Though it’s very flexible, the Hell’s Handle is still strong enough to help transfer whole chickens from grill to cutting board. He continued, "As a result, there’s a silky follow-through that gets it off the grill." A thick top-grain leather exterior, a soft cotton interior, and durable lock-stitching on the US Forge gloves will help them stand up to years of abuse. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published reports on nonfatal injuries due to ingestion of wires from grill brushes. That means less hand fatigue—a real issue when you’re cooking a grill’s worth of food. But it may be a little bit difficult to select the right one if you are a newbie or trying out something new. Fire-roasted salsa usually involves blackening vegetables in a screaming-hot cast-iron skillet under your oven’s broiler. With its three rows of thick-gauge wire bristles, the Best Grill Brush covers a lot of surface area with each stroke, and its sturdy construction refused to bend during tough scraping tasks. Also, we liked the strong magnet on the back of the unit that kept it securely attached to the side of a grill. The silicone bristles on the OXO brush are heat resistant to 600 °F, so they won’t melt or leave stray bristles on your food (as most natural-fiber pastry brushes will). If you can’t decide on a grill basket size or shape, this set of three grill baskets from Yukon Glory gives you options. You might notice the absence of grilling sets in this guide. *At the time of publishing, the price was $11. Clean grates are the best way to keep food from sticking to your grill. Plus, mitts limit dexterity, and woven-fiber gloves let liquids penetrate, which can hamper their thermal protection. We don’t think these are dealbreakers, though, because, as Wirecutter editor Tim Heffernan put it, you can "just sling them over the nearest handle on your grill." They're available to fit most common grill brands, and we tried them out on both charcoal and gas grills. The Thermapen, however, is unmatched due to its unparalleled accuracy and waterproof casing. These 16-inch OXO tongs are more awkward to use, but they come with a lock and a hanging loop. You can find other, less expensive charcoal baskets, but none we researched offered the range of functionality of the Slow ’N Sear, which Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn—one of the leading voices in professional grilling—calls “the single best accessory for the Weber kettle ever.” The original version that we tested, the Slow ’N Sear Plus, has since been discontinued and replaced by the Slow ’N Sear Deluxe, which includes a removable water reservoir and differently shaped holes in the bottom grate that the company claims will make it more resistant to warping. The best thing about this grilling basket is that it has been made with stainless steel. It helps even beginners make great barbecue. For me, I like welder’s gloves or suede gloves.”. Previously, he was an editor at the International Culinary Center in New York. Nobody used any other kind of thermometers.”. For the second test, we tried the "low and slow" method on St. Louis–style ribs. During the three-hour cook, we added hot coals once around the 1½-hour mark to maintain a temperature of roughly 325 °F. *At the time of publishing, the price was $33. This is a spacious grill … The stainless steel blade on the Hell’s Handle has a fine edge, a stable feel with the right amount of give, and a tapered shape that seamlessly slid under our burger patties without resistance. The design sports a tightly rolled lip and a generous 1-inch rim that’s comfortable and easy to hold with one hand, important when you’re working fast over the grill. They’re popular, but we’ve found that the tools in such sets are usually of substandard quality and poorly designed. This grill brush has three rows of thick wire bristles that let you quickly scrape burnt gunk from hot grill grates, which is good news for your hands. The main fixed handle has a heat-resistant plastic grip; the second is a swinging wire handle that adds stability and control, allowing you to dump the lit coals with confidence. We charred tomatoes and onions directly over freshly lit, red-hot coals, and put a foil pack of garlic and oil off to the side in the indirect zone. We spent over 85 hours researching and testing—and selected our favorite tools and gadgets from past guides—to bring you the best gear for picnics and cookouts. We discussed the usability, quality, durability, and price of every tool, and we are confident that our picks will be top performers throughout grilling season. And while the Mercer Hell’s Handle Square Edge Turner has a sharp edge and a sturdy blade that performed admirably in our tests, its bulky size