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List Price: $2,049.00
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I've owned a Weber Summit S-470 for about 2 months my first gas grill. Grilling is easier and more delicious than I ever imagined. I did a lot of research before I bought it, so here is what you need to know if you're new to gas grills, new to Weber, or new to the Summit line:
1) Weber sells most of the gas grills sold in America. Their customer service is legendary. Go hit up their website and look at their warranty info. 25 years, no questions asked replacements on some parts, like the grill hood; 2 years replacement even on high wear items like the burners. There are people grilling away happily on 30 year old Weber gas grills without any problems; so definitely take into account that the warranty and customer service is part of what you're paying for.
2) The S-470 is mostly stainless steel. There is stainless and stainless; to keep their pricepoint, in 2008 Weber switched from grade 304 stainless to grade 420. People in demanding environments (humidity, etc) find that the 420 doesn't hold up quite as well to the elements. You can buy a lower-end, yet feature-identical grill for a similar price in the 'enameled' (E-XXX) series; but when they rust out, you'll need to replace the panel. I think my grill looks great and has held up great so far; time will tell.
3) The grill grates are thick 9.5 mm stainless steel rods. They can be scoured with a brass bristle brush with no fear of damage. The thicker the grate, the more heat transfer into your steakthat is how you get a good sear. These are as thick as they come.
4) The S-470 has a LOT of burner for the cooking area. If you fire up all 4 main burners, the sear burner, the IR burner and the smoker burner, you're putting nearly 70,000 BTU under the hood. The grill will go over 800 degrees on a hot day. That's the other way you get a good sear.
5) The non-IR Weber sear station is just an extra 10,600 BTU burner, sandwiched in between main burners number 2 and 3. It heats up that small middle part of the grill, way hotter than it otherwise would have gotten. Then, when you put your steak down, you get a good sear. There are infrared (IR) sear stations out there in other brands, but they take up a lot of room on the grill grates space you can't use when you're not searing. (For IR only grills, you should know about TEC they have a neat patent, no one else's IR works the way theirs does but now we're talking very expensive equipment that only does one thing, sear with IR, and costs even more than the Summit.) The Weber sear station is great for me you can even sear a whole salmon fillet and it won't stick or fall apart, which I really didn't believe until I tried it.
6) The IR roto burner is something I would not have known to ask for, but now I don't know how I lived without it. It makes the juiciest chicken, with the most delicious skin, that you can ever possibly imagine. In my house it is agreed that the "roto bird" is the best feature of this grill, hands down. A 5 lb bird spins to done in 45-60 minutes.
7) The smoker box is sort of difficult to get good results with and the smoke dirties up the grill. If you want to smoke food low and slow, and you're thinking this grill is going to be just as good as a dedicated smoker unit, you'll be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you want your meats to have just a hint of wood smoke flavor, so they taste like they came off a high-temperature charcoal grill, you can make that happen.
8) Weber makes 3 lower end grill models: the Genesis, the Spirit, and the Ducane Affinity series (branded under the Ducane name, obviously). A sear unit and a non-IR rotisserie unit are planned for the Genesis EP-330 series in 2011, so you are getting close to the S-470 feature set. The only diff between the Spirit and the Ducane (besides price) is that the Ducane is wholly fabbed in China, whereas some assembly of the Spirit is done in the USA.
9) If you're completely new to gas grilling, you will need to first decide on propane versus natural gas. This review is for the propane model. Propane is easier to startup but somewhat more expensive over time, and you need to keep an extra propane bottle around. You will need to take your empties back to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, the gas station or wherever you can swap them out or refill them. On the other hand, you need a gas 'stub' out of your house to use natural gas, and if you don't know what that is, you'd also need pro installation to avoid blowing yourself up. I opted for NG myself because my house had a gas stub ready to go; if it hadn't, I'd've gotten propane.
10) Kebabs, squabs, game hens, whole chickens, lamb, suckling pig, pork butt, pork loin, and any kind of beef or sausage burgers, dogs, brats, Polish, whatever it's all good on the grill. Did I mention fresh corn on the cob?! For your vegan friends: skewers of eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, onions, squash, zucc, and whatever else is garden-fresh will soon become smash hits. Seriously. My buddy actually looked happy to be vegetarian when I served him his plate; he's trying to lose weight, poor soul. A lot of people grill flatbread pizza too; I can't eat wheat so I haven't gone there.
