The best charcoal grill of 2025
Testing charcoal grills requires a lot of hands-on cooking, and your results will obviously vary depending on your technique and ingredients, among other factors. Depending on the season and how your charcoal grill is set up, your cooking and grilling experience will likely be very different from ours. For example, a kettle-style charcoal grill left in the July sun all day will run much hotter than it does in the cooler spring months.
Also, a note about grill thermometers. None of the lid thermometers built into these grills reflect the temperatures recorded by our own thermocouples and data software. It’s not unusual for grill thermometers to read high, so we recommend keeping an oven thermometer or Bluetooth thermometer handy while grilling, either for your meat or the grill temperature itself.
We placed two steaks on each grill rack near the center and seared them for 5 minutes before flipping and searing for another 5 minutes. With a good, reliable grill, this will give you a steak that’s seared on the outside and medium to medium rare in the center. If you prefer meat that is better cooked, you can extend the cooking time or sear and finish cooking in the oven.
High heat searing was our first grill test.
The best charcoal grill for grilling steaks in our range was the Weber Classic Kettle. The steak had nice grill marks while maintaining a medium doneness on the inside. The worst was our Tacklife review unit, which didn’t hold much heat and didn’t burn while cooking. The steak on this grill needed an extra five minutes to reach 135 degrees Fahrenheit, the minimum for medium rare.
Chicken and indirect, medium heat
Next, we tested each grill’s medium-heat cooking ability by roasting whole chickens. The trick here is to keep the grills at a hot enough temperature to cook chicken for more than 2 hours.
For our tests, each grill received a full chimney of lit coals and a 6-pound chicken against the coals for indirect heat.
Each grill had a chimney of hot coals.
Cooking over charcoal takes longer than cooking with a gas grill, and we usually have to add more fuel during cooking to keep our grills above 350 degrees Fahrenheit for the duration. Our favorite bird of this batch was the one cooked on the Weber, although it was tough. The Nexgrill Grilled Bird was a close second in terms of flavor and texture.
We cooked chicken over indirect heat until it reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.
The difference between the two was largely in the crispiness of the skin, with the Weber delivering superior results. The meat from the Nexgrill was tasty, with a bit more flavor than the Weber. Between them, I’d say it largely depends on your budget and what style of grill you prefer for other meats like burgers or steaks. Webber certainly had a superior shot in this category.
Low and slow ribs
Our final test is barbecuing ribs, specifically baby back pork ribs. This style of cooking requires strict temperature control over a period of several hours. Ideally, a quality charcoal grill (or any smoker) will keep your fire humming at a temperature close to 225 degrees Fahrenheit for as long as possible.
Arrange your charcoal briquettes in two rows two deep along the inside wall of the grill.
First, we set each grill to a low and slow burn using coal snake method. For models with a kettle, we arrange coals in a semicircle around the inner wall of the grill. Charcoal briquettes (Kingsford Blue) form a line two carbons wide and two carbons deep. We also drop a few pieces of smoked wood onto the snake (aka wick). On cart-style grills, we modify the snake to move at right angles to match their rectangular-shaped hearths.
Next, we light the snake on each grill at one end of the chain with five lit briquettes (fire starters also work). We put all the ventilation holes on each grill (top and bottom) in the half-open position. Finally, we place one rib on each grill for indirect cooking, with the meat not directly over the coals.
The classic Weber Kettle grilled with ribs on the right.
Weber was the undisputed king in this test. No other grill in this group can match the robust temperature control of this iconic cooker. Readings from our own thermocouples plus a digital pit thermometerconfirm this. During the Weber’s 6-hour, 32-minute cook time, the grill’s internal heat levels never got more than 25 degrees above our target of 225 degrees F. In fact, most of the time the temperature hovered between 220 degrees and 230 degrees Fahrenheit . As a result, Weber-cooked ribs came out tender, juicy, and full of smoky flavor.
The Napoleon Grilled Ribs turned out tasty, but with a slightly dry crust.
Grill Napoleon was the second best in this test. Internal temperatures fluctuated more, jumping as high as 300 degrees Fahrenheit during cooking periods. His ribs were ready in 4 hours and 30 minutes. While his ribs came out tender and juicy overall, the outer crust had a few burnt spots.
The ribs cooked on the Nexgrill had plenty of crust, but were juicy and tender on the inside.
We noted similar temperature performance from the Nexgrill, along with similar results on ribs. Cooking ribs on low and slow on the Nexgrill only takes 4 hours and 30 minutes. His stance also came out well, although like Napoleon his bark was more pronounced than what Weber produced.
Our experience with ribs with some of the other grills was far from perfect. Tacklife was particularly bad. At times, the interior of this grill reached temperatures of up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. And unfortunately the resulting ribs came out burnt, charred and overcooked.
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