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Barbecues come in all shapes and sizes, from portable sizzlers and charcoal smokers to six-burner, gas-powered grills. Our expert guide will help you on your way to picking the perfect barbecue that suits your needs, preferences and budget.
To choose the best barbecue for you, it’s worth taking time to think through what you'll be cooking, where, how often and for who. That way you can pick one that's the right size and has all the features you need to fit your style of cooking and entertaining.
Our barbecue reviews can help you compare and find the best barbecues right away, or you can keep scrolling for expert tips on how to buy the best barbecue.
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The best gas barbecues are thoughtfully made, have all the features you need and, most of all, help you cook up delicious barbecue food that’s guaranteed to impress family and friends.
The worst gas grills don’t cook food evenly and give you bland flavours that lack any authentic barbecue taste.
Here's our pick of the top five gas barbecues from our expert lab tests, including the cheapest gas barbecue to ace our tests.
Which? members should log in now to view our recommendations below. If you’re not already a member, join Which? to get instant access to all our reviews.
This Best Buy barbecue is an excellent choice for inexperienced barbecue chefs because it's easy to get good results from. It has a high-quality finish and cooks tasty barbecue food. It's powerful enough to grill and roast food quickly and evenly, and its top-spec features make it extremely simple to use.
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We struggled to find fault with this brilliant gas barbecue. Our expert chef rated its cooking ability five stars out of five, praising the food’s perfect charring and mouth-watering succulence. It’s simple to use, too, with a quick heating time, easy-to-control heat and practical design.
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This portable gas barbecue impressed us with its great cooking results and simple-to-use design. If you’re looking for a portable barbecue that works brilliantly and is easy to carry around, we think this Best Buy model is a very good choice.
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This small and compact, reasonably-priced two-burner barbecue that would fit nicely in a small garden. It's simple and full of high-spec features, but how well does it cook? We've tested and reviewed this gas grill to discover what it's like to use. Read our review to see if it's for you.
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This gas barbecue’s fantastic cooking ability, high build quality and easy-to-use design make it a top pick. It has three burners and comes with some handy features, including a cupboard, fold-down side shelves and sear plates, which make it easier to control the heat.
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Table updated May 2022.
None of these gas grills jumping out at you? Take a look at our full range of barbecue reviews.
The best charcoal barbecues are well-designed, easy to use and, most importantly, give you tasty food full of tender juices and smoky barbecue flavours.
The worst we’ve tested take too long to get to cooking temperature and are a real pain to assemble and move.
We’ve pulled out our top three charcoal barbecues from our tests in the table below, including the cheapest charcoal barbecue to ace our tests.
Which? members should log in now to view our recommendations below. If you’re not already a member, join Which? to get instant access to all our reviews.
This is a superb compact charcoal barbecue that can easily outperform its full-size counterparts. It's beautifully well-made, produces delicious food, and is very easy to use . You can buy lots of additional accessories to cook a range of meals and it's incredibly sturdy too.
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This reasonably-priced barbecue really impressed us with its ability to grill food well. Both of our barbecue chefs noted that the food cooked on it had the characteristic flavours and tenderness that you'd expect to find on any great charcoal barbecue. It’s easy to use and very portable, so we had no problems making it a Best Buy.
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For succulent, smoky food, this high-quality kettle-style barbecue is a great choice. It’s easy to use and comes with plenty of useful features, including adjustable air vents, a temperature gauge and a removable ash collector.
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Tables updated May 2022.
Not seeing the right charcoal barbecue for you? Browse all of our barbecue reviews.
Watch our video, below, for our expert tips on how to choose the best barbecue for your needs and budget.
Choosing the type of barbecue you go for is a big decision. Finding the right type will depend on the style of barbecue you like to have, the time you’re willing to spend grilling and the features you need to ensure your food is cooked the way you like.
Gas and charcoal barbecues are the most common but they aren’t the only barbecues available. We’ve also tested electric barbecues, kamado grills and smokers, too. Keep scrolling for the pros and cons for all types of barbecues.
Gas barbecues combine gas hobs and grill bars to give you a versatile and easy-to-use outdoor cooker. If you want a grill that’s simple to get going and which offers lots of handy features, a gas barbecue could be the choice for you.
Pros:
Cons:
See all our gas barbecue reviews.
Charcoal is the go-to for those who like their barbecues traditional and full of authentic, smoky flavours.
There are three main types of charcoal barbecue:
See all of our charcoal barbecue reviews.
Kamado grills, such as the Big Green Egg, are Japanese-style charcoal barbecues made out of heavy ceramic instead of metal. They’re often egg-shaped and usually require lumpwood charcoal for fuelling your cooking.
Want to see how good kamados really are? We’ve tested and tried out models such as the Kamado Joe Jr, the Aldi Kamado egg and the Kamado Joe Classic II to give you the answers you need.
An electric grill may not appeal to barbecue purists, but if you’re short on space and still want an outdoor cooking experience they can be a great choice. They’re perfect for cooking on a balcony or in a small garden.
See all of our electric barbecue reviews.
