Credit:
Reviewed / Libby Schiau
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Credit:
Reviewed / Libby Schiau
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We love this grill for its performance, ease of use, and aesthetic appearance. Read More
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The Weber Genesis EPX-335 Smart Gas Grill adds several smart technology features and a sear zone to an already well-performing grill. Read More
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Gas grills may lack the romance of cooking over charcoal—you won’t get the extra boost of flavor from smoky briquettes, and it’s impossible to heat the grill to the same temperature. But gas offers instant, even heat that puts charcoal grills to shame, helping you cook up delicious burgers and chicken breasts. They also boast precise temperature control, which makes it easy to cook delicate foods that might be burned while cooking over coals that can get as hot as 700°F.
While choosing a gas grill is a relatively simple decision, deciding which to purchase is considerably more difficult. From big brands like Weber grills—including our top pick, Weber Spirit II E-310 (available at Amazon for $569.00) —to the generic models that crop up at your local grocery store every spring, there are hundreds of options to choose from.
We put popular propane gas grills through extensive testing to evaluate each based on the ease of assembly, preheat speeds, and its grill surface, among other factors. After cooking dozens of burgers, chicken drumsticks, and asparagus, we can say with certainty that the most expensive model is not necessarily the best. But the cheapest options might not be built to satisfy, either.
The Weber Spirit II E-310 is our pick for best gas grill.
The Weber Genesis II E-310 offers more grilling space than our main pick, the Weber Spirit II E-310 affords.
Even heat
Plenty of grilling space
Wi-Fi connectivity
Probe can't be calibrated
Difficult to use without electronic accessories
Smart features
Heats quickly and cooks evenly
Extra storage space for tools
Difficult to build
Consistent heating
Cooks well at low temperatures
Stainless steel grates make beautiful sear marks
Heavy
Veggies often fall through
Cooks evenly across five burners
Plastic dials feel cheap
Construction feels flimsy
Small cooking area
Quality add-on features, like a cast iron griddle
Doesn't cook evenly or at low temperatures
Time-consuming to assemble
Construction feels flimsy
A gaggle of gas grills all waiting to be tested.
Hi, I’m Lindsay Mattison, a trained professional chef and outdoor enthusiast. During the summertime, you’ll find me outside grilling burgers on the patio, slow cooking a pork shoulder on the smoker, or building a yakitori grill on my fire pit. If I can cook it outside, I will.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is the importance of having a reliable grill; it’s absolutely key to building confidence in your grilling game. I’d love to help you find the right one for you!
We cooked a feast of burgers, chicken, and veggies on every grill we called in for testing.
Using my training and years of grilling experience as a starting point, I spent hours researching the latest, greatest and most popular gas grills available online and in stores. Using price, quality, and brand reputation to narrow the field, I chose seven highly-rated gas grills available via shopping outlets like Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowes to call in for testing. After receiving our test candidates, we set about building each one (a two-person job, for sure, given the weight of each grill).
After assembling each grill, my goal was to find out which factors affected overall performance, such as the number of burners, BTUs, and the square inches of cooking space for its grate material. To do this, I started off by testing how well each grill performed on three different heat levels: high heat (all the burners on the hottest setting), low heat (all the burners on the lowest setting), and indirect heat (one or two burners turned on high).
For our high-temperature cooking test, I timed how long it took for the grill to hit 600° F, an ideal temperature for high-heat searing for steaks, vegetables, and burgers. Once the grill was smoking hot, we placed slices of white bread over the entire surface to map out the heating pattern. Grills with even heating really shined here, creating predictable patterns without noticeable hot or cold spots.
Next, I cooked burgers, spaced 2-inches apart, for 5 minutes per side. After the timer expired, I measured the internal temperature of each burger in hope that they were all within 5 to 10 degrees of each other. Finally, to round out the high-heat tests, we tossed thin-stemmed asparagus onto the cooking grates to see if they fell through.
For the low-temperature tests, I was hoping to see a temperature around 375°F when all the burners were turned to their lowest position. This is an ideal temperature for slow-cooking foods or grilling delicate items that can’t withstand a grill’s high heat. Chicken drumsticks were the perfect option for this test, and the top models we tested cooked them in about 30 minutes, creating an even, golden brown skin.
The last test was indirect heat: a cooking method which only uses a few of the burners to create an oven-like environment inside of the grill. It’s the best way to cook food that takes longer than 30 minutes to finish or that would otherwise burn when exposed to high heat—like a whole chicken, a rack of ribs, or a pork shoulder. I measured each grill’s internal temperature after 15 minutes of preheating and cooked a whole chicken on the top-performing models.
I finished our assessment by looking at each grill’s aesthetic features and build quality.
Do the grills rattle and shake when you roll them around? Are the side tables sturdy enough to hold heavy food items? Are there hooks to hang tools on? Is there a place to store the propane tank, and is it within reach of the hookup hose? Do the handles get too hot to touch? Is its grease tray catch pan easy to access?
After compiling the scores, some of these design choices made a huge difference in the grill’s overall ranking.
Chicken drumsticks helped us test which gas grill was best for low-temperature cooking.
Every gas grill has a rating known as BTUs—British Thermal Units—a measure of the amount of heat the grill can produce. More and more, grill manufacturers are pumping out grills with higher and higher BTU counts, and consumers rely on these numbers as a measure of the grill’s performance. But do the BTUs actually matter?
BTUs are important to understand when shopping for your perfect grill, but they aren’t always the most reliable measurement. For instance, our top two grill picks had fewer BTUs per square foot of cooking space than the competition, produced evenly-cooked food and offered a more enjoyable cooking experience. In fact, one of our least favorite grills had the highest BTUs in the group!
BTUs don’t necessarily give you a good measure of how the grill’s design will affect the cooked food. It’s also important to keep in mind that higher BTU grills burn through propane faster, and if the lid doesn’t fit tightly onto the grill, all that heat won’t remain inside anyway.
At the end of the day, BTUs are simply an indication of how much heat your grill can produce, not how hot it will actually get inside your grill. So, look at the number if you like, but don’t put too much stock into it.
All of the grills we tested are propane gas grills, meaning they use a propane tank as fuel to heat the grill. Propane grills are great for outdoor cooking, especially if you want to move your grill to a different location to chase the shade (or the sun, whichever you prefer).
Propane tanks are easily removed and filled at gas stations or other convenience stores, while natural gas grills are hooked up to a main gas line similar to how a gas range can be hooked up in your kitchen. This means that natural gas grills have to stay connected to the gas line in order to work, making them completely stationary.
Lindsay is a professional chef, recipe developer, writer, and developmental editor. After years of working in restaurant kitchens, she turned to writing to share her passion for local, organic, and seasonal ingredients with home cooks and food enthusiasts.
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