Best Combo Grills of 2018 & Buying Guide
It’s the season for grilling, and a lot of people are firing up their barbecues and getting ready to sear some steaks and cook hot dogs. A lot of people have a barbecue that’s reliant on charcoal, which is great for them, and a lot of other folks rely on gas grills for the convenience and ease.
What about people who like both grilling methods equally? Is there an option for them? There sure is – the combo grill – and that’s what we’ll be looking at in detail today. To help you decide whether or not the combo grill is something that you want, we’re going to check out the five best combo grills that you can buy today.
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What’s a combo grill?
Quite simply, a combo grill is the best of both grilling worlds. They offer both charcoal and gas grilling in the same unit, which can make a world of difference for a grill master. There’s a lot of reasons that the combo grill is superior than either of its counterparts.
1. Combo grills are generally larger than either gas or charcoal grills on their own. This could be a hindrance for someone who’s tight on space, but generally having more grilling area is a good thing. This means you’ll be able to cook more at once than you could otherwise, and you can feed bigger groups of people.
Smoke Hollow 4-in-1 hybrid grill
2. Combo grills allow you to cook comfortably year-round. Many charcoal grillers tend to recede indoors during the cold winter months because the appeal of charcoal grilling in the snow isn’t as appealing. Gas grills light up quick and cook fast, which can make them more enticing for winter time, but during summer months, you’ll have a hard time convincing a charcoal fan that anything tastes better. A combo grill allows you to do both!
Why not just get separate grills?
Char-griller Duo 5050
People have different grilling needs, and sometimes it can be impossible to meet all these needs with a single type of grill. A lot of people own multiple grills for different purposes – some have portable grills for outdoor camping trips, a charcoal grill for slow cooking or smoking ribs at home, and a gas grill that they can fire up when they want to cook burgers.
Unfortunately, buying all these different types of grills can be a drain on your budget. You’ll be spending similar amounts of money on both your charcoal and your gas grill, and neither are cheap.
There are a few reasons that would make purchasing a hybrid grill more appealing than owning several grills of different types.
It’s easy to see why hybrid grills are becoming more popular – if you could combine all of these different grills into one package for a better price, why wouldn’t you?
What if I like to smoke my food?
If you like to smoke your meat, then you’re in good luck. Instead of having to buy a separate smoker, like many folks do, you can invest in a combo grill that has a built-in smoker.
Hybrid grills that include a smoker might be a little bit more expensive than the cost of a hybrid grill without one, but the price is going to be better than what you’d pay for a charcoal grill, a gas grill, and a smoker all separately.
Dyna-Glo Dual Fuel Grill
Fortunately, the quality of your smoked meat won’t be compromised if you’re using a combo grill in most cases. You’re still using the same smoke that you’d be using on a regular charcoal grill, so the flavors will be the same and the cooking quality should match what you’re used to.
Are there dangers to using a hybrid grill?
Using a hybrid grill requires some caution for the same reasons that using a regular grill requires caution, only two-fold since you’re dealing with both grills at the same time.
Char-broil Gas 2 Coal Hybrid
Choosing the best hybrid grill
While hybrid grills may seem like the best thing ever – and to a lot of people, they are – you still want to make sure you choose the best one for you. Different grills have different features, and the prices can vary a lot – by hundreds of dollars.
Fortunately, we’ve taken our time to identify what we believe to be the best five hybrid grills on the market these days. These grills strike a fine balance between price, efficiency, and the features they provide the griller.
Without further ado, let’s look in detail at the contenders for the best hybrid grill.
Top 4 Best Combo Grills Review
1. Char-broil Gas 2 Coal Hybrid
This is a good grill for average, everyday use. It fits between 18 and 28 burgers, making the grill size itself not too big and not too small. It’s a fair priced grill, so you won’t be spending too much money – but you can’t expect to get a boatload of features with this particular grill.
It only has one firebox instead of a separate one for coal and one for gas. Grilling with gas provides a quick preheating session, but the heat isn’t distributed perfectly.
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2. Dyna-Glo Dual Fuel Grill
This is a grill that’s on the smaller side of things in terms of hybrid grills, though it does have separate fireboxes for charcoal and gas grilling. It’s in the mid price range, and its features represent that. It’s quite an effective grill and should satisfy even those who take grilling seriously.
Pros
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3. Smoke Hollow 4-in-1 hybrid grill
Now we’re getting into some serious grills for serious grillers. The Smoke Hollow 4-in-1 is, naturally, much more expensive than the other ones we’ve mentioned, and for a good reason.
In addition to a charcoal and gas firebox, this grill has a smoker and a ceramic infrared burner. Each grill has temperature gauges to help you cook evenly and safely.
For its amount of features, this grill is a reasonable size and won’t take up more space than you’d expect.
Pros
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4. Char-griller Duo 5050
This combo grill is built for people who like to feed a lot of people. It has a large charcoal and a large gas firebox offering 1260 total inches of cooking space. The quality of the food comes out quite similarly to the Smoke Hollow grill, but there aren’t as many bells and whistles.
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The Winner
The winner of this roundup is going to be the Smoke Hollow 4-in-1 grill, if not only for the sheer amount of awesome features that this grill offers, but for the reliability and versatility of the grill.
Each cooking method provides consistent results with even heat distribution and a good temperature range. It offers an infrared cooking station, which is interesting and not something seen very often.
It’s easy to clean, and while it’s bulky, it has strong wheels that make transportation of this grill quite comfortable. If you have the finances required for buying a beauty like this, then this is pretty much the best thing on the market for you right now. You can’t go wrong with this grill.
Conclusion
There are a lot of hybrid grills out there, and while they solve the problem of needing two separate grills for charcoal and gas, there is still debate about which hybrid grills are the best.
Fortunately, we’ve looked in detail at what makes a good hybrid grill, and then looked at the best competitors on the market. Hopefully, we’ve been able to help you make a good decision today, because a good grill is a serious decision.