HOLY smokes – these charcoal bbqs are all flaming brilliant.
There’s nothing quite like cooking outside, on charcoal. There’s a real feeling of ritual to it, and it’s a lot of fun too.
Tip some charcoals into the bottom, light them and away you go – it is that simple.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. You can smoke food with charcoal BBQs, infusing it with incredible flavour. There’s the chance to do low-and-slow cooking too – pulled pork or beef brisket, anyone? You can also cook homemade pizzas on a charcoal BBQ.
Charcoal BBQs come in all shapes and sizes, and price points too. We’ve tested a whole range of charcoal BBQs to find the best, whatever you’re looking for.
Read our honest review of the best charcoal BBQs available to buy now.
Best charcoal bbqs at a glance:
- Best overall:Von Haus XL American-Style charcoal BBQ
- Best value: Argos Home drum charcoal
- Best medium range:Char-Broil Charcoal L
- Best premium:Everdure by Heston Blumenthal Kettler Charcoal Hub
- Best kettle-style BBQ: Weber Master-Touch Premium E-5775 57cm
Weber Master-Touch Premium E-5775 57cm
Weber Master-Touch Premium E-5775 57cm, £369
Pros: looks great, premium quality, includes diffuser, easy to control temperature, loads of grill space
Cons: might not suit seasoned smokers, bit big for smaller gardens
Rating: 4.5/5
This is a serious bit of kit if you want to get properly into the BBQ life. Yes, you can obviously use it as a very good standard BBQ and when I did this, I found that the porcelain enamel lid kept the heat in perfectly, resulting in juicy pieces of chicken that were full of smoky flavour.
I also cooked some chicken tikka skewers this way, which were absolutely delicious.
There’s a huge cooking area on this grill, meaning you’d be able to cook for a crowd. I was able to cater for my family of five without breaking a sweat. The warming grill was mega handy for adding more space and juggling the cooked food so I could serve everything up together.
For thicker cuts of meat, there are two “Char-Baskets” included in this kit which keep the charcoal on the sides of the kettle, giving you indirect heat across the middle of the grill and channelling heat up the sides. This allowed me to attempt my first beer-can roasted chicken. This was so much fun, and the results were delicious, succulent chicken with perfectly crisp skin.
The Master-Touch E-5775 comes with a char-ring and diffuser too. These sit on top of the coals and disperse the fierce heat from the coals. This allowed me to do some low and slow cooking.
For this, I went for some teriyaki pork belly – I actually found the recipe on Weber’s website. It was a longer project than I usually go for, but I enjoyed the process and found the meat was incredibly tasty and packed with umami flavours thanks to the smokiness.
For die-hard smokers, the Master-Touch might be a little faffy. There’s around a four-hour burn time on the coals, and then to top them up you have to take the meat off, then the grill, and then pour in more coal. So for very low and slow cooking, the Weber might not quite hit the spot. But if you dabble and want something special, the Master-Touch is fantastic.
I cannot finish without speaking about the amazing build quality. This BBQ is going to see you through years of BBQing, and it comes with a 10-year warranty too.
Warming rack: yes; Accessories: char-ring, diffuser plate, char-baskets, iGrill holder; Dimensions (HxWxD): 1000x650x760mm
Everdure by Heston Blumenthal Kettler Charcoal Hub
Everdure by Heston Blumenthal Kettler Charcoal Hub, £1,299
Pros: epic size, inbuilt rotisserie, sleek modern design, electric ignition, plenty of storage space, premium quality
Cons: very expensive, can’t use for smoking, not for small gardens
Rating: 4.5/5
Oh wow. There’s BBQs and then there’s the Charcoal Hub. Will I ever want to cook in my kitchen again after using this? Hard to imagine it.
The Charcoal Hub is as expensive as impressive, but I highly recommend this BBQ if you want a proper outdoor kitchen vibe.
Unusually for a charcoal BBQ, the Charcoal Hub plugs in – but fear not purists, this is only to get the BBQ started. Pour in charcoal into the huge charcoal tray (and I mean huge), then press for flames. An element in the base of the charcoal tray then lights the coals centrally and evenly.