11) Lotta books about grilling out there. Bobby Flay, who is grill crazy, has written like a dozen and I have a few; they're full of good ideas. You won't go wrong at any of his restaurants either. I ran into the guy eating at B+B in Vegas not long ago and sent him a nice bottle of wine to thank him. He's great.
12) Gotta clean your grill. Weber makes a 3 or 4 piece utensil kit as do many others. You need a brass brush, long tongs, and a big spatula. I never use the two-tined grill fork. A wide putty knife also helps for scraping crud out of the drip pan; potholders, heat resistant mitts, and an apron are also useful.
In case it wasn't obvious, this grill is one of the best things ever to happen to me in my eating life. I can't recommend it highly enough. I have no regrets. Whatever you do after reading this review, make sure you go get yourself a gas grill. If you can't afford the new one you want, it's easy to refurb an old Craigslist grill with a little help from Weber customer service the warranty comes with the grill. So pretty much you gotta get one!
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I am a regular purchaser on Amazon, use Amazon Prime, but my purchases have been limited to relatively low dollar items. When I went looking for a high-end grill locally, I thought I would check Amazon to see if they sold the one I wanted. There it was for several hundreds less. And with no tax and free shipping, it was a great deal cost-wise. So the final hurdle for me was buying something from Amazon that was almost $2000 and risk problems on my end when it arrived. The two immediate issues are delivery and assembly. If I had bought it locally, the merchant would have taken care of it, for a fee.
Turns out, neither were an issue at all. The shipper Amazon used was top-notch. They delivered within a window and showed up when they said they would. They put the grill exactly where I wanted it on my deck--do not underestimate how big a deal this is. And assembly from the box was surprisingly easy. It took me about 20 minutes.
This is the first natural gas grill I have owned, and I see a clear difference from liquid propane. The grill gets hotter and comes up to temperature faster. If you can go natural, do it.
As far as the grill in general, I am very happy so far. Solid construction. The sear station works as advertised. Along with the high heat of natural gas, you can get that nice crust on the outside of a steak while keeping the inside rare if you want it. The heavy duty grates are key and the "flavorize bars" that cover the flame work well to minimize flame-ups. I like where they put the rotisserie heating element, higher up away from the grates. In other brands, like a WOLF I recently used, the element is immediately behind the grates and can be damaged if you are not careful when cleaning the grate with those standard wire brush/scraper tools.
Will update if anything comes up.
Best Deals for Weber Summit S-470 Stainless-Steel 580-Square-Inch Grill
I've owned a Weber Summit S-470, plumbed for natural gas, for about 2 months my first gas grill. Grilling is easier and more delicious than I ever imagined. I did a lot of research before I bought it, so here is what you need to know if you're new to gas grills, new to Weber, or new to the Summit line:
1) Weber sells most of the gas grills sold in America. Their customer service is legendary. Go hit up their website and look at their warranty info. 25 years, no questions asked replacements on some parts, like the grill hood; 2 years replacement even on high wear items like the burners. There are people grilling away happily on 30 year old Weber gas grills without any problems; so definitely take into account that the warranty and customer service is part of what you're paying for.
2) The S-470 is mostly stainless steel. There is stainless and stainless; to keep their pricepoint, in 2008 Weber switched from grade 304 stainless to grade 420. People in demanding environments (humidity, etc) find that the 420 doesn't hold up quite as well to the elements. You can buy a lower-end, yet feature-identical grill for a similar price in the 'enameled' (E-XXX) series; but when they rust out, you'll need to replace the panel. I think my grill looks great and has held up great so far; time will tell.
3) The grill grates are thick 9.5 mm stainless steel rods. They can be scoured with a brass bristle brush with no fear of damage. The thicker the grate, the more heat transfer into your steakthat is how you get a good sear. These are as thick as they come.
