The Best Charcoal Grill Rotisseries

We fell head over heels in love with rotisserie grilling after discovering how easy it was to produce extra-juicy, crispy-skinned chicken and beautifully roasted, juicy lamb with this kit. Key design elements made it perform better than its rivals and made it potentially more durable: Its motor has more than twice the wattage of the other models and never struggled. The food-securing forks on its spit have two (not four) prongs, which made it easier to center food so that it rotated smoothly. The all-important screws that anchor the forks to the spit have large heads that were easy to grab and turn and unique brackets that helped the screws stay firmly in place. We loved that this model had fewer parts: A simple pair of deep grooves on the spit held it in place horizontally on the ring and supported the weight of the food. By contrast, the others added extra pieces that didn’t work as well—one of these pieces even obstructed the spit’s turning, and both models’ motors supported the pointed end of the spit, forcing them to work harder and potentially wear out sooner.

We made great food with this kit and loved the extra-long power cord that avoided the use of a separate extension cord to plug in the motor. Its rim fit snugly on the Weber kettle grill. The metal bracket supporting the motor was a bit thin and bendy, sagging away slightly when the grill got hot, which may have caused the spit to detach from the motor while we were roasting lamb. We also had some trouble with a part called a bushing on the spit; it’s meant to support the spit on the ring of the rotisserie kit near the handle end and reduce friction as it turns. But its protruding screw poked the grill lid every time the spit turned; we had to stop cooking and tweak it while the grill was red-hot. The forks that secure food to the spit each have four prongs, which we thought would be better than two but actually made it slightly harder to spear food evenly and firmly.

This kit’s weak motor struggled to turn the spit when we roasted a heavy leg of lamb and kept struggling when we later roasted a 4-pound chicken, so we worried about its durability. Its spit didn’t attach snugly to the motor and came loose during cooking, so the spit stopped rotating the meat. Luckily, we soon noticed that the food wasn’t turning and reinserted the tip of the spit into the motor. The food eventually roasted well, but it was worrisome to babysit this model. When we washed its parts, some of the chrome coating on the forks and screws wore off, so they began rusting. In sum: There are better choices than this model.