Three-burner hooded gas grill
Turn it on, cook, turn it off. The cooker that removes fire management from the evening entirely.
- Runs on LPG (bottled gas)
- Smoke Wood chips
- Attention Set it and leave it
- Feeds A full table
- Learning Forgiving to learn
- Moving it Stays where you put it
What it is good at, and what is harder
What it is good at
- Ready in ten minutes and off in one, which is what makes it the cooker people actually use on a Tuesday.
- Two-zone cooking is a matter of turning a burner off — the one thing gas does better than charcoal, with no arrangement needed.
- The heat responds immediately when you move the dial, so a flare-up or a burning edge is fixable in real time.
- Nothing to clear out afterwards but grease; there is no ash.
What is harder
- It contributes no smoke of its own. Any smoke flavour has to be added deliberately with a smoker box.
- Long low cooks are possible and unrewarding: a burner running low is not the same as a small fire in a sealed chamber.
- A cylinder can run out mid-cook, and the only way to know is to have weighed it.
- Burner tubes, ignition and hoses are a maintenance surface that a charcoal cooker simply does not have.
The comparisons on this page are BBQHQ's reading of each maker's own manual set beside the others. No manufacturer here has said anything about a competitor's cooker, and none would be admitted as evidence if it had.
Carbon monoxide — read this first
Do not use this in an enclosed space — including a garage, a tent, a porch or a shed with the door shut. BBQHQ has no manufacturer instruction permitting it.
This is recorded from a source, never inferred from what it burns. BBQHQ does not derive indoor safety from the absence of combustion — an electric cooker still presents fire and smoke risk, and only its own manufacturer’s instruction can permit enclosed-space use.
How it works
Burners under a grate beneath a closable hood. Individually controllable burners make two-zone cooking trivial — switch some off — which is the one thing it does better than charcoal.
What heats it
- LPG (bottled gas)
Bottled propane or butane. Immediate control and no smoke of its own, which is why a gas grill that is to smoke anything needs a separate smoke source.
Where the smoke comes from
- Wood chips
Small pieces that ignite quickly and are spent quickly. Suited to short cooks and to gas grills, where they go in a box over a burner because there is no fire for them to sit beside.
What you can cook on it
Direct heat — Designed for this
Two-zone fire — Designed for this
Indirect heat — Possible with the right setup
- Light the outer burners only and place the food over the unlit one, hood down.
Smoking — Needs an accessory
- Gas produces no smoke of its own; a smoker box supplies it.
Needs: Smoker box
Is this the one for you?
Written as conditions rather than as types of cook, because the same person wants different things in June and in November.
Get this if
- You want to cook outdoors on a weeknight without planning it an hour ahead.
- You are cooking for people who arrive at different times and want food to appear steadily.
- You would rather spend the evening with the guests than with the fire.
Look at something else if
- Smoke is the point. This is the wrong machine for it and an accessory will not close the gap.
- You want the hardest sear available — charcoal beneath the food gets hotter.
Your first cook on it
- Preheat with the hood down and all burners high, then scrape the grate before the first food goes on.
- Light the outer burners and leave the middle one off to roast anything thick with the hood down.
- Check the hose and connection at the start of the season, and every time the cylinder is changed.
Worth cooking on it
Techniques it supports
Fast cooking over direct heat. What most of the world means by barbecuing, and what American barbecue specifically does not mean — a terminology collision worth knowing about before reading any recipe.
Cooking with the lid down and the fire to one side, turning the barbecue into an oven that happens to smell of woodsmoke. The default for anything large.
Bring the food up slowly on indirect heat, then finish it hot and fast over direct. One method, two heat configurations, in that order — which is exactly why the technique and the fire arrangement are described separately here.
Many hours at low temperature with smoke, until collagen-rich cuts become tender. The method that gives American barbecue its name and its arguments.
Very hot, very short contact to develop surface colour and flavour. Not, despite the persistent belief, a way of sealing in juices.
Small pieces threaded onto skewers and cooked close over an open fire. Included because three separately sourced traditions turn out to share it, and because the skewer material — iron, bamboo, lemongrass, bicycle spoke — is a real variable that the sources themselves distinguish.
Looking after it
Keeping it working, which is a different subject from keeping it safe. The safety rules are above and below; these are the jobs that decide whether it still holds a temperature in three years.
- Clear the burner tubes and the venturi screens at the start of the season — spiders nest in them and that is a real fault, not folklore.
- Empty the grease tray before it is full rather than after; a full tray is how a gas grill catches fire.
- Keep the cylinder upright, outdoors, and never inside the house or a cupboard.
Safety for this cooker
Never take a barbecue into an enclosed space
Never take a barbecue into a tent, awning, caravan, motorhome, garage, shed or any other enclosed space — including to keep warm, and including when it is no longer flaming.
Burning charcoal, wood or gas produces carbon monoxide, which is colourless, odourless and gives no warning before it causes harm. In an enclosed space it accumulates to lethal concentrations.
Where this comes from
A barbecue continues to produce carbon monoxide as it cools. A barbecue that is no longer flaming is still lethal in an enclosed space.
Well established
Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland) — States this directly
“Even a cooling barbecue gives off plenty of poisonous carbon monoxide”
- Why it happens:
- Incomplete combustion continues while fuel is still smouldering.
- Combustion chemistry, so it does not vary by jurisdiction — unlike the food rules.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland) — States this directly
A barbecue should never be taken into a tent, awning, caravan or motorhome, including when it is only cooling.
- What it covers:
- Applies to charcoal and other combustion barbecues.
- Carbon monoxide is colourless and odourless, so there is no warning before symptoms.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
London Fire Brigade — States this directly
“After cooking, let it cool and make sure it is properly out – smouldering ashes can give off dangerous carbon monoxide fumes and can be fatal.”
- An independent authority reaching the same conclusion as the Public Health Agency by a different route — a fire service rather than a public-health body.
About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
Where to go next
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Work back from when you want to eat, through resting, cooking and lighting the fire.