With grilling season heating up, all kinds of gadgets promise to take your grill to a new level. Consumer Reports tested three gadgets that aim to make your grill even better.
First up is GrillGrates. They are interlocking panels that sit on top of your grill. They promise to help it cook more evenly and keep your food juicy, while reducing flare-ups. Consumer Reports’ lab found the GrillGrates did improve evenness with one of the two grills it tested. And although the GrillGrates didn’t totally eliminate flare-ups, they did deliver some nice grill marks. If your grill is uneven at heating and you’re contemplating replacing your grill, they are a less expensive option to try and they do offer a money back guarantee.
Next up is the $150 Bakerstone Pizza Oven Box for using your grill to make wood-fired-style pizza. After a 30-minute warm up, it turned out delicious pizzas every four minutes.
There’ also the $130 Grillbot. It’s a grill-cleaning robot that promises to scrub your grill grates automatically. Consumer Reports let the robot loose on a grill caked with cooked chicken. It is noisy. After 20 minutes, the Grillbot tidied up some of the mess. Still it took a grill brush to clean up the pieces of burnt chicken stuck in between the grates. While a grill brush is a faster, less expensive solution, it’s not as fun.
To make grilling fish and vegetables a easier, Consumer Reports likes the $17 Master Forge Grill Wok from Lowes. It’s good for grilling small batches of food. And if you love barbecued ribs, the Brinkman Rib Rack holds a full rack of ribs without taking up too much space. It’s about $18 at the Home Depot.
