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See why.The Best Gas Grills Under $500
It doesn’t matter how powerful a grill is. If it can’t distribute and hold the heat where you want it, your food will suffer.
Last Updated June 1, 2018. Appears in Cook's Illustrated July/August 2003, America's Test Kitchen TV Season 17: Summer Dinner Party
Weber completely overhauled our winning gas grill. After testing the new version, we’re pleased to say that a good grill has gotten even better. The Weber Spirit II E-310 performs beautifully, searing burgers and steaks beautifully and rendering pulled pork tender and smoky. Weber also introduced design innovations that make this model easier to use than ever before. The Spirit II E-310 is our current winner.
Top Picks
See Everything We TestedWhat You Need To Know
It’s easy to drop several hundred dollars on a gas grill and not get what you need. We’ve cooked on models that never got hot enough; models that were too small to cook more than a couple of burgers at once; models that rusted, wobbled, and warped; and models that couldn’t handle anything beyond the simplest jobs—never mind roasting a holiday turkey or smoking tender ribs. The bottom line: For the best results, you need a well-designed, responsive, durable grill.
The winner from our previous gas grill testing was discontinued, so we went shopping for some new models to test, priced at $500 or less. We focused on six major brands, asking them to help us choose their best contender. The grills in our lineup were outfitted with three to five burners, as well as two wing-like side tables. All but one grill were equipped with side burners set into one of the wings. All were fitted with warming racks, narrow wire shelves suspended across the back of the grill, and all featured built-in lid thermometers. You can buy a gas grill fully assembled or opt to put it together yourself. After trying both, we would strongly encourage you to order your grill assembled. Some stores do it for free.
We fired up the grills to cook (and smoke) a variety of foods, from burger patties to thick strip steaks to 5-pound pork butts. We checked that a 12-pound turkey fit under each lid with room to spare. We used slices of white bread to map each grill’s heating pattern, and we checked the accuracy of the grills’ lid thermometers with a calibrated thermocouple.
Along the way, we observed design elements of each grill that made cooking easier or more complicated. Scrubbing down grills after cooking and emptying grease trays showed which were simplest to maintain. And rolling them in and out of our grill garage over bumpy pavement revealed grills that fought us and rattled to pieces—literally—while others glided steadily and remained sturdily intact.
The Heat Is On
Most people choose a gas grill because it’s convenient: Turn a knob and you can start cooking in minutes. But whether that grill performs as it should is another matter. For simple grilling, the most important requirement is strong heat that spreads evenly across the grates. To determine which grills met the mark, we preheated each grill on high for 15 minutes (our standard method) and mapped the heat by covering the entire grill surface with white sandwich bread. Top grills gave us evenly browned toast. The worst made an uneven patchwork of black, brown, and white toast. Others dried out the bread, leaving it white with black stripes. Wrecked toast is no big deal, but when we grilled a quartet ...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Design: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 3 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 3 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 3 stars out of 3.
Recommended
- Design: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 3 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 3 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 3 stars out of 3.
- Design: 2 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 3 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 3 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 2 stars out of 3.
Unique, heat-spreading zigzagged steel plates beneath cast-iron grates made this grill the best at direct grilling. But its unusual interior layout left us struggling to figure out where to put water pans for indirect cooking, and there was nowhere to prop wood chip packets above the flames. Pulled pork roasted to tenderness but lacked smoke flavor. If you don’t care about indirect cooking, this is a great grill. One quibble: While we liked the side burner, its high, domed cover ate up space.
Not Recommended
- Design: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 3 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 2 stars out of 3.
This handsome, roomy grill had five burners plus a side burner, but it ran hot and cold in different zones. Burgers got wedged under a protruding rotisserie burner in back, and a low warming rack blocked our spatula. The grease collection tray didn’t channel fat, creating a mess. A big 2-inch gap at the back of the lid, open holes in the sides, and an open back panel let too much hot air and smoke escape. While the pulled pork texture was “nice,” it lacked smoky flavor: “Not particularly grill-obvious at all,” said one taster.
- Design: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 1 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 2 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 2 stars out of 3.
It was the least expensive grill we tested, so we were dubious about its value. Toast was white with black stripes. The back of the grill surface was hotter than the front. We got visible grill marks on some burgers, while all steak came off the grill pale and soft. The open lid’s shape sent smoke straight into our faces. The cookbox was thin and flimsy, and nine large vents and a 2-inch gap across the back let smoke and heat escape; no surprise that the pork butt roast was still tough as a rubber ball after 6 hours of cooking. We repeated the test, putting meat just 7 inches from the lit burner; this time it was tender but “smoke was completely absent.”
- Design: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 1 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 1 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 2 stars out of 3.
Heating was uneven: Toast and burgers were randomly blackened or pale, and we threw about one-quarter of the burgers away, deeming them unfit to serve. Indirect cooking was more successful, with pork rating well for tenderness and lower for smoke flavor, but the grill needed constant tweaking to stay at 300 degrees, due in part to the thin construction of the cookbox. Also, the side holes and wide slit at the back let the smoke escape. Grates scrubbed down easily, but the grease tray was tiny. The deeply curved lid sent smoke into our eyes. The cabinet door fell off every time we rolled the grill.
- Design: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Grilling: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Durability: 1 stars out of 3.
- Indirect Cooking: 1.5 stars out of 3.
The direct heat over most of this grill’s cooking surface was weak: Toast was too light, and burgers cooked unevenly. Meanwhile food on the back row scorched. Steak was “pretty sad,” with flabby, pale crust. The weak heat was a boon for barbecue, which came out tender and moist, but there was “no smoke.” Abundant vents channeled heat and smoke out of the cookbox, which was thin stainless steel. A very shallow grease tray was a hazard to move, and grease didn’t channel effectively, leaving the grill interior a gummy mess. A wheel popped off the cabinet halfway through testing.
DISCONTINUED
Note: This grill was the original winner when we tested in 2016. It has since been replaced by a superior model, which is our new winner. This grill put a crisp, brown crust on burgers and steaks. It was equally good at barbecue, rendering tender pulled pork with real smoky flavor. Tasters raved: “Perfect smoke, supermoist and tender” and “the texture is spot-on.” With a heavy-duty cookbox of thick cast aluminum and enameled steel and just one narrow vent across the back, it was easy to keep heat steady and distribute smoke. The angle of the lid when open kept smoke out of our faces. Its large, secure grease tray made cleanup easier; the sturdy, compact cart rolled without a struggle.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Lisa McManus
Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.