4) The S-470 has a LOT of burner for the cooking area. If you fire up all 4 main burners, the sear burner, the IR burner and the smoker burner, you're putting nearly 70,000 BTU under the hood. The grill will go over 800 degrees on a hot day. That's the other way you get a good sear.
5) The non-IR Weber sear station is just an extra 10,600 BTU burner, sandwiched in between main burners number 2 and 3. It heats up that small middle part of the grill, way hotter than it otherwise would have gotten. Then, when you put your steak down, you get a good sear. There are infrared (IR) sear stations out there in other brands, but they take up a lot of room on the grill grates space you can't use when you're not searing. (For IR only grills, you should know about TEC they have a neat patent, no one else's IR works the way theirs does but now we're talking very expensive equipment that only does one thing, sear with IR, and costs even more than the Summit.) The Weber sear station is great for me you can even sear a whole salmon fillet and it won't stick or fall apart, which I really didn't believe until I tried it.
6) The IR roto burner is something I would not have known to ask for, but now I don't know how I lived without it. It makes the juiciest chicken, with the most delicious skin, that you can ever possibly imagine. In my house it is agreed that the "roto bird" is the best feature of this grill, hands down. A 5 lb bird spins to done in 45-60 minutes.
7) The smoker box is sort of difficult to get good results with and the smoke dirties up the grill. If you want to smoke food low and slow, and you're thinking this grill is going to be just as good as a dedicated smoker unit, you'll be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you want your meats to have just a hint of wood smoke flavor, so they taste like they came off a high-temperature charcoal grill, you can make that happen.
8) Weber makes 3 lower end grill models: the Genesis, the Spirit, and the Ducane Affinity series (branded under the Ducane name, obviously). A sear unit and a non-IR rotisserie unit are planned for the Genesis EP-330 series in 2011, so you are getting close to the S-470 feature set. The only diff between the Spirit and the Ducane (besides price) is that the Ducane is wholly fabbed in China, whereas some assembly of the Spirit is done in the USA.
9) If you're completely new to gas grilling, you will need to first decide on propane versus natural gas. This review is for the natural gas model. You need a gas 'stub' out of your house to use natural gas, and if you don't know what I mean, you probably also need pro installation to avoid blowing yourself up. Propane is easier to startup but far costlier over time, and you need to always keep an extra propane bottle around and constantly schlep your empties back to Wal-Mart. An NG grill will actually save you a little money if you use A/C, as you won't be heating the kitchen (and then cooling it again) for your cooks. Won't be getting steak grease on the inside of your kitchen windows either.
10) Kebabs, squabs, game hens, whole chickens, lamb, suckling pig, pork butt, pork loin, and any kind of beef or sausage burgers, dogs, brats, Polish, whatever it's all good on the grill. Did I mention fresh corn on the cob?! For your vegan friends: skewers of eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, onions, squash, zucc, and whatever else is garden-fresh will soon become smash hits. Seriously. My buddy actually looked happy to be vegetarian when I served him his plate; he's trying to lose weight, poor soul. A lot of people grill flatbread pizza too; I can't eat wheat so I haven't gone there.
11) Lotta books about grilling out there. Bobby Flay, who is grill crazy, has written like a dozen and I have a few; they're full of good ideas. You won't go wrong at any of his restaurants either. I ran into the guy eating at B+B in Vegas not long ago and sent him a nice bottle of wine to thank him. He's great.
12) Gotta clean your grill. Weber makes a 3 or 4 piece utensil kit as do many others. You need a brass brush, long tongs, and a big spatula. I never use the two-tined grill fork. A wide putty knife also helps for scraping crud out of the drip pan; potholders, heat resistant mitts, and an apron are also useful.
In case it wasn't obvious, this grill is one of the best things ever to happen to me in my eating life. I can't recommend it highly enough. I have no regrets. Whatever you do after reading this review, make sure you go get yourself a gas grill. If you can't afford the new one you want, it's easy to refurb an old Craigslist grill with a little help from Weber customer service the warranty comes with the grill. So pretty much you gotta get one!
