Need smallish propane grill: suggestions?

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Last weekend we went to Lowe's and Home Depot and checked out their selection of gas grills. Almost all of them were Megamachines, 4 feet wide with enough space to cook for Napoleon's army. There were a couple of modestly sized ones there, but they looked cheaply made and held no appeal for us.

 

Anyone got any recommendations? I'm not averse to spending money on this thing - I want something of good quality and appearance, stainless steel would be nice - but space is limited on our deck, and we don't expect to be cooking for more than 4-6 people at once, so "compact" is the order of the day.

[subvet]

A buddy o' mine swears by his Weber Baby Q. He uses it at home, and fabricated a base for it so it won't wobble around in the truck bed at tailgate parties. He's even rigged a boat seat stancion socket in the base so he can use it on his pontoon boat. It runs on one of those baby propane bottles (what are those, 2 lb?)

Like their full size grilles, it's a serious cooker (good even temps, etc..)

You can't grill an army of burgers on it, but it has plenty of space to make plenty of Pesto Chicken k-bobs for 4 hungry boaters.

 

As you see, Tom uses that grille ALOT

[bubblehead]

this too small? Actually I have a weber as well.... can't beat them in my opinion!

[Timmer]

+1 on the baby Weber - I have it hooked to a 5 gal tank and I can't remember the last time I filled it. A smaller tank would be fine. Its a great little grill, and I can also take it along on trips to the beach or a park.

[Joel]

We've got a Weber Q 200 for home, and a Baby Q for on the road in the Team Schnauzer Tour Bus, and we like them both a lot, particularly the Baby Q. Cooking for 6 on the Baby Q would be a stretch, but 4 is easily done. 6 to 8 on the Q 200 would be no problem. Both are very sturdily built, with a cast iron cooking grate, and an easy to clean exterior. (I think "stainless" is one of the great misnomers.) The Q 200 has fold-out side tables to create some work surface, and the matching stationary cart matches the design, but isn't quite as sturdy as the grill itself. My only gripes are with the igniters that sometimes give me fits (but I haven't had a grill yet where that wasn't the case at least some of the time) and that the pressure regulator on the Q 200 is a bit weak. Those are nit picks.

 

Edit: I need to type faster and edit less

[Matts_12GS]

Mitch,

I just got a Coleman roadtrip clicky, clicky. It's nice, has two 10K BTU burners so it's got plenty of heat to cook on, folds down to about 8" high or so and has wheels on it for easy transport.

 

It was about $180 from the Coleman outlet but came with an insert in the grill top that's a griddle and a set of tools for the grill. It fits nicely in our camper.

[Aluminum_Butt]

Mitch - I hope you don't mind a bit of a hijack, but I'm looking for the same thing. However, one of my criteria is decent heat control. I've got a behemoth unit at home, and I can pretty well maintain any temp I want between 250 and 500 degrees. But, I remember the first cheapy gas grill I ever had, and it seemed like it was either on or off - very little control.

 

For those of you who've responded about a particular grill, how do you feel about the heat control?

[Matts_12GS]

I like it so far but we've only used it a couple times. One thing I like about the unit we got is that it has ceramic coated aluminum grills and they seem to spread the heat out pretty well around the whole cooking surface.

[Joel]

I don't demand much precision, but I've not had any trouble modulating the heat on either of our Webers. Low heat is low enough to cook slowly, and high is enough to sear a thick steak quickly (and to burn off remnants to clean the cooking surface).

[bakerzdosen]

It's pretty much been said, but I'll just add my tally mark to the Weber Q series. We've got a Q 200 and "rolling stand" which we got from my sister (Souza gives nice spiffs. ) However, I'm still into it about $100 after getting the cover, 10 gal tank, and adapter hose. With that said, other than a few full size units, it's probably the nicest lpg bbq I've used. It's not perfect, but it's quite good. It sits there on our deck (much like you, limited space) where we used to have the $15 specials or whatever using the disposable tanks - and they'd usually last a year or two. I then got a Weber version of one of those portable units. That one lasted a lot longer and cooked much better, but this is head and shoulders above one of those.

 

One year into this one and I really haven't been able to spot any wear and tear other than dust/dirt on the cover.

 

I'm betting you could cook for 6 on this thing, but 8 might be pushing it.

 

I also like the fold out side trays much better than I could have imagined.

[Art..]

Baby Q's rock.

 

I own 2 of 'em. One travels with the family to ballgames, the beach etc.......

 

One is at my cabin. I can easily cook for 6-8 people.

 

Two things you need to know. It cooks better with the lid closed. And it's a little challenging to light in high winds (like the beach). Other than that, it rocks.

[Skywagon]

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...dkey=SiteSearch

[whalerautumn]

I have cooked on a Magma kettle since '94 on the boat. It is a bullet proof product, but definately a grill. Hard to slow it down in the summer.

[Richard_D]

I also have the Magma for the boat. I also have a mount to use it at home.Also check out the Delmar by magma. http://www.magmagrill.com/ http://www.magmaproducts.com/History/body_history.html

[Lone_RT_rider]

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...dkey=SiteSearch

 

Well, if your going the Marine route I have found this place to be a bit cheaper. Thanks to Steve Knapp for turning me on to Overtons. They have LOTS of my money...lol.