This made it easy to get the BBQ going and required very little wafting or blowing at the coals. It also got the coals going very quickly, and I didn’t have to wait too long before the hub was ready to cook.
I was able to quickly sear off thick steaks and get a really juicy and charred flavour – I was really impressed. The cooking space on the Hub is epic – you could probably cook for all your friends and family in one go on this thing. Something I did miss was a warming rack, but I found I could move food to the edges where it was cooler.
The real selling point of this BBQ is the rotisserie feature. Telescopic poles pop up on each side – you can adjust the heights. Then a rod and four cliplock forks (which tuck away inside the base) clip into the poles. Press a button on the side and a motor spins your rotisserie.
Heston cooked a whole suckling pig on this. And if you want to go the whole hog, be my guest. Instead, I went for two chooks, which was more than enough for my family. It created beautifully juicy chicken, full of flavour and a crispy skin. I’m excited to keep experimenting with it. As you can easily access the coals while the rotisserie is going, you can keep cooking for as long as you want. The sky is the limit here.
I loved the design of this BBQ. It’s modern and gives a real ‘outdoor cooking’ vibe to a BBQ – the cupboards underneath are massive. The slide-back hood acts as a windbreak too, which I thought was smart.
And the fact the power cable retracts inside the hub, and the rotisserie bits fit in the side too – it’s just beautiful engineering.
Warming rack: no; Accessories: rotisserie hooks and pole; Dimensions (HxWxD): 1223x487x1375mm
READ MORE:
Von Haus XL American-style charcoal BBQ
Von Haus XL American-style charcoal BBQ, £219.99
Pros: large cooking area, fold-down side service areas, ample hooks for implements, warming rack, great value, integrated bottle opener
Cons: a bit less robust
Rating: 4.5/5
I think this is the perfect charcoal BBQ – it’s easy enough to use even for entry-level BBQers but has enough going for it that serious grillers will enjoy experimenting with it.
The height-adjustable charcoal rack is huge, as is the grill – I had enough space to host a sizeable meal for six adults. There’s also a wide warming rack, which I used to gently grill some salmon on.
The salmon was smoky and juicy, although I couldn’t quite get the skin as crispy as I liked.
When cooking, I found that adjusting the height of the charcoal let me control the heat – I raised the bed to sear off some pork loins, which rendered the fat in the rind perfectly.
I could also do slower cooking with the bed lowered. When doing this I roasted some herby garlic potatoes to absolute perfection – they were fluffy inside and crisp on the outside.
The charcoal bed can be accessed via the door on the front of the BBQ. This is handy if you’re doing low-and-slow cooking or cooking for a crowd, as you can top up the coals without having to remove the heavy cast-iron grates. You can also add wood chips, close off the vents and use it as a proper smoker.
Three dampers – two in the hood and one in the base – allowed me to control the temperature and airflow with ease.
And a temperature gauge let me keep an eye on what was going down under the hood, without needing to lift it and let all the hot air escape.
Warming rack: yes; Accessories: grate rack took; Dimensions (HxWxD): 1130x1530x540mm
Argos Home Drum Charcoal BBQ
Argos home drum charcoal BBQ, £48 £78
Pros: affordable, large grill space, sliding grates, great for feeding a crowd, includes cover and cooking tools
Cons: lower build quality
Rating: 4/5
I couldn’t get over the value of this charcoal BBQ. In fact, I had to keep going back to check that price – less than £100!
Anyway, for that, you get a very big BBQ – it’ll see you through large gatherings without you having a panic about space.
I found when I was cooking for a family of five on it (including some burger fans who order three burgers in one sitting!) it was a breeze.
The cooking was made easier because there was enough space across the grill to have direct and indirect heat going, with plenty of space for each. I was able to quickly sear veggies and lamb rump steaks, give chicken drumsticks and kebabs longer to cook, and bring it all together without under or overcooking anything.
I loved that you can also lift the charcoal rack up to be closer to the meat. This meant I could maximise the dying embers of the BBQ.
