The Weber Grill Is Still the King of Grills

One day about a year ago, I got a call from my neighbor, Rick. He was packing up his pick-up truck and moving cross-country, and he asked if I wanted his old Weber kettle grill.

I already had a gas grill, which was all gleaming metal and sharp lines, so reflexively, I told him no, I did not want his dusty old charcoal grill. I was using the gas grill almost every night, and it could be manipulated to meet any grilling need. Why would I need this half-barrel that looked more like a trash can than a gourmet cooking device?

Almost immediately after declining Rick’s offer, I started thinking about that Weber. Using only a gas grill seemed close-minded, like choosing to only use a microwave oven despite the existence of stoves. Somewhere inside of me, my inner caveman yearned to set fire to a pile of coals and throw some meat atop the glowing embers.

So I called Rick right back and told him if he hadn’t already found a home for that Weber, I would gladly welcome it to my backyard menagerie. By the time I came home from work, that bad boy was parked on my back patio, ready to go.

And I’ve used it pretty much exclusively ever since.

Buying a gas grill as my first grill certainly seemed like the adult thing to do. A gas grill provides certainty, which is probably it’s most popular selling point. It has dials on the front so you can precisely control the heat, and wheels like a hospital bed so you can roll it around. You can even summon flames with the push of a button. For all of this convenience, a gas grill costs multiple times what the Weber grill (which starts at $165) will run you. And there are certainly times that I rely on that convenience: When I want to cook on my gas grill, I roll it out, light it up, and within 10 minutes can have my food sizzling.

By contrast, there’s not much that’s fast about using a charcoal grill. I usually have to begin the cooking process by cleaning out the grill from the last time I used it. Once that’s accomplished, I have to get a tower of charcoal lit, then wait for that to burn down and start glowing, which gives me thirty minutes to work my way through a cold beverage. Then I have to heat up the grates, then clean them off, and then, maybe an hour after I started the process, it’s time to start cooking.

But when else do you get an hour to yourself? My wife recently credited me with introducing her to “slow living,” which I’m pretty sure was an underhanded dig at my inability to accomplish most everyday tasks in a timely fashion. She’s not wrong, though: I spend all day long at work accomplishing tasks with alacrity. Getting home and being able to sit and wait can be the highlight of my evening.

A charcoal grill is also dirty business, and there’s really no way around that. Even with the chute at the bottom of the Weber that makes it easier to dispose of your debris, it’s pretty much impossible to use without getting ashes all over the place. Yet I’ve come to relish the opportunity to get my hands dirty. When one of the louvers that covers the air holes in the bottom of the grill broke off, I bought replacement parts and tried to fix it. After spending an hour with my neighbor and a hammer and a screwdriver, sweating all over the place and getting covered with grease and charcoal dust, we eventually gave up. But the grill still works just fine. When this one eventually falls apart, I’ll buy a new one. Until then, I’m good to go.

More than anything else, I enjoy the challenge of cooking on a charcoal grill. You have to decide what kind of fire you want to build, then adjust your food accordingly. Too hot? (Hot damn!) Not enough heat? Where do you position your food? Cover on or off? Leave the air holes open or close them? There are all questions that must be considered whenever I use the Weber. Your ability to think on the fly and solve problems matters on this grill. Cooking on a charcoal grill is as much about art as it is about science. Finesse is at least equal to technical skill, and the only way to be successful is to understand the dance between heat and food and proximity.

At the end of the day, all I need to cook food is heat. There are certainly methods that are more efficient or easy, but having the opportunity to sit in front of a fire blasting away inside my Weber kettle while I wait for time to take its course is a delicious opportunity. And that’s really all I need.

Originally Appeared on GQ