 

But realistically, I think the Coleman and the Q are great suggestions.

 

Shawn

[Matts_12GS]

thanks for awakening the ghosts Shawn!!! Overton's got so much of my $$ when I was skiing, I think it was almost a conscious act to block them out....

 

They did give me some great stories though from my days doing promotions for boat related events. Buy me a drink, I'll tell you stories this weekend!

 

And I promise, some of them will be true

[steveknapp]

Last weekend we went to Lowe's and Home Depot and checked out their selection of gas grills. Almost all of them were Megamachines, 4 feet wide with enough space to cook for Napoleon's army. There were a couple of modestly sized ones there, but they looked cheaply made and held no appeal for us.

 

Can't speak for by you, but near me Ace Hardware rules the grill world. Home-Depot and the like suck.

 

This looks like the modern version of what I've got.

 

http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/grill/2007/gas/SpiritE310.aspx

 

It's bigger than the Q and honestly I RARELY fill it up with food. But it's big enough to cook the T-day turkey or a roast. The three-burner setup offers more flexibility than two.

 

I've had mine for... 8 years? The tables are faded a bit where they aren't covered, but not worn. I replaced the igniter and "Flavorizer®" bars within the last year. Parts can still be easily found.

[steveknapp]

Oh, you said you wanted stainless...

 

http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/grill/2007/gas/GenesisS310.aspx

 

BTW, if I've got 6 people over, I'm using almost the entire grill.

[bakerzdosen]

If you're still looking...

 

I saw this on slickdeals:

 

Q220

 

If you use the coupon "grillzone", it comes out to $156.00 shipped. Not bad if you can handle it being red. It's roughly the same price at Amazon (through another vendor), but $30 shipping applies too.

[Paul_Burkett]

Be sure to get one that has a thermometer on it, the chef at Mortons Steakhouse says that the grill needs to be between 450° and 500° before the steaks are put on to cook.

[Mike]

Mitch--

 

As many have noted, the Weber Q-series grills are pretty nice, and a good value. My son has a Q200 and has been generally happy with it, but it has had some issues with the gas regulator (he's on the second one). If you look around on line you'll see that quite a few people have problems with the regulators. Some of these are defective regulators, but others are "user" issues--the Q grills are somewhat sensitive to how quickly you turn on the LP valve. It's often necessary to open it up very slowly (taking ten seconds or so), then let the hose take a couple of minutes to refill before you ignite the burner. It's not a huge deal, but some of the Q's require this slow startup procedure to obtain a full flame.

 

I've got a larger Weber (actually natural gas fired) that I keep on the balcony outside our kitchen (we've got a second floor kitchen in our townhouse). I think that the "full-size" Webers do a better job of cooking than the Q-series, but I can sympathize with your need to keep the footprint small. Our balcony is fairly narrow, so I simply removed one of the flip-up tables that was on one side of the grill and eliminated about 15" of the grill's width. Many of the larger Weber grills have this sort of food preparation surface and, if space is truly that tight, they're generally removable.

 

Steve noted his good luck with one of the Spirit model Webers. I think that's actually a better solution for a grill that you won't be moving around a lot.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

So after doing a bit more research, I found one that Consumer Reports seemed to like. Bought it last Sunday, spent Monday and Tuesday evenings putting it together:

 

 

 

 

It's a bit oversized for the two of us, but to some degree the quality seemed to scale with size; if we're gonna have this thing for a long time, I wanted something nice. It seemed large in the store, but out there on the deck, it's not a bad fit. I had thought I might just leave the right shelf off, but it seems like it's probably OK the way it is.

 

We finally broke it in this evening with steak-and-bacon tournedos:

 

 

 

Got the recipe from my mom; it's been maybe 15 years since I had them. And they were great.

[bakerzdosen]

Mitch,

I must have missed where you posted that recipe here in the thread... stupid forum upgrade.

 

Could you go ahead and post that again???

[Mike]

So, Mitch . . . what make/model is it? I can't tell from your photo.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

So, Mitch . . . what make/model is it? I can't tell from your photo.

 

A Char-Broil model 463268007. People on this thread seemed pretty attached to Weber (especially the small ones, which unfortunately were a bit smaller than I had in mind), but for some reason their stuff just didn't thrill me. the Char-Broil caught my eye, and I started poking around the internet, and read good things about it.

 

Consumer reports rated it last fall as one of their "best buys."

[Mike]

So, Mitch . . . what make/model is it? I can't tell from your photo.

 

A Char-Broil model 463268007. People on this thread seemed pretty attached to Weber (especially the small ones, which unfortunately were a bit smaller than I had in mind), but for some reason their stuff just didn't thrill me. the Char-Broil caught my eye, and I started poking around the internet, and read good things about it.

 

Consumer reports rated it last fall as one of their "best buys."

 

I've had mixed success with my Webers. The current models look pretty nice, but my experience has been that the quality, while good, has not been quite what it should have been for the price. I'm about due for a new grill; it sounds like I should check out the Char-Broils.

[E30TECH]

Another for webber baby Q