We take a look at three top barbecues, whether you're an occasional outdoor chef or a hardcore griller.
Whether you stick to barbecuing on the one or two sunny days of the year, or you’re a hardcore enthusiast who’ll be out in all weathers and temperatures, you want a good bit of kit to grill those sausages and burgers to absolute perfection.
We've tested three of the best barbecues out there: one gas, one charcoal, and one portable. Read on to find out what makes them great grills.
The good-looking gas one: Napoleon Freestyle 365 SIB gas barbecue
Courtesy of Napoleon
If you want to cook on gas, the Napoleon Freestyle 365 SIB barbecue is an excellent option to look at. It’s not cheap, costing £590, but you’re paying for a very high-quality grill, which comes with a 10-year warranty.
Assembly and storage:
Courtesy of Napoleon
You know you’ve bought a serious piece of kit when this barbecue arrives. You do have to assemble it yourself, and it comes with a fair number of parts. The instructions aren’t the clearest to follow, and there are some strange diagrams, but it’s relatively self-explanatory once you get started. It took two of us around two hours to get it ready to cook, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time ahead of your big barbecue debut. Although you could always rope in all your guests to help…
Of course, keep in mind you only have to assemble it once. So once you’ve powered through, you’re all done. If you want to move it around once built, it’s got two large plastic wheels for easy manoeuvring. Unless you’ve got a very large shed, you’ll probably want to keep it outside year-round, so we’d recommend buying a cover to keep it in great condition.
Cooking:
Courtesy of Napoleon
Hopefully you’ve already got a propane gas bottle somewhere, as they seem to be the hardest thing to get hold of if you don’t already own one. This barbecue has a standard click-in gas connector, so you don’t need any fancy extras to get started and it should all fit together nicely. The gas bottle can be hidden away under the main part of the barbecue too.
When you’re ready to cook, instant ignition is just a single click away. Bonus points that it’s called the slightly dramatic JETFIRE. The large grilling area is 51cm x 45cm (20in x 18in), so plenty of space when you’re cooking for a crowd. It’s powered by three stainless-steel burners. Everything we tried barbecuing cooked evenly, with no need to move things around to avoid a rogue cold spot.
The cast-iron porcelainised enamel grill is shaped in Napoleon’s signature wavy design, which doesn’t just look great but stops smaller items falling through the gaps as well. The chicken and burgers we cooked came out with some lovely grill marks on them. Who doesn’t love that?
There’s also an infrared "Sizzle Zone" side burner for extra cooking space, which is perfect for quickly grilling a couple of steaks and getting that nice char, along with a side table and tool hangers for all your prep and storage needs. The side table also folds away while you’re not using it.
We also love the built-in bottle opener. If you’re doing the cooking, it’s only fair you can crack open the next ice-cold beer without having to go anywhere.
READ MORE: Our best barbecue recipes
The retro charcoal one: Weber 70th anniversary edition kettle
Global barbecue brand Weber has been around for 70 years. Back in the 1950s, the Original Kettle barbecue was launched, so it seems only right that they've made a commemorative anniversary edition. It will set you back £449. Like the original, the anniversary edition is well built, simple to use and can feed up to six people.
Assembly and storage:
Courtesy of Webber
Weber’s gone all in on the retro theming, even down to the packaging, which harks back to the 1950s. You do need to put the barbecue together, but it’s a simple process with very clear instructions. The legs click into place with a bit of effort, then you attach the wheels and solid bottom utility tray where you can store tools, and then attach the removable aluminium ash catcher.
Once built, it’s light and easy to move around. You could easily keep it outside all year, or store it in the shed when you’re not using it, and it won’t be much of a chore to get it out. All Weber charcoals barbecues have a porcelain enamelled lid and bowl which is weather-proof, as well as a 10-year guarantee, but we’d still get a cover for it for extra protection. While cooking, you can hang the lid on a hinge, or remove it completely.
The kettle barbecue also comes with Weber’s “one touch cleaning system”. This is basically a small propellor-like device which sweeps the ash out into the removable catcher. That makes cleaning the main part of the barbecue easy but, sadly, you will still need to scrub those grates.
Cooking:
Named the American Classic after a vote held in a charcoal kettle fan group on social media, this Weber barbecue has lots of cute retro touches. The colour is Hollywood Grey as a nod to the black and white films of the 1950s. It also has an automobile-style hood-ornament lid thermometer, white-walled wheels and 70th anniversary engraved wood-like nylon handles like those found on the 1980s and 1990s kettles. As a little bonus, it comes with an anniversary bottle opener and metal shack sign.
The cooking grate is hinged and compatible with many of Weber’s Gourmet BBQ Systems (GBS). That basically means you can add optional extras like a wok or pizza stone or rotisserie to your barbecue. Those inserts are all available to purchase separately.
