Char-Broil 463660421 Performance 2-Burner Cabinet Style Liquid Propane Gas Grill, Stainless Steel

It’s a good grill, and I like it. But as I’m not sure where the customer will be in terms of knowing what infrared is and all of that, please bear with me while I get a little Alton Brown here.There are three kinds of cooking methods: convection, conduction, and radiant. When you’re roasting something, or boiling/braising something, you’re cooking by convection, or indirect heat. It’s characterized by the heat flowing around the item via air, water, or whatever (and yes, technically this means deep frying is convection...). In contrast, conduction is direct heat. You put the item in a frying pan over a burner…that’s conduction. And it works, but it’s also inefficient. Think of all the fuel being burned to achieve the rocket-hot temperatures required to properly cook a steak, for instance.So in contrast to all of that, we have radiant heat, and that’s what infrared is. In contrast to convection and conduction, radiant heat does not require a medium…it will travel, for instance, through a vacuum. It’s the reason we exist, being that the sun gives off all that radiant heat. In fact, this characteristic makes infrared pretty popular for grilling in colder areas, since infrared doesn’t have to fight colder ambient temperatures. In other words, while conduction will need to overcome a cold pan, infrared will not have that need.So what’s the benefit? I like infrared because it creates a much higher temperature at the grate than any other grill. Period. Moreover, it heats fast. Wicked fast. In my testing, I had a 750 degree temperature at the grate on this grill in under ten minutes. High heat means you can, for instance, get near-steakhouse quality on those chops you toss on there. And it’s at this point I have to quell what I think is overpromising by CharBroil on this grill. They will tell you that their Tru-Infrared will cook quickly, sear fast, and “lock in” juices. But that’s hyperbole. Searing creates a crust, true, but that’s the carmelization of proteins and such that are at the surface of the meat (aka the Maillard reaction). It creates great taste, true, but the real juiciness isn’t preserved by the searing. Instead it’s preserved by proper cooking and resting of the meat. This all said, this kind of brutal thermal assault can be a downside if you want to cook comparatively more delicate things like fish. Some grills offer a separate infrared burner coupled with a regular conductive side. This is not that grill…it’s all infrared. So consider that as you think about this grill. Indeed, with this grill you will very likely have a hard time doing low temperature until you get zen with it.This is a two burner configuration, so it doesn’t offer acres of cooking space. I found it ideal for an apartment or for a weeknight grill if you just want to do up something quick and easy. The first thing you’ll notice when assembling this grill (and assembly is straightforward but a little time consuming...don't rush) is that it uses a kind of odd burner/emitter/grate system. There’s a waffle-like stainless steel layer between the burner and the grate. This is your infrared emitter. The perforations are designed to only allow the infrared wavelength energy through (wavelength of under 1mm). From a practical standpoint, since it’s between your food and the burner, you will not get flareups. You will also not lose vegetables if they happen to fall through the grate. However, please know that the emitter can be a bit of a bear to clean…grease does have a tendency to clog the holes, and it’s those holes that must be clear in order to enable the infrared cooking in the first place. So tip: When cleaning, use a grill brush on both sides to dislodge any gunk, then run a toothpick along the perforations to clean them up, followed by another run with the grill brush. You can also clean the emitter by putting it in the self-cleaning mode of an oven.I appreciate that the grate is cast iron with a porcelain coating, although the grate is not strictly necessary. By that I mean the use of a cast iron grate is intended to enable conduction…and you know how we feel about conduction. Cast iron, being so dense, holds onto heat, but again, we’re cooking infrared so we couldn’t care less about conduction. The main utility of the grate is to keep food off the emitter.So what about use? Well, it works like crazy is what. Once you get into the zen of infrared, and it’s not a steep learning curve, you’ll enjoy it. Nothing does beef, chicken, or pork better. What’s more, because of the temperatures involved, you will get those grill marks on the food that makes everyone say Oooh, grilled food! I am not a fan of the top mounted thermometer (I don’t care about the interior temperature of the closed grill because I’m cooking with radiant, not convective heat) and would prefer a reading at grill level, but whatever. Theoretically I guess you could do indirect heat with this grill, just by turning on one burner, but to me that seems like using a Ferrari to go to the 7-11 (more on that in a minute when I talk about the cabinet) Same with the warming rack. I use it as a resting place for stuff just coming off the grill, but that’s really it.The cabinet is nice – stainless steel dominates, but don’t expect a quality grade of stainless. No, this is 400 series stainless and you really need to be careful with it. The cabinet, emitters, and burners all appear to be made with the same quality stainless. Well, after using this a few times the burners and emitters WILL discolor. At the temperatures we're talking about here, it's inevitable. Moreover, if you keep this thing on high heat with the lid closed, you run the risk of the lid discoloring as well (and the next step from discoloration is rust). It's a factor of using a lower grade stainless to meet the price point. Therefore, only run this thing with the lid open (it's infrared, you don't have to worry about colder air temperatures to get a good grilling temperature), If you want to do indirect heating, use your oven.For the shelving, regular old laminated steel is used. I like that it folds up compactly for storage…another point for this being an apartment grill…and it has the GearTrax system for hanging grill tools. Not a ton of space in the cabinet for storage, as it’s dominated by the propane tank.For care of this thing, well…listen. You’re going to keep this outside. The experience of humanity has been one in which we deal with water. The air has moisture. It rains. It snows. All of that. If you keep this thing outside, only protected by a canvas cover, you WILL SEE RUST in a couple of years. It’s inevitable. I keep my grills in a covered patio during grilling season, but when I winterize I remove all the guts out of the grill and keep them inside – remember, burning propane creates moisture that will rust out your burners if you aren’t maintaining them. You don’t have to go overboard, but you do have to pay attention to it.So verdict time. This is probably the best dollar-to-value ratio for a two burner infrared grill in the Char Broil line. Having the casters on the cabinet of course makes it easier to move around, and since this thing is made to store easy you’ll probably be moving it around more often than you think. Provided you do your part, this grill will have a lot of life in it. The technology here heats fast and cooks fast, with quite a bit of upside. It’s a good grill and I like it a lot.

