Cookin' with Black Friday gas grill deals

For a lot of the country, grilling season's been over for a while. That hasn't stopped Lowe's and Home Depot from advertising a couple of okay-sounding gas grills in their Black Friday circulars. The former is dangling a dirt-cheap Charbroil Quickset while the latter has a more premium-sounding Brinkmann offering at a middle-of-the-road price. Which is a better bet?

On a shoestring budget? Go to Lowe's next Friday.

At $79, the Charbroil Quickset Gas Grill sounds tempting, but it could just as easily wind up being a "you get what you pay for" deal.  User reviews posted for the Charbroil Quickset, regularly priced at $99, are mixed. On Lowes.com, it scores an average overall user rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars. Eight reviewers weigh in, including two people who've used the Charbroil Quickset for five years. They feel that it performs admirably for such a cheap grill, and that they certainly got their money's worth.

The less-glowing reviews for the Charbroil Quickset, however, complain of cheap construction, quickly diminished cooking performance, flaking paint, and, in one case, a hose that was fully eaten through by squirrels after just two days. Still, for 79 bucks, it's almost worth the gamble, especially if you can coax a couple of years' service out of it.

Head to Home Depot if you can spare an extra $100.

Over at Home Depot, the Brinkmann Pro Series 4 Burner Gas Grill is being offered for $179 (marked down from $299) on Black Friday -- certainly more of a savings than the Charbroil grill at Lowe's. Now, Brinkmann will never be confused with Weber from a quality or durability standpoint, but the advertised model has attractive-sounding features like a side burner and porcelain-coated cast iron cooking grates.  As of today, however, this particular Pro Series grill isn't listed anywhere on HomeDepot.com. We searched by name and by SKU and came up empty. As such, we found no applicable user reviews.

A cheaper Brinkmann gas grill, the 810-8410-S (*Est. $200), scored Best Reviewed status in our last gas grills report, though. With Black Friday pricing that's even lower than that budget model, the 4 Burner Brinkmann Pro Series is probably worth a look. Just look fast -- the Home Depot circular indicates that there'll only be 20 of these per store next Friday.