Friday, June 24, 2011

O Grill - Portable Gas Grill review

O Grill 3000 - Red

Perhaps you've seen the O Grills (no - the O is not for Oprah) or maybe just photos of these neat compact gas grills. I know they caught my eye over at Amazon. They're bright colored cute grills, but you buy grills for how they grill (or I hope you do).

Cyndi With Compact Q Grill - Gas Model

It's hard to get a feel for the size from basic model photos, so here you can see me carrying the O Grill 3000. This is the larger size which is great for families or tailgating. The smaller one is the O Grill 1000 which would be perfect for RVers.

For reference, I'm 5 foot 4 inches, so I'm not particulary tall, and I have no problems carrying this grill which checks in at 25 pounds. Yes. It is heavy for the actual size, but that's due to the quality materials used.

You can look at, touch and lift the O Grill and tell that the construction is solid.

The main body is sheet metal, but don't let that fool you. I worked sheet metal in high school and college. There are various grades. A good quality sheet metal with quality paint is perfect for a smaller grill (keeps the weight down). The photos you see are after eight months with this grill, and you can see that the grill still looks perfect. They did a super job with the body on this grill.

What does add the weight here would be the grate which is cast iron. The benefit of cast iron, in addition to being longlasting, is that the cast iron holds heat really well. When you fire up this grill, then the grates get good and hot with uniform temperatures. If you're looking for grill marks, you can certainly get them with this grill.

Super Easy Set Up - O Grill

Iroda (the company that makes O Grills) says it takes 10 seconds to set up the O Grill. Frankly, you're kind of slow if it even takes you that long.

All you do to set up the O Grill is flip down the legs. The grease pan then positions on its own. Then you screw in a gas bottle. You can use the large size, but I go with the small travel size gas cannisters.

Son Setting Up O Grill

My son who won the North Carolina Scout of the Year through the VFW is doing the grill set up here. It took him maybe 5 seconds. I only had time to snap off one photo.

Ready to Grill on the O Grill

Once the O grill is ready to go, you just slide the orange latch, and it opens up to a very generous size. You could easily grill 6 or 8 steaks at once and a lot of burgers or hot dogs.

Fire Up and Grill

Once you open you the grill (always do that with gas), turn the large and easy to turn knob to light. Then, press the red ignition button. The burner fires up immediately. No problems with the ignition which often is a problem on portable gas grills.

Grilling on the O Grill

You can, of course, grill all the traditional grill foods on the O grill. I'm grilling cheese here, because it's a pretty tough test for a portable grill. The grates must get good and hot, but you have to be able to adjust the temperature and pull it down to get the cheese marked but not melting through the grates.

The O Grill 3000 even passes the cheese test, so I'm impressed. With just a short warm up, the grate was good and hot. I dropped the temperature down, and the heat did drop as I wanted and expected (or hoped).

Halloumi Cheese Grilled on the O Grill

Here's our cheese grilled on the O Grill. And, yes, it does taste as great as it looks. It's my son's all time favorite grilled food.

The O Grill 3000 is an excellent portable gas grill. It comes in fashion colors and really stands out in terms of appearance. The quality construction is quite impressive. The real test - the grilling - O grill nails it.

There are some accessories for the O grill like a stand so that you can grill waist high. I don't have the stand, but I'd think that would be nice to have as well.

No comments: