Spinifex Portable Folding Charcoal Grill

[Steven]

Overthe past seven years, our experts have purchased more than 30 of the best portable grills to test side-by-side. This review highlights 18 of the top models on the market to help you find the perfect one to cook up delicious meals, even while on the road. We design objective tests to evaluate important features like output power, temperature control, portability, and wind resistance. We then back up those assessments with real-world cooking experience. We've tested these grills at tailgate parties, backyard BBQs, picnics, and on camping trips, cooking hundreds of meals to date. The result? An experience-based, comprehensive review of the best portable grills on the market.

We've tested hundreds of products in our camping kitchen reviews, including the best camping tables and best camping coffee for your outdoor forays. We also have reviews highlighting the best camping stoves, top-rated axes, and much more.

Really, the only caveat with this top-of-the-line grill is that it is heavy, weighing 49 pounds, which limits the user group to those that can lift 50 pounds. If you'd rather opt for a slightly smaller, tabletop-friendly grill, the Weber Q 1200 is a solid alternative. The larger Traveler also requires more space to store, even though it packs into a compact size for transport and storage. This is also one of the most expensive grills that we tested. However, it quickly stood apart from the competition, offering outstanding performance, high-quality construction, and a thoughtful design that will satisfy the high standards of any backyard or campground chef.

The Grillster is an excellent option for searing steaks and other high-temperature cooking, but controlling the overall range on this rip-roaring grill is challenging. Unless our goal was blackened chicken or blistered peppers, we rarely found ourselves using anything other than the lowest gas setting. While compact and portable, you must settle for a smaller grilling space. Petite and sure-footed, the Grillster is the perfect companion for a picnic for two, no matter the location. If you love the size and portability of this grill but would rather cook over charcoal, it's worth comparing the Grillster directly against the similarly-sized Weber Go-Anywhere Charcoal Grill.

Deciding on the type of fuel for your next grill comes down to a few different factors, such as convenience, flavor, and price. A gas grill will offer a more convenient setup and easier cleaning. On the other hand, a charcoal grill provides a more pronounced flavor and can often reach hotter temperatures for searing. Another option that has exploded in popularity in recent years is the use of pellets. A pellet-fueled grill will offer flavor characteristics similar to a propane grill but provide more control over temperature. It is best when used for slow-cooked foods. Ultimately, each fuel type provides a different purpose, and the entry point for grills can vary significantly based on fuel type.

If you plan on taking your grill camping or for tailgating on the weekends a smaller form grill will be ideal. If you need a grill capable of cooking for groups and events or simply just want a backyard grill with the ability to move it around the house, a larger grill will be a better fit. A portable grill can range from just a few pounds all the way up to over eighty pounds. When deciding on your next portable grill, consider your transportation and storage capabilities along with your desired use.

While portable grills are meant to be traveled with and used away from home, they come with a wide range of cooking abilities. Some may offer cooking that is ideal for just 1-2 individuals, while others can accommodate all your friends. The easiest way to determine how much you can cook at a time is to look at the cooking/grilling area. This will help to understand how much food can fit at a given time.

The wide range of portable grills on the market all offer useful features such as folding side tables, digital thermometers, and folding legs, to name a few. While some features may simply be for convenience, others, such as a digital thermometer, are essential if you plan on slow-cooking BBQ with precision. When deciding on your next portable grill, these considerations will help improve your overall grilling experience.

The ability to regulate and control how much heat is being produced can be critical for the type of cooking you plan on doing. If utilizing a gas or electric grill, identifying how many burners, along with how many temperature adjustments are available, is important. Certain foods, such as fish and vegetables, can be overcooked if the temperature is too hot. Alternatively, certain foods benefit from high-temperature searing and need high heat to achieve the desired taste. When looking for your next grill, keep these considerations in mind to achieve delicious-tasting food.

