The Ultimate Guide to Buying Your First BBQ Grill

Purchasing a BBQ grill for the first time is a very exciting process, but it can also become a stressful one if you are not careful of the manner in which you go about doing so. BBQ grills are a huge investment, meaning that the preparations behind it must be very detailed before you make the final decision.

In this section, we will be going over some of the main factors that you should look for when buying a BBQ. All of the topics outlined in the list below will have a significant impact of the kind of experience that you will have with your grill from beginning to end.

Things To Look For Before BBQ Grill Purchase:

1. How much it costs
2. The type of fuel it takes
3. The material it is made of
4. Size in comparison to your space
5. Additional features
6. Heat levels
7. How durable it is

The very first thing that you should look for in a BBQ grill before buying it is probably the most important deciding factor on whether or not you will make the purchase. This factor is the amount of money that the grill in question will cost to buy.

When it comes to making any kind of purchase, the money will ultimately be the biggest factor to consider. In order to ensure that you are not over spending on your BBQ grill, it would be beneficial to come up with a budget for your purchase.

By indicating a set amount that you are expecting to pay for your new piece of equipment, you can sort results online according to your budget, and cut yourself off at a certain limit when your search results are getting a little too pricey.

On the contrary, if you are very determined to get the best quality grill that you can find, regardless of the price, you can complete all of the other steps in this list first, and make a plan to save up the money for the one you have chosen at a later time.

Regardless of whether you choose to set a budget or save up for your dream BBQ grill, the price will affect more than just how soon you will be able to make your purchase. As with any other purchase that you can make in life, you will get exactly what you pay for.

So, if you settle for a really good deal on a BBQ grill that seems to have it all, you might be disappointed when you have been using it for a few weeks and something breaks or it is not as durable as you expected it to be.

After browsing through some BBQ grills and deciding on a price range for yourself, you will need to do some research on what type of fuel the grill will require. The two main types of fuel on BBQ grills are natural gas and propane.

In order to use natural gas, you will need to have a designated natural gas line near the location of where your grill will be positioned. If you do not have access to one of these lines, you can go for a propane grill, which will require you to store cans of propane fuel in the compartment underneath.

While natural gas grills will be more expensive than the alternative due to the advanced convenience features, you might save more money overall when you go with one of these grills for your first purchase.

Even though propane grills will appear to be much cheaper in most circumstances, you will have to continue to refill the propane tank. The frequency of your replacement will largely depend on how much you use it, but this should be accounted for as a regular expense when you choose a grill that is fueled with propane.

The next factor to consider during your BBQ grill planning process is the material that it is made of. The main materials that you will usually find across different types of BBQ grills universally are sheet metal, cast iron, stainless steel, or cast aluminum.

The most desirable, and expensive, material out of this list is stainless steel. While it will cost you more to get one of these grills, you will enjoy the sleek appearance and professional quality of a pure stainless steel surface.

If you happen to decide on purchasing a stainless steel grill, it is very important that you make the purchase in person, in order to be able to test that the steel is pure and authentic.

Stainless steel is the most expensive option for the consumer to buy, but it is also more expensive for the suppliers to get their hands on it. As a result, there will be a lot of fake materials that are found inside of BBQ grills, disguised as pure stainless steel.

To get around the price of constructing one of these objects the right way, manufacturers will result to using mixtures of stainless steel and other metals, or just another metal material all around with a layer of shiny paint over the top of it.

While examining the grill that you are about to purchase, you should particularly look out for the frame and the body. You should be able to look very closely at the material in order to be able to detect any paint or fake materials.

However, there is another method that you can use in order to double check and be extra sure, because this will most likely be one of the biggest purchases you will make in a while.

Stainless steel is not a magnetic metal, meaning that if you stick a magnet near the material, there will be no magnetic pull or force between the two objects. Most other types of metals, however, will react to a magnet when it is put to the test.

When you are examining your potential new BBQ grill, it is a good idea to have a small magnet handy in your pocket. After assessing all of the individual parts and the changing colors of the surfaces, if any, you can hold the magnet up to different areas of the grill and see if it sticks.

During this experiment, you should cover more than one area of the grill. From top to bottom and side to side, the magnet should never stick to the grill, even a little bit. If you were to try to attach a magnet to a real stainless still BBQ grill like you would on a refrigerator, it would fall down immediately.

If there are any other kinds of metals mixed in with the material of the grill in question, the magnet test will immediately give it away, and you will know to shift your interest to another kind of grill.

Even though stainless steel is considered to be the favorite among BBQ grill materials, cast aluminum grills will usually last much longer than steel as far as quality goes. However, the material that you choose will depend on the look that you are going for as well as your desired price point.

When you have decided on the previous components on the list, you will need to find out what size grill you are looking for to fit the area you are trying to fill with it. To do this effectively, you can take a measuring tape to the designated grill location in your yard and find out the exact dimensions so you know exactly what to look for.

If you are trying to create a built in BBQ grill that is attached to the inside of another structure such as a concrete counter strip for an outdoor kitchen, your measuring skills will be very crucial during the process of choosing a grill.

