Best Charcoal Grill for 2025
Testing a charcoal grill requires a lot of hands-on cooking, and your results will obviously vary depending on factors like your technique and ingredients. Depending on the season and how to set up a charcoal grill, your experience cooking and grilling may be very different from our dishes. For example, the kettle-style charcoal grill that’s left over the day will play much more than it does during the cooler months of spring.
Also, note about the barbecue thermometer. The built-in hood thermometers in these grills do not reflect the temperature recorded by our own thermocouple and data software. The readings of the barbecue thermometer are very small, so we recommend conveniently keeping the oven thermometer or Bluetooth thermometer when grilling, whether it is for the temperature of the meat or grill itself.
We placed two steaks on each grill stove near the center and baked them for 5 minutes, then flipped them over and seared for another 5 minutes. With a good and reliable grill, this will give you a steak with grilled steak outside and a medium center with a medium medium steak. If you prefer better meat, you can extend cooking time or grill and finish cooking in the oven.
High heat scorching is our first barbecue test.
The best charcoal barbecue restaurant in our lineup is the Weber Classic kettle. The steak has a nice grill while maintaining medium concentration inside. The worst thing is our tackle review unit, which doesn’t have much calories and doesn’t condense while cooking. The steak on this grill takes an extra five minutes to reach 135 degrees Fahrenheit, a medium-rare minimum.
Chicken and indirect, medium heat
Next, we tested the medium-fired cooking ability of each barbecue by grilling the whole chicken. The trick here is to keep the grill hot enough to cook the chicken for more than 2 hours.
In our tests, each grill had a whole charcoal chimney and a 6-pound piece of chicken across the coal for indirect heat.
Each grill has a chimney of hot charcoal.
Cooking on charcoal takes longer than cooking with a gas grill, we usually need to add more fuel during the cooking process to keep our grills above 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Our favorite bird was the one that Webber cooked, although it was a tough call. The bird cooked on the Nexgrill cart grill is right behind, right after it in terms of flavor and texture.
We cook the chicken with indirect heat until it reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.
The difference between the two is largely the brittleness of the skin, and Weber produces superior results. The meat from Nexgrill is delicious and tastes a little more than Weber. Between them, I would say it depends heavily on your budget and the grill you like for other meats like burgers or steaks. Weber certainly has a great barbecue in this category.
Low and slow ribs
Our last test was barbecue barbecue ribs, especially the baby pork ribs. This cooking method requires strict temperature control over several hours. Ideally, a quality charcoal grill (or any smoker) will keep the buzz of nearly 225 degrees Fahrenheit as long as possible.
Stack your charcoal coal plates into two rows along the inner wall of the grill.
First, we use Charcoal snake method. For the kettle model, we arrange the coal in a semicircle around the inner wall of the grill. Charcoal Coal Stone Company (Kingsford Blue) Form a wide layer of coal and two layers of coal deep. We also put a few pieces of smoke on the snake (also known as fuses). On the trolley-style grill, we modify the snake to run at right angles to match its rectangular fire box.
Next, we put the snakes of each grill on one end of the chain with five lit briquettes (Tumbleweed Fire Starters can also work). We set the air vents on all grills (top and bottom) to open midway. Finally, we placed a rib on each grill for indirect cooking, the meat did not sit directly above the coals.
Classic Weber kettle grill handles the ribbed rack.
Weber is the undisputed king in this test. No other grill in the group can match the rock-fixed temperature control of this iconic cookware. Readings from our own thermocouple and the number pit thermometerconfirmed this. During Webber’s 6 hours and 32 minutes of cooking time, the grill’s internal calorie level never exceeded our target 25 degrees and above 225 degrees. In fact, most of the time, the temperature hovers between 220 and 230 degrees. As a result, the ribs cooked in Webber are soft, juicy and full of smoky flavor.
The ribs cooked on the Napoleon grill were delicious, although the bark was a little dry.
The Napoleon Grill was the second best in this test. The swing at room temperature is larger and jumps to 300 degrees Fahrenheit during cooking. Its ribs are ready in just 4 hours and 30 minutes. As its ribs become tender and juicy, there are several burning spots on the outer bark.
The ribs cooked on Nexgrill have a lot of bark, but the inside is juicy and tender.
We noticed similar temperature performance for Nexgrill, as well as similar rib results. Nexgrill cooking ribs are low and slow, and take only 4 hours and 30 minutes. Its shelf is also good, although like Napoleon, the bark is more obvious than Weber’s production.
Our rib experience on some other grills was far from ideal. Tackle creatures are particularly bad. Sometimes the interior of this grill reaches temperatures up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Sadly, the ribs it produces are burnt, burned and overly burned.
Watch the following: 4 unexpected tips for better cooking
