New grill, not prone to flare-ups. Please recommend.

[joseywales]

Ok, so I bought a grill on sale last year and it’s OK, but the grease fires are getting on my nerves. Until now I had always used the grills with briquits and I’m guessing they catch/hold the grease, preventing flare-ups. My wife will kill me, but I want to buy a better grill. She always uses foil in the grill, which prevents flare-ups, but I think is ridiculous, unless I’m wrapping something like corn.

Keep in mind that regular maintenance, i.e. cleaning the grease pan, is not likely to happen, until the kids are in college. Between the activities, the pool, etc., there’s just no time! As an example, I wanted a self-defrosting or frost-free freezer 6 years, but the wife wanted to save the $50 and get the manual defrost. Now I can barely fit her head into the freezer.

Anyway, is there any grill in the $300 range that is reliable and not prone to flare-ups? Is it possible I'm not doing something correctly?

 

[mart242]

Keep a spray bottle nearby.. or get a big green egg and don't look back (plus, I think you could cremate a body in there..)

 

[Molson]

You can get a Traeger Junior $400-500. It will never flare up.

 

[No P in my ool]

My Char-Broil Red never flares up. I can put 10lbs of chicken leg quarters on and walk away. Love it!

 

[rpeiffer]

I got a weber summit two years ago and it is the best grill i've ever owned. I had other webers and a duquesne (sp?). It's a little pricy but has a great warranty on the burners, grates, interior parts.

 

[ivyleager]

My Char-Broil Red never flares up. I can put 10lbs of chicken leg quarters on and walk away. Love it!

Me too. Just got it a few weeks ago. Can't imagine ever having done without it!

 

[guamguy]

Now I can barely fit her head into the freezer.

:lol:

 

[flyweed]

if you wanna get rid of flare ups for good...you need a good grill...we are talking Big Green Egg, or Kamado..ceramic style..it's the only way you'll never have flare ups again. I know they are expensive..I bit the bullet and have NEVER looked back again. Best money every spent

 

[stephanie4136]

My husband just got the Char-Broil Quantum Commercial Series 3-Burner Stainless Steel Gas Grill about two weeks ago for Father's Day.....a little early, I know. He loves it! It uses infrared heat. He wanted something that doesn't flareup or burn his eyes from all the smoke and this grill is it! We gave $399, but they have it on sale at Lowes until June 20 for $319.20. I will be going back this week to get the difference back, will probably spend it on something for the pool since he said I could have it if I went back to get it.

*Editted to add
Stainless Burners-Lifetime Warranty
Firebox & Lid-2 yrs
All Other Parts- 1 yr

 

[Big Thunder]

My Char-Broil Red never flares up. I can put 10lbs of chicken leg quarters on and walk away. Love it!

Me too. Just got it a few weeks ago. Can't imagine ever having done without it!

Me three! Just did chicken the other night. Perfect every time.

 

[BravoRomeo]

Take a good look at the Traeger pellet grills. I've gone through four grills in my life...

Grew up with dad cooking on a Weber kettle. Yum.

When I got my first place, I bought a common $200 gas grill w/side burner. It worked well enough, but flareup city, and eventually it just kind of corroded away.

Fed up with that experience, I got a good ol' Weber charcoal kettle. Back to Yum. Work, yes, lots of ashes... not exactly convenient on a weeknight, but doable. Kind of fun to start with one of those chimney starters and a couple sheets of newspaper. But... always running out of dusty messy charcoal.

Day job went very well and we all received brand new Weber Silver gas grills. It was time to go back to the convenience of gas, and this one was pretty dang good. Hardly flares up. Kind of a smoky taste (smoked grease, really, but I added a wood chip box to try to get some smoke taste). Pretty convenient for a weeknight chicken breast or fillet. Always running out of propane, and in the middle of a cook! Plumbing it into the house gas line would've made more sense... I hated dragging the tank to the store. Aside from the fantastic sear marks, in the end it still was a glorified gas oven. Hmm.

I was starting to miss the taste and ritual of the old Weber kettle, and wished there was some kind of true hybrid... convenience of gas, and the taste of cooking on wood. Saw a demo of the Traeger wood pellet grills at Costco one day. I had never heard of anything like that, and it made a heck of a lot of sense. :idea: Cooking on wood, but the convenience and even better control than gas... you actually set the temperature like an oven.

So, two years later, and still love it. No flare ups: we cooked two pounds of uncured bacon on it one Sunday morning. Mistake!! It was so good, the two of us ate ALL OF IT. In one sitting. Bad bad bad!!! ig: The taste is out of this world, and when I run low on pellets, I just grab a bag from the garage and pour more into the hopper. Much less of a nuisance than either charcoal or propane.

I highly recommend Traeger and similar pellet grills. What a great invention!

 

[barnyard]

[quote="No P in my ool":36d92blx]My Char-Broil Red never flares up. I can put 10lbs of chicken leg quarters on and walk away. Love it!

Me too. Just got it a few weeks ago. Can't imagine ever having done without it!

Me three! Just did chicken the other night. Perfect every time.[/quote:36d92blx]

Me four!!! Not one flare up in the over a year I have owned it

 

[btmonroe]

I have had a Holland grill for 10+ years now. It has no flare up. My wife is not intimidated by lighting or grilling on it. In fact we probably use our grill for dinners more than our oven year round. We even fry our bacon right on the grid, with no flare up. I does cook somethings perfectly, but sometimes I want a flame to lick the steak or burger. I absolutely love my holland, but played with my friends green egg. I have to say I like it too. It looks like we might have 2 grills in our household at some point.

 

[cws91]

I purchased these several months ago and love them... used to routinely fight flare-ups but not with the grill grates

http://grillgrate.com/

 

[elwood58]

I have the Char-Broil Commercial Series, and love it. It has a special perforated sub grill system that eliminates flare ups.

We have the Bull BBQ Island at our vacation home, and I have to keep a squirt bottle on hand, as it tends to flare up badly, especially on the back 1/3 of the grills.

 

[SkidRowe]

I'll second the Green Egg. I see that most are recommending gas grills and they are fine, but the OP didn't specify. The ceramic grills can easily do double duty as a smoker or Grill so if you ever do any smoking then remember that you are getting 2 for the price of one. My BGE will get to 700 Degrees in about 45 minutes and if I want can get to over 1000. It will also smoke low and slow 200 for over 30 hours without ever adding more charcoal.

Clean up is a snap, just rake out the ash after every couple of uses. There is not much ash for the the amount of fuel that you put in. No rust to worry about, and it should be the last cooker that you ever buy, as long as you dont drop it!

 

[niget2002]

I was just about to mention these as well:

http://grillgrate.com/

I don't have any yet, but a friend does. They seem to work great on his grill.

 

[BravoRomeo]

Just cooked up some Costco/Trident Salmon burgers for lunch on my Traeger with a new set of GrillGrates. They do give some traditional sear marks, something *most* pellet grills are not particularly good at. Not exactly blackened/charred stripes, but dark red (smoke does funny things like that). Kind of mixed on them. I'm sure if I pulled the drip pan and heat deflector out, I could get them very hot, but I do like the no-mess cleanup of the drip pan.