Best Charcoal Grills of 2025
These six highly rated barrel- and kettle-style charcoal grills cook evenly and impart a smoky flavor to food
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Charcoal grills impart food with a smoky flavor that can’t be replicated in gas or other grill types. Charcoal grills take a little longer to master, but once you get over the initial learning curve, they offer excellent heat control.
With charcoal, the more you add, the hotter the fire. If you know what you’re doing, you can control the cooking surface to masterfully grill anything from a quickly seared steak to a slow-smoked pork shoulder. If you’re really serious about grilling and smoking, you might consider trading up to a kamado-style grill, combine charcoal with an airtight design to give you even more control, though they tend to be more expensive than traditional charcoal grills.
- Best Charcoal Grills: Barrel-Style Kettle-Style
- How CR Tests Charcoal Grills
Today, charcoal grills are the second most popular type of grill after gas grills, far outpacing the sales of pellet grills or kamado grills. But if you’re looking for a portable grill—one you can take camping or tailgating—opt for a small gas grill, as we currently don’t have enough data yet to recommend any portable charcoal models.
Best Barrel-Style Charcoal Grills
Barrel-style charcoal grills are rectangular and include many helpful features, such as adjustable cooking grates and a door to add charcoal. Most also have a removable ashpan. These grills hold more food than other grills but they use more charcoal, so expect to add lots of coals while cooking.
Best Kettle-Style Charcoal Grills
Kettle-style charcoal grills are smaller than most barrel grills, so they take up less space on a deck or patio. The tapered shape lets you build a deeper bed of coals than you can with a barrel grill, so you can sear or cook for longer without adding coals. That said, kettle-style grills typically hold less food than barrel-style grills.
How CR Tests Charcoal Grills
We test each charcoal grill with a full chimney of charcoal and spread the layer of coals evenly across the base of the grill. As with gas grills, we wire the charcoal-grill grates with thermocouples to conduct our lab tests. Here is how our testers assess charcoal grills:
- Cooking evenness: If you plan on frequently grilling for large parties, a great heating evenness is a must. We test a grill’s cooking evenness with thermocouples to make sure that a big batch of burgers or hot dogs would finish at the same time.
- Indirect cooking: We test a grill’s ability to slow-cook foods when the food isn’t placed directly over the charcoal. Models with a high indirect cooking score make for great slow cookers and can heat through a thick cut of chicken without drying it out.
- Convenience: We judge how easy it is to add coals, adjust the vents, move the grill, and more.
- Cleaning: Our testers evaluate how easy it is to remove the ash from the grill once cooking is complete.
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