The size of the grill will not only have to do with how much space you have available for it, but also what you will plan to do with it. If you are counting on frequent BBQ parties in your backyard where you feed the entire neighborhood on a weekly basis, you will need a larger grill to be able to cook large quantities of food all at once.

Otherwise, your guests would be waiting for hours to get their burgers and hot dogs if you were only able to cook about 5 of them at one time.

On the other hand, if you know that you will only be cooking for yourself on the weekends or for your immediate family on special occasions, you can opt for a small to medium sized grill.

While choosing the size of your grill, it is very important to be realistic about your lifestyle and your expectations for the product. You should not be settling for a size that is too small if you know that you will need a bigger one sometime down the line.

The only thing that choosing the wrong size grill will do is create an even bigger headache for you in the future. In the most ideal situation, you will be honest with yourself and make the decision of the grill size that you will need, and go through with the proper planning process in order to achieve it.

The features that your BBQ grill possesses will come after your choice of size. While considering the purchase of one of these grills, you should be very realistic in what you will be using it for in order to make the right decision.

Some popular features that come with most grills include side burners, multiple surfaces for cooking, smoker boxes, rotisserie burners, lights, and many more. These features will help you to carry out specific tasks such as roasting a chicken or smoking your food in a designated area within the grill.

To go back to the example that was mentioned earlier in this section, the multi-level surface feature on a BBQ grill would be very helpful in hosting backyard parties that are full of hungry guests.

Instead of using a one-note BBQ grill with just one surface over a burning fire, you can have two to three racks stacked on top of each other, all with the capability of cooking larger quantities of food at the same time.

When it comes to choosing the features of your grill, you will need to consider everything that you need, as well as what you don’t need. In the same way that you should be seeking out all of the individual features that you will use on a regular basis, you should let go of the ones that don’t mean much to you.

For example, if you are looking for a simple BBQ grill that has multiple cooking surfaces for your simple backyard BBQ parties, and you find one that comes with a rotisserie burner and smoker box, you will need to decide if you will put all of these features to work.

If you are only planning on cooking burgers and hot dogs on the grill plates and you can’t see yourself stringing a chicken onto the rotisserie burner at any time in the future, you might want to seek out a grill that comes equipped with the double surface grates only.

Even though it might sound better to have a fancy grill that can do a bunch of flips and tricks if you wanted it to, you will be wasting money on things that you will not use, when you could have just bought the simpler version that you actually needed for a fraction of the price instead.

Another one of the main factors to think about during your first BBQ grill purchase is the heat levels that it comes equipped with. Since the main function of a grill is to provide heat to your food for a quick and even cooking process, you will need to pay close attention to what you can achieve with the grill in question.

The BTU rating of a grill is a measurement number of the levels of heat that are provided by the burners inside of it. However, a higher BTU number does not translate to a grill that has hotter burner temperatures.

This is a common mistake that is made by a lot of first time BBQ grill buyers, but the BTU score does not correlate to the heat. Instead, this numerical classification is an average of a wide range of the grills’ factors, from its size to the heat it creates and how the same heat is distributed throughout the food that is placed in the grill.

While you are examining the BTU number, you should compare it to the shape and size of the grill in question, rather than taking one look at the number and deciding whether the grill will get hot enough for you or not.

In general, compacted grills that are smaller than the average will have the capability of cooking food at much hotter temperatures than their larger and bulkier counterparts. The same grills will also display low BTU numbers, which is why you should not let this credential fool you into making the wrong grill purchase decision.

Lastly, you will need to think about the durability of the grill that you are considering before you decide to make the purchase. The factors that will determine the overall durability include the main materials, how thick the metals are, the quality of equipment, and the general lifetime of this type of grill.

During this process, consider how strong the grill itself both looks and feels when you are examining it. Is the chosen material pure and authentic, or is it a mixture of other metals that will start to rust within a few months to a year of using it?

Do some research on the specific type of material that it is made out of in order to get a general expectation of how durable it will be. The chances are, if the parts on the grill look or feel cheap, they probably are. So, it is best to go with your gut during your in person inspection of the product prior to handing over any money.

The average lifetime of the grill that you are considering can be determined with some research on the particular brand or the material that it is constructed of.

You can get some helpful information that will point you in the right direction for your purchase when you look into the average lifetime, but there is an even bigger deciding factor in how long the grill will actually last.

While it is true that some materials are more durable than others, and will have a bigger chance of outlasting other similar materials, the actual lifetime of any BBQ grill will be up to you to decide as the owner.

The key to having a long lasting BBQ grill is keeping up with maintenance and cleaning tasks on a regular basis. In order for your new grill to work like a well-oiled machine, it must actually be taken care of.

This means that you should never leave it dirty, and if any parts are broken they should be immediately fixed. All in all, the effort that you put into your grill will be exactly what you get back from it.

If you make a consistent effort to stay on top of these tasks and make sure that your grill is well taken care of, it has the potential to last for several years. Even if you have decided on a less quality material for your grill purchase, you might still be able to see amazing results for long periods of time with the proper care routine.