Weber Ranch Kettle Review

It didn't take very long for me to realize that grill BBQ's product much better tasting food than a gas BBQ. Once you have tasted the difference you'll never want to cook gas cooked food for your friends or family again.

However there are some important things to consider when buying decent grill BBQ, these are:

Cooking Capacity

Quality Metal of the Grill

How Well Treated the BBQ is

Ease of Use

If you think that all grill BBQ's are the same and just grabbing the cheapest one of the market is the way to go, then you are in for a huge disspaointment. Stick with me, as I am about to explain everything you need to know and how this relates to the Weber Ranch Kettle.

Before I explain all the feature that you need to look for in a grill BBQ, I first want to explain why the weber grill style is such as good choice. The secret to Weber's producing such amazing tasting food, is that they use what is known as "Indirect Cooking". This is very clever style of cooking because the food is cooked using natural convection so the fire does not actual touch the food directly.

Infact you can cook a complete whole lamb or turkey in under two hours easily!

You might wonder what the big is with that...and I did too, until I worked out that it means you don't have to turn the meat, so you're free to do whatever you like once the Weber is cranking. All you need to do is fill it up and leave to do it wonders! Believe me the taste it unbelieveable, your friends and family will be impressed with your BBQ.

The other cool thing you can do with a Weber Ranch Kettle is build your fires to the sides, under the grill, and place meat in the center, which will smoke the meat, and produce delicous flavors.

Another great benefit of the Weber Ranch Kettle is the easy to control vents allow you to regulate the heat and burn time of the coals.

Obviously when you are looking at buying a grill BBQ, the gril is a key element. What you need to consider is the size of the grill and also the metal it is made from.

First lets look at the size. If you want a entertain a party, work gathering, social sports event, or even a family, you need a decent sized grill.

The reason for this is so that you can fit multple chickens, turkeys, steaks, and side dishes all in there at the SAME time. The last thing you want to have to do is put a few chickens on for 90 mins and then have to wait for the next batch of food after that.

This defeats the purpose of having a Weber as their "Indirect Cooking" style means you can leave them to cook on their own. So you can load them up and leave them to cook for the entire crowd.

The Weber Ranch Kettle is 1104 square inches of cooking surface!! You can easily fit two large turkeys in this thing and still have room for steaks, sausages, and side dishes. It's truly a mammoth of a BBQ. Cooking for 50 people at a time is not a problem!

The grill itself is a heavy duty plated steel cooking grate, which means it will not bend out of shape like cheaper imitations made from lower quality metal tend to. So you can cook at high temperatures without concern.

However the design of the grill, being on a hinge, also means that you can very easily get access to the coals. All you need to do is lift the grill and it opens right up so you can add coals and wood with ease.

It's important that you buy a BBQ that is made to last. You don't want to buy a low quality grill BBQ that will just end up rusting after a few months outside.

Rust and heat damage is the worst thing to happen to a grill BBQ. Once these things start, your BBQ is on the way out. Holes will start to apprear in the metal which then causes heat to be lost, and the quality of the cooking is lost.

Better quality BBQ's are well treated so that the metal not only with stands rust and the elements, it also stands up to extreme heat, so it doesn't warp and break.

Again you can't beat the Weber Ranch Kettle for this. Weber treat the metal over a three day period!! This ensure the best quality prodct for a long lasting high performance BBQ in the Ranch Kettle. They also use porcelain-enameled coating to prevent rust

Other cheap immitations treat the metal in 3 hours, and the result is low quality, you may save a few bucks on the price but you will regret it.

I don't particularly like things that are hard to use, especially when it comes to cooking. I like great tasting food that is easy to prepare. This is one of things I look for in great grill BBQ.

You want to make sure that the BBQ can be contructed without needed to know Rocket Science, and also that it is easy to use, transport and clean.

There is nothing worse than a grill BBQ that has poor quality handles for the lid. The reason being is that if you try to open it while it is cooking you run the risk of getting burned badly. You can use protective gloves, but its just another inconvenience.

Quality BBQ's like the Weber Ranch Kettle has overcome this with their high attention to detail design, by using thermoplastic glass-reinforced handles, which remain cool to touch when you want to move the lid.

When you are cooking in a grill BBQ you get ash as the by product of burning coals and or wood. This ash can be a nightmare to clean if the unit doesn't come with a good ash catcher. Some grills simply let the ash build up under grill and cleaning it out can be a messy process.

What you want to look for is a BBQ with a removable ash catcher undermeath. These make cleaning the ash very easy to do. All you have to do is unclip the ash try and empty out. The Weber Ranch Kettle comes with such a ash catcher and therefore clean up is very straight forward.

One final point on ask catchers, is that the Weber Kettle has a large catcher too, so you can cook for a long time before you even have to consider emptying the ask out.

One of the best things about grill cooking is the lack of oil bid up all over the food. This is not healthy, especially if you use low quality oils. However Weber Kettles allow the meat, such as a Turkey, to drip the oil from it down and into the disposable drip tray below.

What this means is you get fat-free cooking, which is much better for you and you avoid those annoying fat fires that can happen on badly designed grills.

There are a number of cool things that Weber do, that show they focus on important detail, and I've mentioned a few of them above. One thing I think is cool is that you get a Weber Cook Book, with the Ranch Kettle.

You would be amazed at how much you can do with a Weber, there was stuff I would never have even considered before, and this is a nice extra bonus in my opinion.

The Weber Kettle Grill is available at may local stroes in most cities, however I found that shopping online will save you money. When I researched and did price comparisons, I found the Kettle for $1,49 at many stores, some even higher prices. But really you shouldn't pay more than $1200 for it.

The cheapest I came across was Amazon who consistently sell the BQQ for $1,100.

Yes the Weber Ranch Kettle comes with a warranty. The grill comes with a 1 year warranty and other parts have atleast a 5 year warranty, some parts even have 10 years.

This Grill BBQ has received very positive reviews from many users that I found across the internet on consumer sites. The average customer review on Amazon was 4.5 stars too, which is a good sign.

Here's some of the most recent comments to date:

"This kettle allows me to cook for one, two, or fifty,(people) with little problem...."

"...it's by far the best grill I've ever used."

"I've yet to make a bad meal on the Ranch Kettle..."

"If you are a true charcoal kind of guy/gal, you owe it to yourself to get this grill..."

"I can cook anything on this baby..."

"This is built to last..."

"A great investment!"

I didn't find many complaints when I was researching, however one that I did read was that the Weber doesn't have a shelf to place plates on and other utensils. However it does have several hooks to hang utensils on so its not a problem, but if you want more space for sauces and plates then you will have to use a seperate table.

You can grab this BBQ straight from Amazon. They offer free shipping with this BBQ also, and with their already low price this makes for a the best deal on Amazon.

The best place to find more reviews from people who have used the Weber Ranch Kettle is over at Amazon. Click here to read more