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List Price: $349.00
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Had this grill for a year so far and I wanna address some points people brought up:
"Cleaning it is a pain" Not really. In fact, it's pretty easy since the grates come off and the infrared panels come out too. I clean it after every use and is very easy. I could see it becoming a pain if you: use lots of sweet/syrupy sauces and NEVER clean it. Then yes, things could get crusty. If you don't have time to clean it after EVERY use, just leave it on high heat for about 10 min after cooking and all the crud brushes off pretty easily.
"It Rusts" Still no problem here. If you don't clean it, let it sit in the rain, and never treat the grates, yes, you will get rust just like every grill. If you take care of the grates by wiping them/spraying them with vegetable oil after every other use, they will hold up just fine. Same with the infrared panels. If you keep your grill outside...clean it, oil it, COVER IT.
"Flair-ups still happen" No. They don't. This is one thing that I really like about this grill. No matter how many greasy burgers you have going, you don't have to worry about opening the lid and being surprised with a huge bon fire. This grill doesn't "catch on fire" like others.
My Thoughts: The only reason I'm not giving this a full five stars is because of two things:
First: it takes about 10-15min to get it hot enough to start cooking...which is pretty standard for most grills. However, Some people say that it can't produce a good sear. If you want something seared, best to wait over 20min...it works, you just have to be patient.
Second: The heat is a little uneven. Granted, it only takes one or two uses to grasp the heat distribution, it can be a tricky at first. The back edge gets hotter than the front but the center is very even. If you're cooking something, just keep an eye on what's happening in back...you'll probably have to swap the front meat with the rear stuff half way through cooking. If you wanna visually see how the heat is distributed, go out an buy a cheap loaf of white bread. Turn on the grill and then line the entire grill surface with the bread. Give it a few minutes then turn it off and flip over your now toasty bread. Now you can see where the heat is.
**** Edit July 2013*****
So I've now had this grill for about 3 1/2 years and wanted to give everyone an update how it's held up so far...surprisingly well. The first year I had it, I took care of it all the time and kept it covered always. Year 2, got a little bit lazy but still took pretty good care of it. Year three, I forget to cover it sometimes and am getting lazy in cleaning the infrared grates. That all being said, it still works perfectly fine. I don't have anything rusting out the bottom and all the elements still kick on....I've only needed to change the ignition battery once.
The infrared grates are the only things that seem to be aging a bit. They were starting to get gunked up with some charred food (and got a little smokey as a result), and started to see some rust...but that's mainly attributed to me breaking rules 1 and 2 above. I sucked it up and brushed the crap out of them and they seem to be working much better. Regardless, I'll probably need to replace them in another year or so (In year 4 or 5). Other than that, seems to be going well.
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I am a grill fanatic so when it was time to pick out a new one, research was a borderline obsession of mine. I settled on this IR grill from Char-Broil.
The major, most important thing to consider about this grill is that it cooks much more quickly than your standard LP grills and is a lot more like charcoal in that sense. You need to "relearn" grilling times to an extent but once you do, you'll have the best grilled foods you could possibly imagine! Here are the things I love most about it and really helped make my mind up about this one over its competitors.
Best Features:
-Temp gauges at the grilling surface: I've never seen this on any other grills before and helps to keep an eye on the temperature where it matters: at the surface. You don't measure your stove top temps at the hood, do you? Exactly.
-Folding shelves: this allows the grill to become extremely compact and makes for easy storage out on the porch. It also makes it an ideal choice for people in smaller residences like apartments, condos, townhomes, etc.
-Infrared: By far, the most important thing! It's not all "marketing hype", it truly makes a huge difference! IR will sear the outside of the food and "trap" the juices inside, making EVERYTHING more juicy than you can even imagine! Plus, it makes really cool sear marks. Like I said, pay attention to cook times, though, as stuff cooks extremely quick on this. If you don't have one, I'd suggest an instant read thermometer as well.
There simply isn't a better grill in this size or price range. Period, bar none. And if you need a bigger grill, I'd look at Char Broil's Quantum grills that are bigger instead of straying. One of the best purchases I've made in a LONG time!
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Pros: Very well designed and manufactured~ Good fit and finish~ Sturdy, solid grill~ The infrared is a completely unique cooking technique that works and works well~ The top, front door, grates, burners and infrared emmiters and hardware are all stainless steel~ Seems to use less propane than conventional gas grill~ Temp gauges seem to be accurate and solid~ Allows you to burn woodchips or natural wood charcoal directly on the grates its amazing and soo easy to do!!~ The best grill I have ever owned....or used for that matter!!~ If your in the market for a $300 grill, buy this thing!
Cons: Not too sure about the Surefire start system as of yet. The button has to be pushed just right but once it is... click click boom its lit!~ Ikea has nothing on Char-Broil in the "Uhhh I have to put ALL OF THIS together?" catagory~ If your not a handy person with a good set of basic tools, you better hope your friend or neighbor is!~ I am a handy person and this was a pretty long build to do by my self(3+ Hours). I don't know if this is really such a con, but for some it may be so i figured I would mention it. One reason it takes so long is because it is a well built grill with a lot of heavy duty hardware and support brackets ~ LOTS OF PARTS TO ASSEMBLE!
Honest reviews on Char-Broil TRU Infrared Urban Gas Grill with Folding Side Shelves
How can I begin explaining how awesome this grill is! After a couple years of having rust as a condiment I began the search for a new grill. I was intrigued by this "Infrared" stuff and decided this was the way to go. I decided on this one because of its size; after all, it's just me and my wife. We were hesitant at first because we've always owned the larger grills but we went ahead with the purchase. All I can say is WOW!
Assembly: A little more involved than other grills but not complicated. I'm not a rocket scientist and did well. However, if you buy it somewhere that will assemble it for you, it's worth a couple extra bucks.
Cooking: MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS AND SEASON THE COOKING SURFACES! This is the first time I've ever done that and it truly makes a difference (more on this later). It is true that if you're used to cooking on an open flame grill you'll have to re-learn your cooking times. The first thing I cooked on it was steaks and I swear. . .they were better than any I've had before. Ruth's Criss has nothin' on me! I cook my steak medium and usually this means warm pink in the CENTER. My steaks were warm and pink THROUGHOUT! The searing capability of this grill is phenomenal! Nothing but a good, melt in your mouth, juicy steak! No flare ups meant no charred corners or fat. When we were done there were no little burnt pieces pushed to the side.
Clean up: Another huge plus! This is where seasoning the cooking surface comes in. While cooking, nothing sticks turning your food does not mean tearing your meat apart. We all have cranked our grills on high in the hopes of burning off the crud. Well with this grill, it truly turns everything to ash! Clean up is quick and simple!
So if you value your grilling get this one. Infrared will help make you a true master! Infrared cooking is simple and almost worry free. If this size is too small for you they do make larger ones.
My hat's off to you Charbroil!
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Honestly speaking I don't typically do reviews or endorsements because quite simply most products just don't do that much to impress purchasers. You buy a car and expect it to work, and it does work done. A product performing the way it's supposed to isn't overly impressive, where as a product not performing as expected certainly gets a rise out of purchasers. Now when it comes to the Char Broil Magnum 340 OMG! I bought a grill and I expected it to cook food, but boy were my expectations set way too low. Others have written how well this grill performs, and I'm a believer now!
I had a smoker grill designed to convert to a standard grill for cooking steaks and chops, and it wasn't worth a dime. I had owned standard full-size grills in the past (most recently one of the Charm-Glow grills from a national home improvement store but it went under national recall and parts weren't readily available), but thought the convertable smoker would be ideal. Since realizing the smoker was no good, it was time to buy another standard grill besides, I don't really have a need to make too many pulled pork sandwiches or my own bacon). I spent a lot of time doing research, reading reviews, and talking to employees of local home improvement stores until I found one that owned one of the larger Char Broil infrared grills. He swore by it. My only decision was how large a grill to buy. Since I mostly cook for 4 people and fewer, this grill became the perfect choice.
First off the fit and finish of this grill are great. Build time is approximately 1 to 1.5 hours depending on how fast you're moving, if you've laid the parts out ahead of time, and you're working alone (time would be less with another person assisting). One suggestion to purchasers don't fully tighten bolts until toward the end of assembly. There are certain connections that are easier to accomplish if the parts already on the grill have some give to them.
As for the performance: There's plenty of real estate on the grates to easily cook medium size steaks, potatoes, and grilled vegetables enough for four people all at the same time. The dual burners allow you to create a fast grill on one side and a slow grill on the other in order to cook at different temperatures. The warming rack enables you to move plenty of food off the cooking surface as things are done enabling you to take all the food to the table at the same time (there's little worse than hot vegatables and a cold potatoe on the same plate). As for the way this grill cooks meat be sure to read the little grey book that comes in the box. It will tell you that for a 1.5 to 2 inch steak, cook it on high for between 4 and 6 minutes on each side. For the inaugural grilling session, I bought a 2 inch thick boneless ribeye (steakhouse cut), and followed the directions exactly by cooking for 4 minutes on each side. The steak came out perfectly. After cooking and resting the meat for a minute or two, I sliced the steak across the middle and the juices ran freely. While resting the meat, hardly any juice at all formed on the plate, which attests to the searing ability of this grill. Looking at the steak across the cut there was 3/8ths of an inch of full cooked steak around all edges, and a perfectly pink warm center everywhere else within the steak. Excellent!
If you're in the market for a new grill please do yourself a favor and take a look at the Char-Broil Commercial Infrared line. It's well worth your consideration.
Born-Again-Griller,
John