Honest reviews on Weber Summit S-470 Stainless-Steel 580-Square-Inch Grill
Positively the best gas grill I have ever owned. I purchased this after extensive research and am not disappointed. My first time out I used the rotisserie but forgot to turn on the dedicated burner and still the chicken came out terrific! There are so many bells and whistles on this unit; I am extremely impressed with the quality of stainless steel cabinet. Everything about this grill is top quality from the drip pan to the tank measurement system. I know that spending $ about $2000.00 for a grill is a bit overkill but I am so sick of buying poor quality products. I really believe that this will be the last grill I will every buy. I did purchase the Summit cover and cleaning brushes which is all part of keeping the unit in new condition.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Weber Summit S-470 Stainless-Steel 580-Square-Inch Grill
I'm an avid barbecue fan. I generally grill 3-5 times per week sun, rain, or snow. I live in Vancouver BC, so I get a lot of rain and other weather conditions here. I have learned a lot of lessons over the years.
I bought a different barbecue yesterday after seeing the Weber Summit S-470/670 bbqs. My price range was under $2,000 and the 670 seemed a little too big for my needs, so after reading up on tons of reviews the 470 looked like the best bet. A beautiful shiny bbq.
But the absolute deal breaker for me was this:
The summits have venting gaps. When it rains, water goes into the venting gaps, into the grease tray, and will overflow with water and dump messy nasty grease into your cabinet area. To me this is a huge design flaw and discovered it when reading other forum threads, otherwise I would have missed this. Being in a rainy climate, this is deal breaker. Honestly, how many people really always remember to put the grill cover on? I actually rarely do because of how frequently I grill. In my experience, frequent usage tends to keep it dry and mitigates rust build up. But even fine stainless steel is not rust proof so it is better to cover it when you can. This is a practical world and people are not always perfect.
The other thing I did not like was the cabinets felt a little too thin and flimsy. For this price range, I expect more solid construction.
Finally a side burner is something I use a lot. For breakfast on weekends, I like to cook bacon outside as to not stink up the house. On hot days we cook outside too. But this burner has a lift up cover that gets in the way for all but small pots and pans. I estimate the gap from the edge of the burner to the lid is about 2 inches... so you can situation a small 8" pot/pan centered... but a 12" frying pan won't center (I can't confirm exactly -just winging those measurements).
Given that I am in Canada, I got shown a different brand that is a direct competitor. The Napolean. Webers in Canada cost more, possibly due to duties. The Napoleans in Canada match the prices in America for Webers. I fell in love with it immediately. The knobs have blue backlights that look high tech, and the knobs, and cabinets felt superior in every way. The grill hood on both were effectively equivalent in my opinion.
I purchased the Napolean Prestige Pro 500 RSIB. It is virtually identical in spec to the S-470 and prices are almost the same too. The Napolean has a much better side burner, it is larger, the lid doesn't interfere and it is infrared with a proper grill above it. It is meant to sear steaks at much higher temperatures than conventional burners. The grill has an adjustable height too and is suitable for steaks (most side burners are designed for just pots and pans like a stove).
The one and only thing in my opinion that the Weber had was a nifty rotisserie tuck away system. Basically it just folds into the side tray. The Napolean doesn't have this, so I have to put it away manually. Not a big deal given that the Weber spit and forks need to be manually tucked away in the cabinets too. The Napolean has an covered "ice bucket/cutting board" on the other side shelf. To me it is gimmicky, as who puts iced drinks next to a hot bbq? I might use it for meat marinades. It's just a plastic bin.
Another nice feature with the Napolean is the wavy grill pattern. It's just pretty and makes fancier sear marks on meat. Not something I would use to decide which grill to buy.
My last bbq was a massive Vermont Castings. It was a lovely grill but I learned the hard way that it was too big for my usual needs. The problem is that had all conventional burners, and heating that sucker up used up a lot of propane. If you want to sear steaks you need to heat everything up to max temperature, which included all six burners. At my peak bbq rate, I would burn through a propane tank every two weeks. But now I have a natural gas line, so that's no longer an issue. It is also why I opted for a "normal" sized bbq this time around. This is also why getting a bbq with an infrared burner is so appealing. 1500 degrees without a lengthy ambient temperature prep time. I suspect I'll be grilling most of my steaks on the side burner now.
