Grills & Smokers.
The kettles, offsets, kamados, pellet grills, griddles, and open fires you cook on. What each does, when it pays off, and where it falls short.


Gas Grill
Read →The propane or natural-gas grill that runs most American backyards — burners under the grate, a temperature knob, and push-button ignition. Built for convenience and weeknight speed; the tradeoff is less smoke flavor than live fire.

Griddle
Read →The flat-top — a solid steel cooking surface over gas burners, the Blackstone that took over backyards. No grates and no flame on the food: just a big, even, screaming-hot plate for smash burgers, breakfast, and everything that would fall through a grill.

Kamado
Read →The thick-walled ceramic cooker — the Big Green Egg and its kin — that holds heat like a kiln. One rig that smokes low and slow, grills screaming hot, and bakes pizza, sipping charcoal and barely needing to be tended.

Kettle Grill
Read →The round, domed-lid charcoal grill that became the default American backyard cooker. Cheap, nearly indestructible, and versatile enough to sear, roast two-zone, and even smoke low-and-slow on a single rig.

Offset Smoker
Read →The horizontal wood smoker with a separate side firebox — the rig behind Central Texas brisket. Fire burns off to the side; heat and smoke draft through the cooking chamber and out the stack, cooking low and slow on pure indirect heat and hardwood smoke.

Open Fire
Read →Cooking on a live wood fire with almost no equipment — a grate over a fire pit, an adjustable Santa Maria rig, an Argentine parrilla, or food laid straight on the coals. The oldest way to cook, and still the one with the most flavor and the least control.

Pellet Grill
Read →The set-and-forget wood smoker — a hopper of compressed-wood pellets, an auger, and a thermostat that holds your target temperature automatically. Real wood smoke with oven-like convenience; the tradeoff is a lighter smoke flavor than a stick burner.

Vertical Smoker
Read →The upright smoker family — bullet water smokers like the Weber Smokey Mountain, ugly drum smokers, and gas or electric cabinets. Fire at the bottom, food stacked above, and a small footprint that holds low-and-slow temps for hours on cheap fuel.