Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kickoff to outdoor cooking season, but for those of us passionate about cooking with fire, in all its forms, the season never ends. In most of the country it is now warm enough to cook outside, and to do that, consider the following awesome options.
I’ve covered a lot of grills here in the past, and you can see last year’s round up here. I’m crazy for outdoor cooking, and unlike a lot of magazines, I don’t just pull stuff from press releases, I live it. I currently have ten grills on my patio and lawn, burning coal, wood, pellets, gas and a combination of the above, for every conceivable dish and method. I’ve got several more in my barn that get rotated in. These are my picks of the five hottest grills in different styles right now, each for a very good reason.
With the amazing American Muscle Grill you can cook over wood, charcoal, hardwood charcoal or 5... [+] burners cranking out 110,000 BTUs - or all of these at once, to make a full meal in one shot. Photo: Summerset
American Muscle Grill (by Summerset): If you have room for just one grill, look no further than this masterpiece. The look of this baby was inspired by the classic American muscle car, specifically the front end of the iconic '66 Mustang Shelby GT 350, and incorporates three great features of the genre in addition to styling: its crafted from really heavy duty steel, it’s designed and built in the USA, and it’s got tons of horsepower under the hood. All that alone would please me, but there is one more huge advantage, the reason why this has become my go to, primary, everyday grill. It is the best combination of price and high-performance in the newest, hottest outdoor cooking category, multi-fuel or hybrid grills. These versatile space savers are the next big thing in my opinion, but there are very few of them out now, and while this is far from cheap, competitors either run substantially higher or use weird inserts that only let them play at offering multi-fuel capability. This is the real deal, it can run on natural gas, propane, logs, charcoal, lump charcoal, or wood chunk, and better yet, it can use two or three of these sources simultaneously. It has five zones and you can do charcoal at one end and wood on the other, or stagger your solid fuel of choice and create perfect direct and indirect grilling zones on the massive cooking surface. Anytime you need more oomph, you can just turn on one or more burners. You can sear, simmer and use indirect heat all at once, manage it very easily, or just use gas if you want to cook fast and simple - it goes from zero to 350° in two minutes. The best part is that any solid fuel you choose to use loads easily and is ignited by the propane burners: no chimney starters, fluids or newspaper, and you can get white hot perfect coals for cooking in less than 15 minutes with the flick of a wrist. The American Muscle Grill (AMG) has five burners, cranks out a massive 110.000 BTUS, has over 1,100 square inches of cooking surface, and everything is extremely well manufactured throughout, precise and heavy duty (9, 12, 14 and 16 gauge #304 stainless steel top to bottom, with brass igniters and lifetime warranty) - it even has self-closing draws. There just is no more versatile single grill, it’s an eye turner, and the 36-inch model is available as a standalone cart ($7,500) or a built-in for outdoor kitchens ($5,500). Believe it or not, the only comparable grill I’ve tried costs nearly four times as much, and I’m loving cooking on this!
The Komodo Kamado is an ultra-high quality, high-tech take on the kamado-style grill. It comes in... [+] lots of gorgeous tile finishes, and is offered in 8 sizes - including this 1600+ pound 42-inch monster.
Komodo Kamado: Last year I partnered with the world’s leading authority on live fire cooking and grilling, author, TV host and winner of numerous awards including James Beard, Julia Child and Emmys, Steven Raichlen, on a 10 Great Grills Guide here at Forbes. He called the Komodo Kamado, “Far and away the best ceramic cooker I’ve used. It’s made with materials developed for NASA.” 10-time World Champion BBQ Pit Master Chris Lilly called it, “The best cooking, most efficient, and aesthetically perfect outdoor cooker on the market. Ask your children what tile color they prefer… one day the Komodo Kamado will be theirs.” No one has more or more detailed critical reviews than comprehensive grill and smoker testing site AmazingRibs.com, with over 500 individual models thoroughly tested. They just released their list of 2017 Top 10 Luxury Grills & Smokers, and Komodo made it - for the third straight year - with a Gold medal rating. Equipment editor Max Good wrote, “Komodo Kamado makes some of the most striking, high quality cookers we’ve seen…Quality and attention to detail are evident in everything you see and touch from the 304 stainless steel grates and hinges to the heavy duty casters.” Egg-shaped ceramic Kamado grills have a huge cult following, and understandably so - descended from ancient Japanese clay pots they are so efficient that they require a very small amount of natural hardwood charcoal and can do every kind of outdoor cooking well, searing, high temp grilling, low and slow smoking, roasting and everything in between - even baking. But among this elite style, the Komodo Kamado plays at a whole different level, super precisely made with Swiss laser cut steel fixtures, aerospace gaskets, ultra-heavy duty stainless steel grates, and myriad gorgeous tile colors. While most kamados feature a ceramic body, this one is made from the same refractory cements used for high temperature containment in blast furnaces and nuclear facilities. It can safely go above 1000° for pro steakhouse style searing usually left to infrared, and Raichlen says, “Airflow and insulation are so perfect it maintains the same temperature whether it is 100° or -20° outside - it can run three full days without refueling.” That’s insane, and now that I have one, I have to agree with all these experts I talked to, the thing is perfectly made, beautiful and more functional than any charcoal grill I’ve seen. And if you want to impress your friends they just added an eighth size to the collection, an enormous 42-inch model that weight more than 1,600 pounds ($2,080-$9,200).
Traeger invented the pellet grill nearly 30 years ago. Now they have reinvented it with their new... [+] flagship Timberline series. It's packed with features and a great value and this 1300 model has a crazy 1,300 square inches of cooking surface on three levels.