I like it, it is very heavy so I expected that the mail service would beat it up pretty bad however, it was packaged well and had no damage. Assembly takes about 30-45mins. I will say that I do not like two things about the grill first, the arms are very easy to accidentally drop on you if you are interacting with them; second as others have stated this thing gets cherry hot.. I would advise that you start the grill on lowest settings don't do the traditional set to high to warm up trust me. I like it alot overall, the IR plates are just a different aspect to me so cooking with them is a learning experience. Hopefully it will withstand the weather. I'd recommend it

Got this because of the promise of no flames and juicer meats. Delivered on both counts. So far I've grilled burgers, steak, pork chops, chicken breast and thighs. All without any flames and all were juicier than a conventional grill.An update (Mar 2020) after 50+ grilling events. I mentioned meats were juicer. Burgers are so juicy that you'll need a bib to eat them, on my old Char-grill they were flat dry boards. All this from a frozen patty. So impressed. Also I never put anything on the grill until the thermometer read 400°F, takes ~15 min to reach that temp.As you can see from my photo I painted most of the grill cabinet and shelves silver. I didn't like the stainless and black look as shipped. I left the firebox black because some of it is porcelain and it would have required disassembly or masking, neither of which was I interested in doing.In addition to the painting I drilled three holes in each shelf flange and bolted the two pieces together. I hated the rattley fold down construction as designed so now the shelves are solid. If only Char-broil had provided a simple stainless steel shelf instead of this complicated folding cludge. Cheaper for them, better for most users.The assembly instruction had you using two people to assemble the firebox and lid onto the cabinet. Since I didn't have a second person, I disassembled the lid from the firebox. Needed a 11mm hex wrench so I finally used that 11mm socket that I thought I'd never use.Edit Aug, 2020: Found a better emitter plate scraper. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3BN7LE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1Comfortable handle with non-bending scraper blade.Overall very pleased with this TRU-Infrared grill. I'll use it 150-200 days each year so I'll have plenty of opportunities to find tune my TRU-Infrared grilling technique.

Bought this BBQ after reading all the hype and am disappointed. The marketing materials says that infrared is smokeless or has much less smoke. This is not the case for me. I live in a high rise and have the BBQ on my balcony. When grilling, it creates an absolute smoke show. I was scared that the neighbors were going to call the fire department. In my opinion the hot infrared emitter which is only 1/4 of an inch from the food is a recipe for a lot of smoke. Having said that, my steak was juicy and tender. But the amount of smoke makes this BBQ unusable for me. I fear that if I continue to use the BBQ with the infrared emitters, my building will ban BBQs. Also, the heat is hard to control using the emitters. You need to turn the gas to high to get reasonable heat.Today I used the BBQ without the emitters. I basically used it as a regular BBQ and there was no smoke. Any smoke was minimal and not a nuisance to anyone. The temperature was easy to control and I was able to BBQ with the controls on low, saving gas. The food was great.Had I known that I was buying just a regular BBQ I would have bought a weber. This BBQ is fine as a regular BBQ. I will not be using the infrared emitters anymore. Also, the emitters need to be cleaned after every use as they clog with grease and charred food.As a regular BBQ this BBQ is still a good value. Quality seems good.Update: I only use this BBQ as a regular BBQ and it works great. The emitter plates created a lot of smoke and fire when the plates are above the burners. I now have the emitter plates on the top grill and use it for vegetables.

This is the second one we have purchased for our Daughters and it is an excellent BBQ. The beauty of it is that it all comes apart for easy cleaning. The original one is very old perhaps 10 years old and still in tip top shape. Once it is cold it is always cleaned and covered.

A great barbecue. Easy to assemble and cooks like a charm. I love it. Customer service was great too. The BBQ arrived with a minor flaw in the finish on the top. I simply fired a picture off to Char-Broil and in less than 24 hours a replacement was on its way to me.

Didn’t take long to get the hang of this BBQSeems to heat evenly. Works efficiently.What’s not to like?

LOOOVE the Charbroil Infrared bq.Chef Lo