Is there anything more important for a tailgating party (other than the people you are with and the game you are about to enjoy) than having the right grill? When I think of picking out the right grill for tailgating I primarily think of two things: I want the food to taste great and I want it to a be smooth process (setting up, cooking and cleaning).
One blogger than I came across in my research mentioned four features to look at when choosing the best portable gas grill for tailgating: portability, fuel type, size of the grill and hitch mounting. This last one is not a must but it is a pretty nice feature to have for your portable grill if your budget allows for it.
In my last blog post I talked about the best portable gas grill for camping. I discussed how I did my research and what criteria I used in picking the best one. In the end I had one main recommended grill.
In this post I want to suggest a few (rather than just one) for you to pick from. The reason I didn’t just pick one for this post is because there are a few factors that will affect your choice more perhaps than the other type of grill. The amount of people you are cooking for at the tailgating party, your budget and what other uses you plan to have for your grill are factors that will determine what is best for you. I’ve spent several hours in research looking at a variety of websites from retailers, to actual users, bloggers and even wikipedia to come up with my conclusions. So based on that research here are the best portable gas grills for tailgating:
Coleman 9949-750 Road Trip Grill LXE. If you’ve read my other post on best camping grills you might be thinking I am biased towards this grill (and I may be since I own one and love it) but it is the most popular grill right now at Amazon for tailgating grills. And I wouldn’t just recommend it based on this factor. As usual, I only consider products that have four stars or more (which this one does). This grill allows for numerous things: its portable and easy to setup (with its wheels and scissor legs it is very easy to setup), you can do indirect heating since it has two burners, it is very well priced, lights with one click and gets really hot if you need it two. If you want to learn more about this grill including some of the cons you can read my complete review of this grill here.
Weber 1520 Propane Gas Go-Anywhere Grill. Probably the main two advantages of this grill are how easily you can move it around and the fact that it is very economical. This is a simple grill and yet it is still a Weber (which to me is the best brand even though I love my Coleman). If this size is good enough for you and you are looking for something economical (under $70) and portable I would consider this one. If you want to read what reviewer’s have said about their experience with this grill you can go here. Just a little tip on reading reviews at Amazon. There are two ways that you can have Amazon sort the reviews. One is in the order of the most helpful ones first, the other is in the order of the newer ones first. By default Amazon will take you to the first one but you can change it to order the newer ones first which I find more helpful since sometimes products will change over time. I like to read what people are saying about the product today not four years ago.
Margaritaville G1000 Ride-Behind Tailgating Propane Grill. If you’re budget allows for it and you really like the idea of having your grill attach to the back of your vehicle this is a great pick. Right now on Amazon it has a 4.8 stars average of its reviewers which is really high. The main two negatives I see with it are its cost and the fact that it is hard to get because many places that sell it are out of stock. At the time of writing this Amazon still has it but they are running out soon.
Blacktop 360 HFI Premium Party Hub Grill/Fryer, Black/Blue. Ok… I almost didn’t mention this one and here’s why: I don’t normally recommend products that don’t have enough reviews. Right now this one only has two reviews so its hard to assess how good it really is. But you can check it out for yourself. I mentioned this grill because of some of the unique features that can make this grill potentially a great “party grill” with its deep fryer, grill, griddle, warming plate and 452 square inches of cooking space. I had to at least mention it to you with the caution that enough people have not reviewed it yet.
Weber Q Series. You probably can never go wrong with a Weber. Depending on your budget and your preferences you have a few options to pick from. I have reviewed the Weber Q 320 Portable Gas Grill. But there are some economical options as well in the Weber Q series that you can check out at Amazon and read both the description and the reviews.
What about charcoal grills for tailgating?
Personally I wouldn’t recommend this option. Why? To me its not worth the hassle at this type of event even though I love the way meat tastes cooked over charcoal. There are enough great gas grills that taste great and like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have two main things I would want for tailgate grilling: simplicity and great tasting food. But that’s just me.
If you really want to go this route because you are committed to charcoal cooking no matter what and/or you don’t really want to spend the extra for a gas grill, I would recommend (based on being a best-seller charcoal grill for tailgating and based on comments on some forums) the Weber 10020 Smokey Joe Silver Charcoal Grill, Black. It is very economical and its a great grill for this type of event. Just make sure that it will suit your needs when it comes to the amount of people you are cooking for or since it is under $50 you can buy a couple of these.
If you want to compare some more (I know some of you like to do extensive research before deciding) I have a post on the best portable gas grills. In it there is a chart with the top five grills and the key features I looked for in comparing these. Happy tailgating!
