Char-Broil Cast Iron Kettle Grate Review


 

StanHenson

TVWBB Member
Hi all,

My Char-Broil cast iron kettle grate came today. I cooked tonight, and here are some pics and a review.

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Your chimneys will absolutely fit inside the outer grate. Mine is a generic Home Depot model, and it's fine.

The cast iron is about 1/8" thick. It's not incredibly massive, but the grate does have some heft and holds a good amount of heat.

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Here I am half way through removing/flipping zucchini pieces. This is my biggest complaint with the grate: The bars are too far apart and things slip between them. I don't normally drop food through the grate bars, but I lost at least 5 zucchini pieces because the gaps were so large. The grill marks were very good, however, and the heat was fairly evenly distributed.

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Here's the zucchini and some pork chops rubbed with wild fennel pollen. Don't worry about the grate's stupid brick pattern. You can turn food to get traditional looking diamond hatch-marks. See the chops for proof.

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Here's the finished product. Grilled porkchops, grilled pineapple, a grilled zucchini salad with marinated mozzarella and roasted ears of corn.

Overall, I liked the grates, and will keep everyone posted.

Pros:
-Cheap. I paid about half of what a Craycort grate would have cost.
-Works with the gas assist of a Performer, and will fit all chimneys.
-Enough thermal mass to hold heat and recover when the lid is off, but not massive enough to be crazy heavy.
-Sears beautifully, cooks evenly.

Cons:
-Grates are far apart and things can fall in between them.
-Probably not a good idea to remove the center section during cooking to mess with the coals. Craycort definitely wins here.
-I have doubts about the finish on the cast iron. Char-Broil says they're porcelain covered, but they're the roughest porcelain I've ever seen. I'm going to assume they're raw iron and treat them as such.
-They're from Char-Broil, and I didn't have a great experience ordering from them. If Weber made a solid cast iron kettle grate, I would have ordered from them. Your mileage may vary.

Questions?
Stan


(Sorry about the multiple edits. I'm still figuring out how to embed photos.)
 
Question for you.

Are you concerned with the 4 "notches" on the outter edge of the grate where it sits on the support tabs inside the kettle bowl to hold it up over the charcoal grate? I had a friend bring up a point that if you're not careful, those "notches" may end up going over the support tabs causing the cooking grate to fall, or tilt down possibly spilling your food onto the charcoal. What do you think?

I wonder what the purpose of those "notches" are anyways. If its to pick up the grate...why is it necessary to have four of them? I think 2 would have been sufficient.
 
Jeff,

I'm not worried about the grate falling at all. I'm not a grate "spinner," I'm a food mover. There's a 0% chance that I would drop the grate. Also, you'd really have to work to spin the outer grate while cooking. The inner grate comes out, and you couldn't spin the outer grate just by turning the inner. I think you'd have to have 2 sets of tongs on the outer ring to turn it (it's heavier than steel), and if you're going to that much trouble, you'll surely avoid the "notches."

When the grill gets cool I'll go see see if it can actually fall of the tabs. It's been 2 hours and the iron is still retaining a fair amount of heat.
 
Tab Update: The grate can fall off the tabs if you're REALLY trying to line up the holes on the outer ring with the kettle tabs. I had to pick it up with both hands and line it up manually to make it fall. So, it's really a non-issue.
 
Sear update: Here's a pic of the Porterhouse alla fiorentina I cooked tonight. The grill marks have an extra "tick" every now and then because of the grate pattern, but as you can see, it makes a very acceptable crosshatch.

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Final thoughts:

These are good grates. Time will tell how well they hold up. They take longer to heat than steel grates and they cook significantly faster. I think they're easily worth the price of admission, and I'm going to use them for a few weeks to see how they season up.

Stan
 

 

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