Random musings: Revisiting the Classic Weber Kettle Grill

This is the post I was going to do last week but The Art of Manliness site was down. This is the 3rd of a 3 part series on burgers and grills:

It’s summertime, and that means cookouts.

When it comes to BBQ-ing around here, I’ve been using a gas grill during the 10 years I’ve lived in my house. It’s super convenient. Just turn the knob and light the grill. Bam. Fire.

Creating a three-zone fire on my gas grill is incredibly easy. A few twists of the knobs, and I can have a high-heat zone, medium-heat zone, and low-heat zone at the ready.

Yet, while I love the convenience of cooking with a gas grill, it does lack a certain charm that I associated with outdoor cooking growing up. Like a lot of American kids, my family had a charcoal-fueled Weber Kettle Grill in the backyard. With its black, porcelain-enameled lid and bowl, this iconic, spherical cooking device was a fixture of my suburban childhood. And getting that baby lit and going was like an ancestral ritual.

To my childhood mind, firing up a Weber charcoal grill had existential significance. It felt like an important, manly task because in my home, like I’m sure in many homes across America, my dad was in charge of it. It all started about an hour before eating time. First, Pops would wheel the grill out to the grass. Then he’d empty out the old ashes into a brown paper sack and hand me the cooking grate to go clean in the laundry room. When I got back, he’d pour a big pile of charcoal into the Weber’s shiny black bowl. Kingsford brand, natch. Then came a spray with some lighter fluid, and the strike and toss of a match.

WHOOSH!!!

After enjoying the sound of a newly birthed charcoal fire, we’d stand around the grill and watch the flame slowly get smaller and smaller, and the charcoal get whiter and whiter.

At a certain moment, Dad would decide that the charcoal was ready for cooking. On would go the grate, and an assortment of burger patties, hot dogs, and sausages were laid upon this culinary altar.

Once the victuals were hot and sizzling, they were eagerly placed inside soft Wonder Bread buns, slathered with ketchup and all the other fixins, and devoured with gusto. Each bite tasted of the charcoal-imparted flavor of smoke. Each bite tasted of summer. At least that’s how I remember it.

The other day as I was cooking burgers in a far more antiseptic fashion on my gas grill, I started waxing nostalgic about these Weber Grill-related memories of mine. I decided I wanted to try cooking on one myself, to see if it was as good as I recalled.

Note: This is NOT a sponsored article. We have no connection with Weber Grill. This is just a heartfelt article from a middle-aged dude waxing nostalgic about childhood summer cookouts where a Weber Kettle Grill took center stage.

How to Use a Weber Kettle Grill

To get reacquainted with the Weber Kettle Grill as a grown man, I first went down to my local Home Depot and bought the classic model for myself. The grill set me back $120. Not bad for something that can provide years of use.

Then, I called my friend and resident AoM meat-cooking consultant, Karl Engel, and asked him to show me the ropes on how to cook with it. Here’s what he taught me.

Load Your Charcoal (You Don’t Need as Much as You Think)
Light Your Charcoal
Make Sure Your Bottom Vents Are Open
Wait Until the Charcoal Is Gray/White Before You Start Cooking
Put on the Food, and the Lid — or Not

I always used a charcoal chimney...it provided the right amount of charcoal and you didn't need starter fluid...just a wadded up newspaper and a match. And the charcoal burned quickly and evenly.
The Outcome

So did cooking with a Weber Kettle Grill in 2021 match up with my memories of what it was like in 1988?

One thing that I noticed while putting the grill together was that the materials just seemed chintzier and more flimsy than those on the Weber Kettle Grill my dad owned. (Weber grills are still assembled in America, but with some imported components.) The metal in the legs seems to bend pretty easily. The most significant difference that stood out to me was that all the handles on the new models have plastic instead of wood. The wood on the 1970s and 80s versions really classed things up. Oh well. That’s “progress” for ya.

Other than that, everything else was the same. The sound of the fire whooshing. The smell of smoldering charcoal and caramelizing meat.

I gotta say, charcoal definitely makes your burgers taste better than gas. Love that smokey flavor. Our kids rated their charcoal-cooked burgers an enthusiastic 10/10.

Cooking with a Weber Kettle Grill certainly takes more time and attention than using a gas grill. But as with all things in life, that effort transforms the task into more of an experience. I’ll continue to use my gas grill for weeknight dinners, but turn to the Weber when hosting things that I want to feel more like an event. In doing so, hopefully my kids will absorb the same Dad-imbued, charcoal-infused summertime impressions that waft through one’s memory for a lifetime.

Here's a link to part 2 of the series, which has a link to part 1.