Have you been watching with envy those American-style smoker barbecues with beef briskets, pulled pork and sizzling ribs? Any long-burning charcoal barbecue, like a kamado, can be used to smoke, but there are also specialist smokers available.
We’ve got our hands on a couple of barbecues that double up as smokers. Check out our reviews for the Landmann Kentucky Smoker and the Char-broil Big Easy Smoker, Roaster and Grill to see if they tickle your fancy.
We don't test disposable barbecues as they are potential fire hazards and cannot be reused, meaning they are not an environmentally friendly option. We do, however, test portable models that are perfect for taking camping and, as they can be used multiple times, they're also a far more sustainable choice.
Find the best portable models by reading our barbecue reviews.
This all depends on how much you can afford and how durable you want your barbecue to be. Barbecues vary widely in price: disposable grills cost a few pounds, while the priciest multi-grilled outdoor kitchens can set you back thousands.
You’ll often see cheaper barbecues that have some of the features of more expensive ones, but many compromise on build quality. A cheap barbecue will still be a waste of money if the features are shoddily made, as they won't last long and won’t give you the results you want.
Most barbecues we test are around the £300 to £350 mark, but a Best Buy is likely to cost just over £400 on average. As a rule, we find that if you spend more on a barbecue, you can expect to see features such as:
Of course these aren't hard-and-fast rules, and spending more on a barbecue won't necessarily guarantee you better performance. In fact, we've tested a couple of Best Buys costing under £200, so there's no need to splash out unless you really want to.
Our expert assessments of build quality and stability in our barbecue reviews will help you find the gems that are still made of high-quality materials despite their lower prices.
For a general guide as to how much you should expect to pay for a good barbecue, check out the guide below. It lists the average scores of the barbecues we’ve tested in various price ranges:
How easy barbecues are to manoeuvre is an extra-important factor when we calculate the test score of portable barbecues. Head to our guide on how we test barbecues to learn more about what makes up our test scores.
There’s a lot more to barbecuing than just grilling. Some models can fry, sauté, boil, bake and roast a whole range of food.
Our barbecue reviews list all the handy features each barbecue has, so you can make sure you have everything you need from the grill you buy. They include:
See our round-up of the best BBQ tongs.
Even the most well-known and reputable barbecue manufacturers can end up producing bad models, which is why it's important to read our individual barbecue reviews.
However, if you want an overall impression of how the different barbecue brands perform, we survey thousands of barbecue owners every two years to tell us about the barbecues they own - from how likely they'd be to recommend a brand, to how reliable the barbecues are once you get them home.
Our product experience surveys, combined with our extensive lab tests, mean we can recommend the best barbecue you should buy.
Find out which barbecue brand to buy in 2022.
There are countless shops to choose from when buying a barbecue - including specialist brands, such as Weber, high street DIY stores such as B&Q and Homebase, and online retailers such as Amazon and Argos. Whether you're shopping online or in-store, make sure you pay attention to the shop's returns policy.
Popular online retailers that stock barbecues include:
Make sure you check the instructions on your gas barbecue before buying fuel for it. It will need one of:
Most gas barbecues use propane, and will come with the right regulator attached, which is the valve you connect up to your grill. The valve will usually need screwing on, but green canisters (often called ‘patio gas’) have clip-on valves that are easier to attach.
The more burners you use, the more gas you will use, but as a general guide a 13kg canister of propane will fuel a three-burner grill for around 15 hours.
You can buy gas canisters and refills at some DIY stores, garden centres, petrol stations and specialist retailers. A small deposit of around £30 is usually required to rent a canister, and the fuel itself will cost roughly the same.
Returning the canister once you’re finished will get your deposit refunded, and if you bought it, it can be recycled free of charge too.
Which charcoal you should use to fuel your barbecue is largely down to how long you want to cook for and how hot you want your coals to burn:
You can get either fuel in large bags of 5kg or more from supermarkets during the late spring and summer months, and most DIY stores, hardware shops and petrol stations all-year round. Larger lumps of charcoal are trickier to light and last longer, so if you're after a quick barbecue there are smaller charcoal bags available that you ignite without opening them. They light very easily and burn through quickly.
It’s easy to just daydream of your grill shining in all its glory out on the patio, but before you buy one you’ll need to consider how you plan to move and store it away.
Large barbecues are especially heavy and difficult to move, and some of those we’ve tested have weighed as much as 67kg. If you’re happy to buy a cover for your barbecue and leave it out all year, it’s not so much of an issue, but if you need to store it away in the shed after each use, here are some things to bear in mind:
Some barbecues have collapsible parts and carry handles that help with transportation. Our barbecue reviews take these elements into account and rate how manoeuvrable each barbecue is over a specially designed obstacle course.
Follow our tips to keep your barbecue running smoothly for longer.
For more advice on protecting your barbecue, see our guide on how to care for your barbecue.
Which? is independent meaning we work for you, the consumer. We buy all the products that go to our test lab, so you can be sure that our barbecue recommendations are influenced only by our test results and not by the manufacturers.
Find out more about the lengths we go to in our test lab by visiting how we test barbecues.
Ready to pick out your grill? Head to our full list of barbecue reviews to see all the models that have gone through our tests.