Ready, Set, Grill! Weber Barbecues

An outdoor cookout is a perfect way to relax. The smell of delicious charcoal-grilled food seems to just go hand-in-hand with summer. If you're in the market for a new grill, Weber BBQs have a great reputation and there are several great models to choose from.

The Classic Weber Kettle Barbecues

Weber is famous for its 'Kettle' Grills. They're known to be well-constructed, durable, easy-to-assemble, and great to cook with. The two classic Weber Kettle grills are the Silver and the Gold One-Touch Grills. 'One-Touch' refers to the cleaning system - you rotate a handle which shifts the ash inside the bottom of the BBQ so that it falls through the vent and into an ash catcher. It makes an unpleasant job, if not pleasant then at least less-unpleasant.

The Original Kettle and Premium Weber Grills are are nearly the same, but with one important difference: the Premium version has a removable, high-capacity ash-catcher. Basically it's more of a 'can' rather than a 'shallow pan' that's part of the Silver version. It costs a few more bucks for this feature, but in my opinion, it's well worth it! Cleaning out the ash isn't the most fun job and the high-capacity ash-catcher makes it much much easier and much less messy, and you won't have to do it as often.

Another great (but minor) thing about the the Weber Gold One-Touch is that it includes a hinged cooking grate. That means you can flip up one end of the grate to add more charcoal, rather than having to lift everything out. That said, you can buy hinged replacement barbecue grates too.

There are two sizes of Weber Original Kettle Grills - an 18.5" version and a 22.5" version.

Portable Weber BBQs

Weber Smokey Joe
Premium Charcoal Grill


Weber Go-Anywhere
Charcoal Grill

There are a couple of Weber grills that are great to use as camping barbecues. There's the smaller version of the Kettle grill, the Weber Smokey Joe Premium Charcoal Grill - just like the bigger versions in an portable package (and without an ash catcher).

The Weber Go-Anywhere Charcoal Grill is another compact grill suitable for taking along on your travels. It has a good amount of cooking space, it packs up tight, it's lightweight, and it's easy to carry. It's rectangular shapes makes it easier to pack up / around, too.

Both of these small Weber BBQs are also fine for home use, of course, especially if you're usually only grilling up a small amount of food. They're fast to get going since they don't use a lot of charcoal. If you're looking for a small, relatively cheap but durable grill, either of these would do (yes, there are cheaper, but the question is how long they'll last...).

So if you love to grill, Weber charcoal barbecues are a solid choice. They've been around for ages and have loads of great reviews (including our own - we own the Weber Gold One-Touch -- it's performed very well for us). Ready to start cooking? Browse through out BBQ tips section or check out our recipes!