As it’s quite a large barbecue – 57cm (22.5in) across – you will get through a fair amount of charcoal, but if you’re only cooking for one or two, you could always position the charcoal on one side, or use Weber’s char-baskets. These are simple metal baskets which allow you to position charcoal around the barbecue and are very helpful if you want to cook something low and slow using indirect heat.
We’ve cooked using both direct and indirect heat. It took around an hour to roast a spatchcocked chicken, with burgers taking a couple of minutes on each side. We really liked being able to keep an eye on the temperature and adjust it using the air dampers at the top and bottom of the barbecue. In simple terms, the more air going into your barbecue, the hotter the temperature, the less air, the cooler the temperature.
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The portable one: Kamado Joe Jr
If you want high quality, stylish and portable, but don’t need to feed a lot of faces, take a look at the Kamado Joe Jr, which costs £499. For a smaller grill, there’s loads you can do with it, from smoking a rack of lamb at 135°C (275°F), to quickly searing steaks at 375°C (700°F).
Assembly and storage:
If DIY isn’t really your thing, you’ll be pleased to know the bright red Kamado Joe Jr doesn’t require much assembly. It all comes in one box. Inside the body of your Kamado is the stainless steel grate, cast iron fire grate, heat deflector, fire ring and firebox – you just need to take them all out, unwrap them and put them back in.
First up is the firebox, followed by the fire ring, then the fire grate, heat deflector if you’re using it, triangular rack and, finally, the stainless steel grate.
The Joe Jr comes on its stand, with the lid attached on a hinge. You just need to unwrap it all, which does involve carefully taking the kamado off its stand. The whole process took around 15 minutes.
To keep things clean, your Joe Jr comes with an ash tool for scraping ash out the bottom and a grill gripper to help out if you want to add more charcoal while the grate is hot.
This is the ‘portable’ Kamado Joe. Yes, you can take it wherever and it’s perfect for camping weekends or trips to the beach, but it does still weigh a little over 30kg (nearly 5 stone), so it’ll be much easier between two people. Even if it’s the height of summer, we’d recommend putting on some thick gloves and using those to protect your hands a bit, as the metal handles can dig into your palms.
Every Kamado Joe model comes with a lifetime warranty against defects on the ceramic parts, five years on metal parts, three years on the heat deflector and one year on the gaskets and thermometer.
Cooking:
A Kamado is different from other barbecues. For starters, it’s ceramic, which is a great material for insulating and reflecting heat, and it’s oval shaped, which regulates air flow. When cooking with a Kamado, you’ll want to keep the lid shut to maintain the temperature. You can alter the temperature with the vents (one at the bottom, one on the lid), but that will take a bit of work to master. Once you’ve got it though, you’ve got it. Like riding a bike.
Kamado Joe barbecues have a handy lid-mounted thermometer to show where you’re at. It’s in Celsius and Fahrenheit and even has a helpful diagram showing the different temperature cooking zones: smoking, bbq-roasting and steakhouse searing.
It’s better to bring your Kamado Joe up to temperature relatively slowly (over about 30 minutes). From experience, you can go hotter than planned and struggle getting the temperature down again as it holds heat so well. While that does make a great steak, if you go too hot it can damage the Kamado’s felt lining.
Even though this little guy is small, he is mighty. Despite how much you can cook on the Joe, it’s quite fuel efficient. Kamado Joe recommends using its Big Block XL lump charcoal, which is claimed to be the world’s largest. It lasts well and imparts a great flavour into your food – you’ll often find you can use half your charcoal again after cooking dinner for two.
You can also smoke food with the Kamado Joe Jr. Of course, what you’re smoking will need to be smaller than 34cm (13.5in) across, but again when you’re cooking for one or two, it’s great. Pop a piece or two of your chosen wood on top of the charcoal, wait for some of the smoke to burn off, then cook the best ribs you’ve ever cooked.
Barbecue tips
If you’re someone whose bangers generally turn into inedible black lumps and whose chicken is either undercooked or incredibly overdone and dry, here are a few easy tips, courtesy of the experts at Parson’s Nose, to get you started on your journey to becoming a grill master/mistress extraordinaire.
1. First up, give yourself time to get the barbecue going before your guests arrive. It can take 30 minutes to get to the right temperature.
2. Secondly, take your meat out of the fridge at least an hour before cooking to avoid meat which is cold in the middle and burned on the outside.
3. Season your meat well. Plus, an oil-based marinade will stop moisture leaching away.
4. Don’t keep poking your meat to see if it’s cooked – you’ll let out all the succulent juices. Instead, invest in a digital thermometer to know when your meat is cooked.
5. Finally, while you relax with a drink, let your meat do the same. Resting is one of the most important stages of any barbecue. The meat will continue to cook while resting, and the tissues will relax so it will be more tender.
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Main image credit: Shutterstock/bbernard