Weber Grill

Finally got a new grill! First grill was a wedding present from co-workers and it has served its time. That 5-year old Kenmore grill rusted out (1/2 of the grill has heat) and then got blown over by the strong wind, which broke the plastic tray on the side. We had decided to replace it last year but then winter came up so quickly we didn't end up getting to it.

This morning I bought the highly rated Weber Genesis Silver B grill from Homedepot for $499. Usually I spend a lot of time waiting for deals but since I couldn't find any meaningful bargains on-line or locally, I decided to just buy it and get the grilling season started. It sounds like we grill a lot but we really don't - at least not yet.

It was not an easy call to buy such an expensive grill at $200+ over our original budget. Based on the previous rusting experience, we were pretty sure that we wanted something that won't rust -- hence the stainless-steel constructed grill. We also wanted a grill with evenly distributed heating. I was too clumsy to deal with moving the food around to make up for the uneven heating in old grill - then again, this was only an issue when we entertained, which has become less frequent with another kid coming our way.

After deciding on the Weber Genesis Silver B, I had a tough time deciding whether to buy it from Homedepot or another store at the same price. Why? I had read that only Homedepot has cast-iron with porcelain enameled grates while the others has stainless with porcelain enameled. I am too ignorant to tell the difference between the two so I went with "special is better". I was also confused about the higher-end models having totally stainless grates and then I found this not-necessarily BBQ-focused article comparing stainless and enameled, which said stainless is inferior and that it just looks cool. It was easier to just buy it at this point.

However, right before buying this grill, Mr EDF, who was kind enough to help load/drive the assembled grill home, reminded me with a quick trip to Sam's that I'd be paying premium compared with Sam's Club's $600 grill, which has side-burner + rotissery + 2x cooking area. I almost waivered but decided to stay with the pricey but highly-rated grill. I really didn't want to spend more money to get a bigger grill when it will probably take up 1/2 of my patio space - not to mention I really don't see a need for the extra space, rotissery or side-burner.

It was pretty exciting on the way back to home -- especially when the wind (caused by car going 50mph) blew over the new grill and untightened (forgot rope) grill tipped over in trailer. We were lucky that the broken weld-joint was repairable and the scratches were no big deal. It did confirm that the grill will top over with 50mph constant wind so we got a sense of how it may end up someday in our backyard.

The grill was working fine as it grilled peppers, burgers and hotdogs for our lunch BBQ. It left some searing marks on the burger so that was good -- the old grill barely seared anything with the grates it had. We didn't cook enough food to test the even-heating claim though. Right now we are happy that we finally got the new grill HOME to start the our new grill season.

PS. It appears that Weber's customer service is as good as they say. I called about the missing pan handler etc and they are shipping on Monday!