Which Genesis is better: north/south burners, or east/west burners?

[John B]

I am trying to decide. I am doing a heat up test. I have owned the east/west burner configuration for a few years and loved it. I recently came into a north/south configuration. I am testing heat up speed first, but wanted to get opinions of those that possibly had one and then the other, what did you prefer?

 

[John B]

After 25 minutes, the east/west genesis had reached this temp, and was more or less holding:

This was what it looked like lifting the lid (sorry taken in dark):

The north/south was at this temp:

And looked like this when lid was lifted:

 

[John B]

It looked like the north/south genesis was always ahead of the east/west during heat up, and ultimately held a higher temp. You can see in the open lid pic that the flavorizer bars were glowing red hot. It was hard to stand near either grill, they were roaring hot even for an elevated and oxygen starved city in the Rockies.

I don't take too much stock in the heat aspect, but the north/south grill is newer, and maybe I choose it just based on that fact. But sometimes older is better, so looking for opinions in that regard. I plan on cleaning both of them up tomorrow and maybe even cooking on them.

Which would you sell?

 

[LMichaels]

Max heat is not the ultimate test. Versatility is. And for that the E/W is better especially if you like to rotisserie foods or do slabs of ribs whole. The e/w design gives far better indirect control and a much wider surface area to cook on, plus lays on the heat in a manner conducive to long pieces of food i.e. ribs or rotisserie so the heat is across the food not just burning the ends of it like with the newer design Weber grills. The Genesis models (none of them) are deep enough front to back to hold a whole slab of ribs so you're forced to rethink how you cook them on one. I have that issue with my Summit which is why the Wolf gets the nod for that duty. It's deeper front to back than a Genesis is wide.

 

[Bruce]

I have never used a N/S weber so I don't really know. But, I was thinking that using it as a smoker would be better in a N/S design. One problem I see with the N/S designs is that they use more flavo bars and more burners which I would think could get expensive when it comes time for replacing them not to mention it seems like it would be harder to keep everything cleaned up.

I think most of these weber grills have a BTU rating on them and generally around 36,000 on the older genesis silver B's. What is the rating on the newer N/S grill? It should be on the data sticker.

As far as reselling one of them, provided they both clean up well, you will probably get a better price for the newer one. I am not saying it is better, just my opinion of what potential buyers might be looking for. You know, those buyers that know nothing about grills and will probably never clean it and just wind up putting it out on the curb in three or four years because they think it is worthless.

BTW, your photos are not showing up.