill cooked up to a perfect medium rare. Our grilled chicken took four minutes of sear time and 25 additional minutes on indirect heat to get to a safe internal temperature. If you’re looking for the best affordable charcoal grill under $100 that cooks your meat to a perfect temperature, this Weber is for you.
How we tested
Starting a charcoal grill isn’t as easy as starting a gas grill, so it’s important to understand how to do it correctly. Here’s how we specifically tested each of the grills in this guide.
Ease of use
- Briquette test: For our tests, we used a Weber RapidFire Chimney Starter and filled it up to the top with briquettes. We then put newspaper underneath, which we lit on fire and allowed the coals to heat up for exactly 15 minutes.
- Temperature control: We measured the temperature of the grill’s cook surface, as well as the internal temperature of the chicken, with an external thermometer to ensure that any built-in temperate gauges were accurate. Most of the built-in thermometers were accurate, except for the Cuisinart gauge, which barely registered any temperature throughout our testing process.
- Assembly: We took notes on the assembly of each grill. Some were simple, like the Weber Original Premium Grill, which took 15 minutes to assemble, and the Weber Original Grill, which took only 10 minutes. The rest ranged in setup time from 27 minutes to over an hour, with varying difficulty levels and number of people needed to complete the task.
Indirect vs. direct heat
There are two common methods for charcoal grilling: direct and indirect heat. Hamburgers are generally cooked directly over the flame, which creates a sear on the meat. Chicken on the bone is best cooked via the indirect method so that the poultry has time to reach the correct, safe temperature without charring or drying out.
To cook via the indirect method, you push your briquettes to one side of the grill. Since the briquettes are red-hot when you dump them out of the chimney starter, we’d advise investing in a charcoal rake to move briquettes around the grill.
- Hamburger tests: We cooked hamburgers on direct heat for four minutes on each side and then compared their level of doneness from rare to medium rare.
- Chicken tests: We grilled chicken leg quarters by searing them for two minutes on each side over direct heat and then finishing them with indirect heat until they reached a safe internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit (we used a meat thermometer to ensure they actually did hit that required temperature).
What to consider when shopping for a charcoal grill
Most charcoal grills function in similar ways, but you’ll notice a variety of designs when shopping. The most common, and the design found on both of our top picks, is a round cooking zone with an area below for holding charcoal, slats to install a grate and a vented lid that goes on top to help regulate the internal temperature. Some even have an ash catcher on the bottom to make cleanup easier, while others come with a hinged grate.
Since the design of most charcoal grills is largely similar too, one of the most important things to consider when shopping is the size of the grill and where you’ll be putting it. If you have a small backyard area, you’ll likely want a grill smaller than 20 inches (such as our budget pick, the 18-inch Weber Original Kettle Grill). If you have a large backyard or plan to use the grill in a wide-open space, it’s worth looking at models larger than 20 inches.
Another consideration that may factor into the size of the charcoal grill you purchase is the size of the group you’re cooking for. If you routinely cook for anywhere from two to four people, the smaller surface grills will suffice. If you’re looking to host a large barbecue and intend on cooking for 10 or more people, consider buying one of the bigger options listed, such as the 22-inch Weber Original Premium Kettle Grill.
It’s also smart to keep in mind the kind of accessories compatible with a certain grill. Although many accessories aren’t tied to a specific charcoal grill, some may work better with some models than others. This is especially true for larger accessories. You don’t want to order a large grill brush to clean a small grill. It may get the job done, sure, but it won’t be intuitive to use, which would make you use it far less than you should.
While these are all great things to keep in mind while shopping, the best charcoal grill is the one you’ll use over and over again. For instance, if you have a large backyard but prefer a smaller grill, go for it. If you want a big cooking surface but tend to only cook for two, then get the larger grill.
Other charcoal grills we tested
The Blackjack Charcoal Kettle Grill from Oklahoma Joe’s has one of our favorite designs of any grill we tested. It was easy to control the temperature on and delivered a great sear on burgers and chicken. However, its ash pan design isn't all that great and required us to clean it more often than we liked.
The Oklahoma Joe’s Blackjack Charcoal Kettle Grill gets top marks for its design, which includes an attached hinged lid for easy opening and closing, an enclosed ash pan and a convenient removable side shelf. The lid sets this grill apart from a traditional Weber kettle, which features an unattached kettle top. We enjoyed the ease of being able to hinge open the lid on the Blackjack for a quick flip of our meat during our tests.
The Blackjack Kettle Grill also features two air vents, and it was easy to control the grill temperature with them. The bottom vent functions like most kettle grills, but the top vent is styled more like a traditional smoker vent. You mainly control the temperature on this grill from the bottom vent. We also found the built-in temperature gauge to be accurate. This grill gave both our burgers and chicken a really nice sear. During our testing, hamburgers cooked to medium, while it took the chicken about 32 minutes to come up to temperature.
One downside to this grill is the ash pan, which can only be emptied by reaching into the grill and lifting it up and out of the kettle. The pan is not as deep as the Weber Premium’s pan, so it requires more frequent cleaning, which can only be done when the grill is entirely cooled off. It also took us 45 minutes to set this grill up. But if you like the unusual venting system, you aren’t put off by more frequent cleaning and you want a charcoal grill with a few more bells and whistles than a Weber, then this may be the grill for you.
Napoleon’s Pro 22-inch Freestanding Charcoal Kettle Grill is basic in design and operation and did little to wow us with any part of how it worked. It requires more briquettes than similar-sized grills and takes quite a long time to heat up. This is not recommended for those just getting into charcoal grilling.
We were underwhelmed with the performance of the Napoleon 22-inch grill, which is most likely a result of the grill needing more briquettes to really work well. The kettle on this model is pretty deep and you can adjust the cooking grate to two different levels. We wouldn’t advise cooking with the grate at the highest level if you’re looking for a nice sear since it’s too far off the heat. The grill grate on a Napoleon is made of a thicker and flatter cast iron, which is an upgrade from the usual lightweight, stainless steel grates you see on most charcoal grills.
However, it takes longer to heat up and is a different cooking experience from traditional charcoal grills. During our tests, we could only cook our hamburgers to rare, and our chicken didn’t sear and crisp up as well as it did on all the other grills. Because of this, the Napoleon is not a grill for charcoal beginners.
Cuisinart’s 18-Inch Kettle Charcoal Grill is a relatively small grill featuring a built-in thermometer. This would be a great add-on if the thing actually worked (which it didn't unless it was positioned right above the briquettes). We also ran into a few grease flare-ups during our cooking tests which wasn't ideal.
The Cuisinart Black Kettle Grill is one of the smallest we tested with its 18-inch kettle. It’s similar in size to the Weber Original Kettle Charcoal Grill, though, unlike that grill, it comes with an ash pan and a thermometer. However, a major downside to this grill was that the built-in thermometer barely worked. If it wasn’t positioned directly over the briquettes, then it would not register any temperature, and it generally was showing a temperature much lower than the grill was actually at, according to the external grill thermometer we used. The Cuisinart was also the only grill with which we experienced grease flare-ups when cooking.
