mike_sutton's Full Review: Char-Broil 18 1/2" Charcoal Grill
Overview:
I picked up this grill for the intent of camping trips and tail-gaiting cookouts. It's a great little portable grill for that purpose.
The Grill2Go:
Bought this at a local home store for about $130. It was pretty easy to assemble and use right away. You take it out of the box and pop it together, add a gas bottle, and your ready to cook. It comes with spatula, tongs, and a cleaning scraper.
The Dupont Teflon cooking surface has 310 square inches of cooking area and is divided into two types of areas. One is a "grill section" that will leave grill marks on your food and the other is a flat cooking surface. You can cook burgers, etc on either, but the flat surface is good for cooking items such as breakfast foods like eggs, pancakes, and bacon. All of the grease is channeled into a grease trap.
The Dupont Teflon does make cleanup a little easier since
it is no stick.
It also has two shelves that snap on to each side so you have a place to put items while you are cooking. These shelves store in the folded legs area during storage or transporting. The shelves also have spots on them to hang the grilling tools that come with it.
Lighting is easy. The Grill2Go has a 'push button' lighter on the frame and a small window so you can look in and see if it's lit. It's hard to see the flame, so I often pop up the grilling surface when I light it to verify it's lit so not to have propane gas fill up that area. You might have to have the grill top down though to light it in a windy area. After lighting, there is a heat temperature indicator next to the lighter so you can tell your cooking temp surface approximate temperature.
The burner is stainless steel and is a one burner grill. It works like any other grill burner, but by distributing heat to warm the griddle instead of cooking directly over that gas flame. One advantage to this is that you don't ever have any "flare ups" but you loose just a little of the taste that you have with a normal grill since your burgers aren't directly 'flame broiled'. The burner does come with a 3 year warranty.
The legs have some leveling blocks that come with it so you'll have a level grilling surface. There is an air bubble level on the frame of the Grill to level it on setup.
If you want to grill on the table top, then just don't unfold the legs and it will set flat on a tabletop or tailgate of a pickup.
You can easily cook 4 or 5 pancakes, up to maybe about 15 burgers (depending on size), etc. We easily used it to feed a crew of about a dozen people at a recent football bowl game tailgate party to cook burgers, shish-kebobs, and bratwurst sausages, but it's not a huge grill and works better for a smaller crowd. For this event the disposable propane bottle lasted a couple hours grilling and still had some propane left in it.
Upon finishing and cleanup, simply fold the legs back up and snap-close the lid. You can easily store all the grill components/accessories inside the grill (except the shelves mount to the inside of the legs). They didn't really provide a good way to store the propane regulator so that it won't scratch the teflon, so I just keep mine in the small cardboard box it came in, inside the grill. Another possibility would be to store it in a small cloth bag, such as a "Crown Royal" purple sack.
Other usefull info:
It easily fits in the trunk of even small cars. Storage size is 29"L x 16"W x 13"H. Empty weight is about 34 lbs, so just about anyone can take it in/out of the car trunk.
If you want to see some more detailed information on this, you can view, download, or print the Grill2Go manual in PDF format from their website at:
"http://www.grill2go.com/manuals/g2g_manual.pdf"
Dislikes:
My major dislike has to be cleanup. The "older" models of these grills had a two piece grilling surface and you could just throw it into the dishwasher. The new ones are one piece welding together and won't fit in the dishwasher. So you have to wash it by hand, which is a pain. The grease trap is also in inconvience. They should make a empty can adapter ring like other grills to catch the grease in an empty can so you don't have to clean out the grease trap.
The legs are not very strong either. This grill is not made for daily repetitive use by the backyard griller.
Other options:
one of the things I wish my grill had was wheels so I could pull it behind me. Well they finally added that with the Grill2Go Express. It costs about $10 more.
If you didn't get the one with wheels, you can purchase a storage bag that has wheels on it. But I'd suggest going ahead and getting the wheeled model.
They also offer a model called the Grill2Go Fire-n-Ice which has an integrated cooler in it. I wasn't impressed by this as it weights almost 70 pounds empty. Fill that cooler with ice and drinks and you're over 100 pounds. That and you have to move the cook away from the cooking surface to get in the cooler. A seperate cooler is a much better option.
Bulk propane cylinder adapter. you can get one these for about $20 to hook your grill to go to a 20 lb propane tank instead of using the costly disposable tanks. You don't have to buy the Thermos/Charbroil brand, any Coleman or other brand at WalMart or Home Depot will work.
For Grill information and other options check out http://www.grill2go.com
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