The value of your portable grill depends on your cooking needs and your intended usage. A basic, more affordable grill might get you through a backyard bash, but a more expensive product will tend to last longer, even under more rigorous or extensive use. Simple grilling, like burgers and dogs, can be done on any portable grill. But if you would like the option to sear a steak and slow-cook chicken on the same grate, you'll likely only find such features on higher-quality models. Similarly, the least expensive grills don't offer the maximum heat output nor the control to cook more complicated foods.

For this metric, we had to consider how different methods of heat production compared among different grills across the board. For gas, we looked at the number of BTUs (British thermal units) each product generates. For charcoal, electric, and pellet options that cannot be measured the same way, we drew upon evidence from testing and an infrared thermometer to measure internal grill temperatures along with advertised wattage. We also factored in the number of burners of each product, how well the grill body insulated heat, and the volume of the coal bed.

In the realm of larger portable propane grills, the Coleman Roadtrip 285 is a cut above the rest when it comes to output power. At 20,000 BTU, this model puts most of the others to shame. U-shaped burners are fairly common with this grill type, but the Roadtrip 285's burner configuration evenly distributes the heat around the entire oval-shaped grill surface. The Weber Traveler is a great example of how BTU output doesn't always correlate to better cooking performance. With only 13,000 BTUs, the oval-shaped design heats up relatively quickly while maintaining a steady and consistent temperature across the entire grilling surface. Ultimately, we found it to be superior to the Roadtrip 285 in terms of overall cooking performance.

On the charcoal side, insulation plays a much more important role in output power and efficiency. The Cuisinart Portable Charcoal and Weber Go-Anywhere are very similar in terms of coal bed volume, but the Go-Anywhere scores much higher thanks to its cast iron construction.

Our ranking of heat output also considered each manufacturer's BTU reporting, grill surface area, and lid sealing and construction. For the most part, the scoring of the heat output follows manufacturer claims, but we made some exceptions based on our observations. For instance, while the Weber Q 1200 only claims 8,500 BTUs, in practice, it operates at hotter temperatures and maintains that heat over a larger cook surface compared to other similar models. The infrared-cooking capability of the Solaire Everywhere puts out 14,000 BTUs and confidently sears a steak faster than anything else.

Control is the criteria that most distinctly separates the highest performers from the rest of the contenders. For gas and electric, this metric was scored based on how many burners each product has and whether they can be adjusted to high, medium, and low temperatures. For charcoal, we assessed how easy it was to maneuver the coal bed to create heat zones. For pellet grills, we studied the user interface and considered the details of the startup and shutdown process. We also considered whether the grilling surface presents a consistent temperature throughout, whether it includes a thermometer or push-button ignition, and how well both perform. There are advantages and disadvantages to a grill surface that naturally creates different temperature zones.

If you're cooking only one type of food that covers the entire grilling surface, then you will want to have consistent heat throughout. If you are cooking a variety of foods all at once, you might prefer different temperature zones. To test the distribution of heat across a grill, we grilled different food types in different corners of the grill.

To illustrate this, we cooked plain white bread and photographed the result to help visualize the distribution of heat across these grill tops. We also took into consideration whether the lid was big enough for closed grilling, how easy the grease trap was to use, remove, and clean, and if the regulator provided a snug or loose fit.

Once the grill is going, the Camp Chef Portable Pellet's internal thermometer and the computer then take over to regulate the flow of pellets into the burner. This process keeps the grill temperature remarkably close to the chosen setting. If all this tech hasn't impressed you yet, this model also has two digital meat thermometers so that you can watch temperatures in real-time. With this grill, barring some sort of unexpected mishap, you will likely never overcook a tri-tip again.

The Coleman Roadtrip 285 tops the list of our favorite propane models when it comes to grill control and temperature regulation. There are three dials that control the different zones, but all of those heat zones overlap. The middle dial controls a burner that spans the length of the whole grill, while the other two dials control an additional burner on each side. With all of them on, it evenly heats the entire cooking area. The Roadtrip 285 produced better results from our white bread heat mapping test than any other grill we've tested. Though the Weber Traveler does not feature a triple burner configuration, it does feature an accurate thermometer on the lid and a single adjustable dial that offers a wide range of settings.

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