What kind of grill do you got..?

I am shopping around for a new gas grill and figured I would get some input from ya'll!

I know a BTU is a British Thermal Unit or something like that.....but when it boils down to it what the heck does it mean to me in buying a grill??

I have heard some people say stay away from certain types of grates...?

I want a new nice grill that will last a while. The Gas grill I have now is OK but I spend more time trying not to burn stuff then I do anything!

I love the taste of charcoal grilled food, but I like the option of cooking fast with gas. That is why I am looking into the gas/charcoal double grill but dont want to be sorry when I get it!

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Brinkmann-861-Square-Inch-Dual-Charcoal-Gas-Grill/15567899

So what you think guys would I be better suited to buy a "nicer" gas grill and buying a standard charcoal grill?

 

Big Green Egg.

Do it.

 

Excuse me for my ignorance but what did you just say?

 

I bought a cheapo gas grill from Menards. It was on sale for $89.00. The good thing is that it has stainless steel burners... don't get anything but stainless steel burners. (The more stainless, the better.) The bad thing is that everything else about it is a $89 grill. The wheels broke off right away. The built thermometer doesn't work. It had a gas leak... but I'm pretty sure that developed when a storm tumbled it across the driveway.
It does work tho'.. so I can't complain too much.

 

BGE

 

The bge is awesome, the price is real high as our most other ceramic smokers.

The combo grills are really popular now and there are a million on the market but if you do go that route get one you can add the sidebox to as it will be easier to control the temp when smoking meats that require long cook times.

 

Ohhhhh it all makes sense now!! Thanks!!

 

http://www.thesmokering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50797

Lots of good recipes and tips at this site(especially the forums), the link above is to a build along a guy did with a bge, turned out pretty cool.

http://www.thesmokering.com/

 

I have a Weber gas and charcoal grill. I use and need them both. Sometimes I want quick and easy, sometimes I want slow and meticulous. (Gee that didn't come out right).

 

Though you can't buy EXACTLY my grill, you can get close.

Before I got into medical sales, I was in outside sales for Grainger Industrial Supply. One of my largest accounts was a place called Ol' Hickory BBQ Pits, that manufactured $20-30,000 BBQ pits for the restaurant industry (think Bandana's BBQ, Super Smoker's, Rib Crib, etc.).

I became very good friends with the production supervisor, as I had a generous expense account and often took the leadership team out to play golf. One day while over at his house to pick him up (he needed to go home to get his clubs, so I met him there), he invites me around to his back deck to look at a little something he'd made up on his own. I walked around and saw this behometh sitting on his back deck.

Every single thing on it is custom and hand-made... it's all constructed of 1/4"- plate steel, and has the same temperature gauges and gaskets inside to seal in the heat and smoke that their $30,000 units did.

As I was standing there oohing and awing over it, he said "Why don't you take it?" As I started to protest, he explained he'd never use it because he didn't have the time to cook with a real BBQ pit (as opposed to a grill, which most people confuse the two with... ) I quit protesting and it was all me and a friend could do later to lift this into our truck and bring it home to where it's resided ever since.





Now... I DID see a unit VERY VERY similar to mine the last time I was in Bass Pro Shops at the Kansas City, MO store... I think it carried a retail price tag of close to $1,300 or so.

That's actually cheaper than I thought anyone could have bought one that close to mine, as the guy who made mine said he had over 40 man-hours of welding alone (master welder by trade) -- NOT COUNTING the steel. Figure if he just charged $20/hr for his time in welding alone, that's $800 right there...

Anyway... we have produced some INCREDIBLE meals off this thing.

 

That thing is beautiful. And I hate you for it.

 

Nice grill Greg! I have two oil tanks in my basement that one day, when I have some spare time, (which is right after pigs learn to fly), I will turn into big smokers/grills.

One day.

I might have to tear the house down to get them out of there.. but that's on my to do list anyhow.

 

LOL Hook... it's ok; I hate that you can run for days and I can't.

Maybe if the roles were reversed... if you had this and I didn't.... Nah, I'll just envy your running.

 

You can never go wrong with a Weber Charcoal grill. My father in law has one that is older than me (30+) and it's still going strong, just cooked steaks on it Tues. I would also look into infrared grills that actually cook the meat directly on the ceramic or stainless steel grates instead of just heating up the air around the meat. They make a delicious steak.

 

IMO the type of grill you buy should be directly representative of how often you're going to use it, what you're going to use it for, and how many people you'll be cooking for. IE if you're having parties and cooking for 12+ people you will need a bigger grill.

For me personally, most of my cooking is just for my wife and myself. We will have 1-2 parties a year but that's about it. So I didn't need a huge grill.

At least 50% of my cooking is done during the week, after work. I don't have time to wait for charcoal to heat up and get to the proper cooking temperature. I need something I can cook on quickly, which meant I needed a gas grill.

Finally, I wanted something that was going to last. There's a ton of cheap gas grills out there that fall apart in a year or two (see Christine's post). This lead me to a Weber. They're twice the price of some of the others, but will last twice as long if not longer.

For my needs I have a Weber Spirit E-210. http://www.weber.com/explore/grills/spirit-series/spirit-e-210 and I love it. In two years of pretty consistant use it's held up wonderfully. No rusting parts, nothing falling apart or breaking, etc. If it's anything like the Weber my grandpa had for 20+ years I plan on having it for years to come.

If I could go back in time and do it again I would probably get a slightly larger grill, just for those few times when I'm cooking a lot of food. Something like the Geneis E-320 with a little bit larger cooking area and higher BTUs. I can only get my grill up to about 475-500 and I'd like it to be a little hotter for when I'm cooking up some steaks. The hotter the better IMO.

If you can find a couple of buddies with some of the cheaper grills (Brinkmann, Charbroil, etc) go look at them and you'll see what I mean about holding up over time. Sure they look great in the store, all shiny with knobs and drawers all over the place, but after a year look like you got them out of a junkyard.

 

Looking to buy a weber genesis 330. But 700 dollars is too much. I have had cheapos for years, all from charbroil to brinkman. I figured I owed to myself to get one nice one.

 

Yall are making me hungry.

I think the confusion over bbq-ing and grilling has to do with the way the food is cooked rather than the hardware. For example a charcoal grill can be a smoker / bbq-er and a smoker / bbq pit can be a grill.

Gas on the other hand is good for.....................something I guess.

 

I need a new grill as well. I got lazy and left my grill out all winter, it is pretty much toast. I like the looks of that weber E-210, and at $399 it won't break the bank.

 

Gas is good because it's fast. We're usually busy doing something besides wanting to wait around for the charcoal to get just right. I do keep a weber kettle grill around too, we used it just this past weekend. But gas definitely has it's place.

 

I used to have a Weber Genesis from the 90's that was handed down to me from a guy I worked for when he got a Weber Summit. That thing had 10 hard years of grilling after I got it and help up like a champ. It finally died right before moving into my current house 5 years ago. At the time we got a Kenmore grill from Sears that has sat oustide without a cover for 5 years now. It is similar to what Justin's Weber looks like and we got 0% interest for a year when we bought it. The Kenmore has been a solid grill, similar to a Weber in design. When the time comes for it to be scrapped I will get another Weber Genesis.