The sliding grates were handy as you can top up coal fairly easily. It does mean moving some bits aside, but the sizeable warming plate was perfect for allowing for this. So you can keep the heat going as long as you want, so long as you have the fuel.
The Argos Home drum also comes with a cover and cooking implements. None of these items overwhelmed me with their quality, but they are both useful enough – especially if you’re just starting on your BBQ journey.
Warming rack: yes; Accessories: cover, cooking implements; Dimensions (HxWxD): 900x9300x645mm
Char-Broil Charcoal L
Char-Broil Charcoal L, £309.99
Pros: easy to control temperatures, large grill and warming rack, cast-iron grate, great for feeding a crowd
Cons: takes up a lot of space
Rating: 4/5
I really rated the Char-Broil Charcoal L as it has so many useful features to make BBQ cooking easy.
And it’s huge – there’s more than enough room to BBQ for a big gathering on this BBQ, whether that’s joints of meat or burgers aplenty.
One handy feature of this tool is that you can raise or lower the charcoal rack using the handles on the side, so you can control how powerful the heat is. This was handy when I was eager to start cooking before my charcoals had burnt down, and I could lower the grate later on in my cooking session.
I cooked some delicious herby chicken kebabs on here, as well as crowd pleasers of thick burgers and some fat sausages. To keep the vegetarians happy, I also grilled thick mushrooms and some halloumi – for these I used indirect heat, as I didn’t want to singe them.
Thanks to the sizey grill space, I was able to do this without any hassle. And I loved that I could do all this with ease on the Char-Broil – I was able to achieve a real range of heats.
The wide warming grill was great for slowly cooking some marinaded chicken thighs, and keeping the burgers warm as demand for them peaked and troughed.
Plus, the temperature gauge on the lid meant I could keep an eye on the heat. As always, Char-Broil’s bottle opener on the side is a nice touch. As are the three side tables – having a table at the front was a real revelation for me, as I could pop my cooking implements there.
Warming rack: yes; Accessories: bottle opener, grill rack tool; Dimensions (HxWxD): 1309x1328x774mm
How we tested these products
We grilled our way through testing these BBQs. Many different styles of cooking were tested, including roasting, grilling, smoking and rotisserie – where we could. We also cooked lots of different meats and veggies on the ‘cues to see how they handled delicate cuts of meats alongside thicker joints of meats.
As well as all that cooking, we put all the barbecues together ourselves. This helped us understand how robust they were – if they could stand up to the British weather, or if they were liable to blow away in a gust of wind. We also looked at how easy the grates were to keep looking sparkling, and for any extras that came with the package.
Where to buy the best charcoal BBQs in the UK?
You can buy your BBQ directly from the manufacturers. This is a good place to start if you’re particularly loyal to one brand, as you can easily compare all their models together and they often have new releases on there before they find their way to third-party retailers.
There is the option of third-party retailers, though. If you want a wide selection of charcoal bbqs, third-party retailers – especially bbq specialists – will provide you with that. Some will even have comparison tools to help you whittle down your choices.
Of course, you can always visit shops in person to see your BBQs in the flesh. There may be a limited range though, so if you have your heart set on a particular BBQ it’s always wise to phone ahead and check the shop you’re headed to has it in stock. Charcoal BBQs tend to be stocked at many garden centres and hardware stores, as well as department stores.
If you want to buy your BBQ online, here are some of the best places to buy charcoal bbqs online:
How much does a charcoal BBQ cost in the UK?
The cost of bbqs varies massively. You can pick them up for around £50 – especially the smaller ones. Are they amazing quality? Probably not. But charcoal bbqs are less complex than gas bbqs, so you might find a cheap bbq that lasts through many years if you look after it well.
At the other end of the scale, avid barbecuers can part with upwards of £1,000 on a top-of-the-range charcoal BBQ. These normally offer an elevated BBQ experience and superior build quality. Do you need to spend this much to get delicious BBQ food? No. But if you want to, we’re not going to stop you.