Best Gas Grills of 2024
To determine the best gas grill and get a sense of how these grills perform in different cooking scenarios, we conduct three tests. Based on different types of meat, methods, and heat settings, these tests reveal how efficiently and evenly a grill does (or doesn’t) cook.
Ribs
Our first test is ribs. It’s an anecdotal round, so there’s no connected thermometer set or software to capture specific data. We preheat each grill on high for 10 minutes before turning it back down to low, indirect heat. Depending on the size of the grill, that means turning one or two burners all the way off.
We remove the outer membrane from a rack of pork back ribs and season it with an all-purpose rub that we use for ribs and chicken. Then the ribs are placed on the racks for at least three hours with the lid closed the entire time.
Testing the ribs takes three hours and is done over a low, indirect heat source.
Rib lovers may not agree with this relatively short and smokeless cooking method, but it shows us how well a regular propane grill can cook low and slow. If time permits, we continue cooking until the ribs are cooked through and record the total cooking time.
Chicken
To test the grill with a medium cook time and medium heat settings, we grill a whole chicken. We preheat the grill on high for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to medium and turn off the burners to create an indirect heat environment.
After trimming and seasoning the chicken, we place it in a roasting pan and insert a temperature probe into each chicken breast, for a total of two probes per chicken (this is an important step, even if your grill has a built-in thermometer, because undercooked chicken is not good for anyone). To keep our results as fair as possible, we weigh all of the chickens as close to 5.5 pounds as possible.
Whole chickens are cooked over indirect, medium heat until both breasts reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Those temperature probes are connected to a data logger and laptop with software that records the internal temperature of each chicken breast every two seconds. Each chicken cooks until the temperature in both breasts reaches a food-safe 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grilled chicken should have crispy skin and meat that is cooked through but not dry. We do this test in three rounds, which gives us a solid average cooking time for each grill.
Hamburgers
Burgers are our final test for our grill reviews. We measure out 5.3 ounces of 80/20 ground beef and press them into uniform patties. Those patties go into a grill basket and we insert a temperature probe into the center of each patty at a 45-degree angle.
With the grill preheated on high for 10 minutes, the basket goes on the grill. After six minutes of cooking, we flip the basket and check the internal temperature. Once the last burger in the basket reaches 145 degrees Fahrenheit, the batch is done. A good burger in this test is one that has both a nice outside and a light pink inside.
The burgers are placed on the grill, over direct, high heat.
When testing burgers, any hot spots on the grill’s cooking surface will become apparent if one burger consistently reaches 145°F (63°C) before the others in each round.
An average difference of 15 or 20 degrees between the fastest and slowest patties in a batch was the norm in our tests. Alarm bells start ringing when we start seeing differences in the 30 to 40 degree range.