Traeger Timberline: How hot is this new model? It just went on sale 5 weeks ago and sold out almost instantly. Leading grilling and BBQ retailer and catalog Firecraft called it “the most anticipated grill of 2017” and noted that new features like the three-tiered rack system and Wifi “helped Traeger reclaim its role as an industry innovator.” Grill review site Amazingribs.com called 2016 “The Year of the Pellet Grill” as improved technology has made these extremely desirable by consumers, and Traeger literally invented the category. I love pellet grills (I have three), which are the most versatile grills you can have if you like traditional southern style slow smoked barbecue. That’s because pellet grills function as true dedicated smokers to produce competition worthy brisket, ribs, pulled pork and more, but the good ones can also double as a traditional grill for higher temp cooking of steaks and burgers. On the Timberline you can grill, smoke, roast, braise, and bake. Pellet grills do this all by burning real wood in the form of pellets, via a computer control thermostat, and can maintain precise temperatures for the 6-18 hours it takes to smoke BBQ, unlike traditional offset or kettle smokers that need to constantly be monitored, tweaked, vented and refueled. It’s like making gourmet BBQ at the push of a button - set and forget. The only problem with pellet grills is that there are a lot of cheap ones of low quality, flimsy or with imprecise thermostats, and a number of very expensive more commercial style ones. Traeger has led the pellet grill industry for nearly 30 years, but was relaunched under new more high-tech focused ownership in 2014, and all that experience has paid off with the new flagship Timberline, the perfect mix of value, durability and performance. Its body is double-walled 304 stainless steel and its thermostat controls temperatures ranging from a very low 165° to a high 500° within +/- 5°, which is stunningly precise in in the grilling world. Timberline models have a redesigned higher oval shape with three levels of grills that offer up to 1,300 square inches of cooking area, best in class, and that equals lots of ribs. The Wifire feature lets you change temperature and set timers remotely via an app. There are two models, the smaller 850 ($1,699) and the larger 1300 ($1,999). You might as well pay the incremental difference for a lot more cooking capacity, and dollar for dollar there is no more versatile grill on the market for everything from perfect low and slow ‘cue to grilled T-bones. Both are currently sold out online from Traeger but can be bought through local retailers.
The Arteflame is outdoor furniture meets fire pit meets wood burning grill meets plancha or... [+] teppanyaki style grill. Cool, useful and versatile!
Arteflame: This is my next case of grill envy, just the thing I need to complete my outdoor entertaining world. I recently got the following email from grilling guru Steven Raichlen who knows more about this than anyone alive (he has written about 30 books on the subject, including the definitive tomes The BBQ Bible, BBQ USA, and Planet Barbecue; he teaches BBQ University; hosts Project Smoke on PBS; and studied at two of the most famous cooking schools on earth, Le Cordon Bleu and La Varenne): “I’ve just acquired a terrific new grill called the Arteflame. It looks like a Claus Oldenburg sculpture. It functions like a wood burning grill and a plancha. It’s great for steak, fragile fish, veggies, and everything in between.” A plancha is a cast iron slab that the Spanish (or Argentines who call it a chapa) put on a wood or coal burning grill to cook small delicate times that don’t do well on grates, like scallops or asparagus. Raichlen explains how to use this on his BBQBible.com site where he calls the plancha “one of the best ways to marry the searing and crusting capabilities of a cast iron skillet with the intense heat and smoke flavor produced by your grill.” The Arteflame looks like the kind of firepit a lot of people use on their lawn to create warmth and atmosphere, except it has a laser cut steel grate in the middle for open fire grilling, and the surrounding deck is for cooking a la plancha. It is really beautiful - hence the name Arteflame - sort of outdoor furniture you can cook on, and the fire goes in the middle so the temperature decreases further away, allowing for multiple cooking temperatures at the same time with one fire, sort of like old school direct and indirect cooking on a Weber kettle, except you could cook things like pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. The cooking ring tops are interchangeable with different base styles, it can be used with or without the grill grate insert, it can be used just as a decorative fire pit, it is virtually maintenance free as the cooking surface can just be scraped into the middle for clean up, it can be left out year round and it develops an impressive patina. It is made in Cincinnati from American corten steel, and I will report back in more detail after I’ve gotten my hands on one.
Super high-end grill manufacturer Kalamazoo just invented a whole new category, the under the... [+] counter outdoor smoker cabinet. Adding this baby puts all other outdoor kitchens to shame.
Kalamazoo Charcoal Smoker Cabinet: Kalamazoo makes very high-end, very heavy duty stainless steel grills in Michigan, and its flagship backyard multi-fuel gas grill runs over twenty grand. This maker of commercial level outdoor cooking equipment does not screw around, and this is its newest product, a whole new niche, which immediately made Amazingribs.com’s 2017 Top 10 Luxury Grills & Smokers. Designed as a standalone cart or installed unit for outdoor kitchens, this is the first and only under the counter stainless outdoor smoker of its kind on the market. It uses gravity fed charcoal through a chute, much like a pellet smoker does with wood, and it has a tray at the bottom you can add wood chunks to for additional flavored smoke. The whole thing is double walled heavy steel with precise airflow, and it uses an interior digital thermometer to monitor food and automatically adjust a blower. One 7-pound fill up of charcoal can run low and slow at 225°, the most common BBQ smoking temp, for 16 hours. I’ve tried other Kalamazoo products, but not this one, and they’ve been fantastic, but you can read grill testing guru Max Good’s full very detailed review here ($11,000 - $13,500).