Five Tips For Buying a Quality Barbecue Grill
Does it seem like you have to buy a new grill every season? If you are like most people you might find yourself taking a trip every spring to the discount store to buy another grill. The same barbecue grill that you bought last spring, after a few uses, the legs got wobbly and the grate rusted through. Even a little rust can be bad because it gets on the food and that's never a good thing for many reasons.
Five Tips For Buying a Quality Barbecue Grill
They are a few differences that separate quality grills from those one-season wonders. A good quality grill, with proper care, will provide many years of use. Outlined below are five features you should always look for when considering the purchase of a grill that will last you many years.
Barbeque Grill
Five Tips For Buying a Quality Barbecue Grill
16 gauge Stainless Steel Grill
The quality of the materials that are used make the biggest difference. Any grill worth its weight will be made of 16 gauge stainless steel. Stainless steel doesn't rust and it's resistant to oxidation caused by heat. Oxidation caused from heat is the leading reason grills rust through quickly. Most discount grill manufacturers will not use low-grade stainless steel as to keep production costs down.
Five Tips For Buying a Quality Barbecue Grill
Five Tips For Buying a Quality Barbecue Grill
Cast iron grill grates
Cast iron grates will last the lifetime of the grill if proper care is taken. Cast iron grates must be seasoned, just like your grandmother's old cast iron frying pan. Well seasoned iron grates are non-stick and will actually improve with age adding flavor to your food when it cooks. Cheap grill grates are made of steel that is coated with a chrome surface to prevent the steel from rusting. This works well until the first time you use the grill. The reason for this is because the heat degrades the chrome plating causing it to crack. Then the heat rusts the steel underneath causing it to rust from the inside out.
Adjustable charcoal rack
This is a feature you may find on grills that don't have any of the other qualities listed here. However, this one feature by itself shouldn't be the reason for buying a lesser grill. The reason an adjustable charcoal rack is important is because this allows you to adjust the heat for direct cooking. This means it's possible to cook steaks and burgers with less charcoal. This feature is also very useful for indirect cooking making it possible to try many new barbecue recipes.
Powder coated finish
A powder coated finish is applied in powder form to the stainless steel then infused to the stainless steel by applying heat. This makes it a permanent color coating that will never chip and peel. Powder coated finishes are very resistant to scratches making them the most durable finish you can have. The reason discount grills rust all over is because most manufacturers use of high heat paint. This may sound like a great idea but it doesn't work. This is because cheap steel oxidizes and begins to rust under the high heat paint causing it to peel away. Even if the steel doesn't rust it will expand and contract with the heat causing the paint to chip and peel anyways.
Stainless steel charcoal rack
If there was any one part of a grill that needs to be stainless steel it's the charcoal rack. This is because this one part endures the most intense heat. Heat causes oxidation, which results in rust. Rust is the biggest reason why you have to by the special every spring. The bad part is that a lot of people will continue to cook on a rusty grill, which is very unhealthy.