hindered agility on a crowded grill. The grape tomatoes, diced zucchini, and eggplant we cooked in the Grillaholics basket had better color and developed more flavor than the vegetables we tried with the competition. For more recommendations, see our full guide to probe thermometers. That design feature isn’t unique to Weber, but the Rapidfire was the only model to offer all of these features at an affordable price with wide availability. The Slow ’N Sear Deluxe charcoal basket lets you easily smoke large cuts and sear steaks and veggies on a kettle grill. The brush has two types of bristles: silicone outer bristles, and a set of flat perforated bristles in the core of the brush. To ensure you’re consuming meat and poultry cooked to safe internal temperatures, we recommend adding the ThermoWorks ThermoPop, our pick for the best instant-read thermometer, to your grilling arsenal. The Slow ’N Sear Deluxe turns any 22-inch kettle grill into a more capable and versatile smoker, and makes indirect cooking and high-heat searing simple. The GrillFloss isn’t just a scraper—it’s also an all-around grill-grate grabbing and rotating tool that Sam Sifton calls his "secret weapon for summer grilling." This basket performed similarly to our main pick, but its narrower perforations provided less contact with the grill grate. If you want to save a few dollars and don’t mind losing the enhanced handle, the Woody Paddle is a good option and offers the same cleaning functionality. Learn more. 1.1 Weber 6471 Original Stainless-Steel Fish Basket; 1.2 Companion Stainless Grilling Basket 4 Fish Grilling; 2 The Two Best Baskets For Grilling Vegetables. Though the handle was shorter than those of some other brushes we tested, we found that it still provided enough distance from the grill to keep our hands safe. More affordable and precise than competitors, these 16-inch stainless steel tongs offer the best balance of comfort and dexterity for cooking over open flames. For example, the Weber Style 6705 Stainless Steel Turner and our former top pick, the OXO Good Grips 16″ Grilling Turner With Serrated Edge, offered no flexibility and had long, awkwardly angled handles that made flipping burger patties more challenging compared with our new top pick. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald. Since it’s significantly more expensive than our main pick, the Thermapen is best for grilling and cooking enthusiasts. 2.1 SMAID Professional-Grade Stainless Steel Vegetable Grill Basket; 2.2 Weber Style 6434 Professional-Grade Vegetable Basket This heavy-duty turner excels at smashing burgers Shake Shack–style on a griddle with minimal effort. They’re also fire resistant and comfortable. In our tests, the Best BBQ Grill Brush removed stuck-on sauce and carbonized bits the quickest. The result was some of the best salsa we’ve ever made, without turning the kitchen into a sweatbox with a hot oven. Weber 6434. AIGMM Portable Stainless-Steel BBQ Barbecue Grilling Basket; 4. The resulting baby back ribs were smoky, juicy, and tender. Browne continued, “It’s almost universal. *At the time of publishing, the price was $40. If you prefer a brush with a longer handle, we also recommend the Le Creuset Revolution Basting Brush. The large perforations on this basket provided the most contact with our grill grate, so vegetables achieved more color and flavor than with the competition. It’s important to remember that these gloves are heat resistant, but not heatproof. We wanted to see if we could get similar (or better) flavor and texture on the grill using the Slow ’N Sear. This year we were able to test more tools, with more experts, on more grills, and we reached a lot of new conclusions. Among the tongs we tested, the narrow angle of the Winco model’s scalloped heads provided the most control when grabbing skinny asparagus spears or slippery sauce-laden chicken pieces. But if you want a simple way to add brilliant smoking and searing ability to your kettle grill, it’s an investment worth considering. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald The hole in the handle on the Woody Shovel is an upgrade over the solid grip on The Great Scrape's Woody Paddle. The only tiny flaws with the Winco tongs are that they don’t have a ring for hanging or a lock for storage. The Weber Rapidfire has two handles, so you can securely dump hot coals into your grill. They claim to deliver a better sear and higher heat than the grill manufacturers’ grates, while also eliminating flare-ups. If you’re hellbent on "no wire brushes," The Great Scrape's Woody Shovel is our favorite wire-free grate-cleaning option. A chimney starter offers the fastest, easiest way to light coals in one attempt—and doesn’t rely on smelly lighter fluid.