26 Nov 2016

Barbecues: a buyer's guide

From This Way Up, 12:30 pm on 26 November 2016

"Top-scoring barbecues cooked everything evenly throughout, resulting in consistently tender and juicy meat. This also meant the barbecue's temperature was easy to control, and its heat was evenly distributed across the cooking surface" - George Block.

Grilled Meats

Photo: (Pixabay Public Domain)

George Block of consumer.org.nz has been putting barbecues to the test, measuring how well they're made, how easy they are to use, and how well they cook steak, sausages, chicken wings, and the ultimate challenge... a whole chicken! 

He tells This Way Up that with one manufacturer dominating the results, good budget options are hard to find.

"There's no reason an enterprising Kiwi manufacturer couldn't build on the simple lessons from the success of Weber grills, while adding some innovations of their own. Here's hoping next season we'll see some models that challenge Weber's supremacy, ideally at a price accessible to a wider range of Kiwis."