Best Portable Grills Get Fired Up On Memorial Day

Innovation Best Portable Grills Get Fired Up On Memorial Day Tim Clark Brand Contributor SAP BRANDVOICE Storytelling and expertise from marketers | Paid Program May 23, 2022, 01:35pm EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Often referred to as the unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day Weekend will be one of the busiest this year as AAA predicts 39.2 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home, an increase of 8.3% over 2021. If you think a boost in travel (and inflated food costs ) will snuff out enthusiasm for outdoor cooking, think again. Leading manufacturers are making the customer experience easier than ever by firing up their best portable grills to adapt to any outdoor cooking scenario this Memorial Day celebration. Char-Griller Takes A Gamble Grills with smaller footprints provide everyone the chance to cook outside, according to Abigail Knox, Sr. Marketing Manager, Char-Griller . “It makes it easy for people with smaller outdoor spaces to grill out and cook with charcoal,” said Knox. “We also know that portability is important for our customers. Whether it is taking the grill to the tailgate, the campground or to the back patio, the Gambler Portable makes it easy to grill anywhere.” According to Knox, Char-Griller wanted the Gambler Portable to have all the great features customers expect in their regular sized Char-Griller grills even with its smaller footprint. “We did extensive customer surveys to choose what features were must-haves in the grill like our cast iron grates and dampers along with the easy-to-use collapsible cart design.” Masterbuilt Masters On-the-Go Temp Control When it comes to grilling on the go, people crave flexibility but sometimes prefer the flavor of charcoal and Masterbuilt’s new Portable Charcoal Grill aims to provide just that, according to Cara Finger, GM & CMO, Masterbuilt . “We set out to make an easy-to-use portable charcoal grill that was simple in function and design,” said Finger. “The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal grill provides the freedom to grill in your backyard or on any outdoor adventure while solving the hardest part of cooking with charcoal—temperature control. Leveraging our expertise in engineering the Gravity Series, we created a unique controller to regulate the temperature and fan with the turn of a dial.” PK Grills Goes Camping Scott Moody, Co-owner and CMO of PK Grills believes his company’s PKGO is the ideal grilling solution for camping because it’s about the size of a duffel bag and everything you need to fold it open—and turn it into two hibachi style grills—packs easily inside of it. “No propane bottles needed, and you don’t have to sacrifice flavor or quality for size,” according to Moody who said the PKGO was designed from the ground up. “We didn’t co-op or adapt someone else’s design. This grill started with a blank sheet of paper and 70-plus years of PK heritage. We knew we wanted to be able to cook in the lid because that is not something we’ve seen others do and our product architecture allows it. That unique feature took a few rounds of testing to get right, but the response to it has been amazing. Even though it’s a totally new grill, everyone can still tell it’s a PK from a mile away.” Green Mountain Grills Makes The Trek Like many of the aforementioned grills and smokers, the Trek , from Green Mountain Grills , is a good option for camping, tailgating, empty-nesters, small families, and folks with limited space in their back yards. As a stalwart in the pellet grill space, the Wi-Fi capable Trek offers accurate temperature control, consumes very little electricity and can plug into the phone charger of your car. “Of course, you can also just plug it in to a regular outlet,” chides Jason Baker, Business Development at Green Mountain Grills. “And the Trek is just as versatile as our larger sized units, capable of grilling two racks of ribs, ten burgers, 4 rib-eyes, or even a thirteen-pound brisket.” The Trek can also house a pizza oven attachment for individual pizzas. “We made this our first Wi-Fi grill, and in fact it was one of the very first on the market with Apple and Google Apps in 2013,” said Baker. “And by making this our first 12-volt powered grill, it is usable practically anywhere.” Pit Boss Is Ready For Lift-Off When it comes to portable units, size matters. This is why Pit Boss offers their Ultimate Griddles in four size options. The 2, 3, 4, and 5-burner Ultimate Griddles are the perfect size for backyard cooking. However, the two, three and four-burner griddles feature “lift-off technology”, so they’re also portable and can easily tag along on your next adventure. “Their size makes them easy to lift-off and load up, whether you’re headed to a campsite or tailgate,” said Jeff Thiessen, President of Dansons. “A smaller unit also means less area to clean, so more time can be spent on what’s really important: good food and even better time spent with those you love.” NOMAD Is Made To Move The NOMAD Grill & Smoker is incredibly portable and “made to move”, according to John Veatch, co-founder NOMAD Grills. When closed, the NOMAD is the size of carry-on suitcase and weighs about 30 pounds allowing grillers to take it anywhere. However, when it’s fully open, it touts up 425 square inches of cooking grate space which is enough space to cook 30 burgers. “NOMAD launched mid-pandemic, so we saw our fair share of supply chain disruption and felt the pinch of product availability,” said Veatch. “We couldn’t make grills fast enough to meet the rising tide and our backorder list was growing quickly, so we made some big bets on inventory and expedited a big chunk of that inventory to satisfy those pre-order waitlists.” The gamble has paid off as NOMAD is back to shipping same-day orders from its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Pit Barrel Cooker Hangs With The Best When it comes to grilling, smoking and BBQ-ing in the backyard, you can’t go wrong with the Pit Barrel Junior . PBJ’s vertical hanging method of cooking makes for an even smaller footprint and provides an environment that takes all the guess work out of temperature control and how much fuel to add. “Simply put, you can’t beat cooking directly over hot coals while allowing the juices from the meat to hit the coals creating the most amazing flavor that can’t be produced through any amount of technology or marketing,” said Noah Glanville, Founder and Owner of the Pit Barrel Cooker Company . “It’s just real cooking without gadgets, probes and phones.” Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Tim Clark Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions