Gas BBQ Grills Reviews

Although testing by Cook�s Illustrated is more thorough, Consumer Reports has taken the top spot in our All Reviews chart. Consumer Reports updates its grill ratings every year, while the Cook�s Illustrated reviews are now four years old. Consumer Reports� editors have tested and rated a total of 30 current grills, ranging from small portable grills to backyard supergrills. Each gas grill is tested for cooking performance and ease of use, as well as evenness of heating when cooking beef, chicken and fish.

We found an excellent archive of articles at About.com from BBQ guide Derrick Riches. Riches has covered the outdoor cooking industry for nearly a decade, and he has some good information on grill manufacturers, along with analysis and reviews. The reviews themselves are detailed, but Riches doesn't tell us whether he's used any standard testing procedure for these grills. So while detailed and interesting, we don't rate this source quite as highly as Consumer Reports. However, Riches does a better job covering the high-end of the market than Consumer Reports, helpful if you're considering a showpiece grill that costs over $1,500. (Note that ConsumerSearch, Inc., is owned by About, Inc.)

Though outdated, the review in Cook's Illustrated magazine is a lot more in-depth than any other review we found. The excellent tests at Cook�s Illustrated included taste tests of steak, hamburgers, salmon, veggies and even a whole turkey. Another nice review from Men's Health magazine covers seven portable grills -- highlighting the good points as well as the bad. Good Housekeeping has a fairly up-to-date review of gas grills, as well. Unfortunately, test results are reported in two-sentence blurbs, not revealing much insight into why these gas grills are supposed to be better than others.

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

Weber is the reviewers' choice for the top gas grills. In an area where pricey models tend to garner better ratings, we were interested to find that reviewers also like some inexpensive Char-Broil, Kenmore (made by Char-Broil) and Vermont Castings gas grills. As far as super-high-end models, experts are split. We included the Broilmaster P3 in Fast Answers because it excelled in recent testing and is priced at the low end of the high-end models.