Customer Reviews

Char-Griller 3001 Grillin' Pro 40,800-BTU Gas Grill

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've done plenty of research and seen many grills before picking the 'Char-Griller Pro 3001'. I think if you really want a solid grill that lasts forever, get a Weber. For me paying $700+ for a similar Weber isn't an option. You also should beware of the inexpensive stainless steel grills (anything under $400). Their not stainless, the metal is thin & flimsy and they start showing signs of rust in a matter of months. I even saw some demos with rust stains?? This shouldn't be a problem with the finish on the Char-Griller. Plus I noticed it ranked well in Consumer Reports. I picked mine up at Menards for $149.00 (on 06/26/09).
At times it was challenging to put together. The pictures and directions could've been more descriptive on which way things face when you put them together (ie: the legs). Plus the location of parts within the box. I had to find parts that I needed early in the installation that were wrapped up with things late in the installation?! Once you get it together it's pretty solid. It starts easily and heats up fast. For me in less than 5-10 min. on high the temperature gage was at 650 degrees (on a windy 70 degree day in Chicago). The grates are porcelain coated cast iron. That's a feature you want to look for in a grill. You'll see those on higher priced models. The grates have a side for 'Searing' and a side for 'Grilling'. They cleanup easily and give GREAT grill marks. Now mind you my last grill was a 12 year old 'Char-Broil' that was shot and I've only used this one twice. But from what I can tell (so far) unless you want to pay a ton for something better this is a great grill for the price.

Update: 07-27-09
It's still a great grill for the price. I have one thing I never liked and if you're coming from an older grill like me you should be aware of this. Older gas grills (5 or 10 years) had the burners right along the bottom of the grill base with a metal shield over the top. You then had 5 inches or so between the shield and the grilling grates. This would give you space for 'Lava Rock', 'Ceramic Brickets' and some wood chips if you choose. The rocks or bricks would catch grease and reduce flare ups. To keep the grill clean you change the rock out once a season or so. NONE OF THE NEW GRILLS (including the Char-Griller) are setup like this. They ALL have the burners and shields right below the grilling grates. And you have no room for anything below the burners. So you need to be sure to keep the bottom of the grill CLEAN and CLEAR of debris (drip trays too). As I stated before this grill heats fast and puts out a good flame. Well after cooking about 10 times or so I had some debris and an oily film on the bottom from cooking & basting things. Yep you guessed it, FIRE, FIRE! Luckily I caught it after just a couple minutes of cooking and shut it down and put everything out. I cleaned out the bottom turned it back on and it was fine. So be safe and keep it clean!

If you pay $300 you are getting ripped off. It should only cost about $189. Look somewhere else.

I also paid $189 for this grill at Lowe's. Having it pre-assembled at no additional cost was really nice. It's a good grill, but missing some features I liked on my old grill (even if I didn't know they were there)

First, the cooking grate is 3 separate pieces. I preferred the single piece of my old grill. I see myself losing some food down there in the future.

My biggest complaint is there's no lip on the back of the grates, so when I try to slide under a burger, if I end up pushing the burger back, there's nothing to stop it. I have to be very careful when lifting those rear burgers.

My old grill had some spaces that I was used to hanging my tongs off of, which are all closed up on this grill. A minor annoyance, but frustrating when I was cooking last night.

I feel the side burner is just a novelty, and unless you have a table nearby, you'll need both sides of the grill to hold your plates and grilling utensils.

For $189, this is a good grill. However, knowing the grate is in 3 pieces and there's no lip on the back, I would've looked for something else.

After lots of research settled on this grill and at under $200, nothing compares. After three months of use, looks and works like new. The cast iron construction leads to even heat, the burners work well, there are trays on both sides (one is a side burner with a flat cover), and it does a great job of grilling.

The drip TRAY is easy to reach (as opposed to a hole that a can hangs under) and the barrel construction also lends to the even heat of the grill.

The smoker attachment is a nice idea for those who want the flexibility and convenience of a gas grill with the option for smoke/charcoal; although I have not used it I think I will be purchasing the attachment before next Thanksgiving (nothing like a smoked turkey on the grill).

Cons: Assembly is a little bit of work and is best accomplished with two people. It is not something you want to do in a hurry and while not easy, it wasn't an overwhelming challenge either. In other words, yes, you have to do a little bit of thinking and it really helped to have another person to verify understanding and help to hold pieces. If you feel you are mechanically challenged, could be frustrating, but don't be scared away. Assembly time for two people who don't do much if any mechanical work, was about 90 leisurely minutes.

With so many nice-looking but cheaply made grills with cheap parts out there, the Char-Griller stands out with it's simple efficient design and comparatively heavy parts.

I actually paid $189 for this grill at Lowe's, and it is a great grill.
I cooked 15 burgers, and 8 brats in about 15 mins.

After seeing so many stainless steel grills begin looking nasty after the first year, I did some hard looking through Amazon reviews to find this grill. And with a few exceptions, I'm not disappointed.

First the good:
The grill is very heavy and very stable. I've used it extensively for a month without cleaning out the bottom - including hosting our housewarming party where I cooked numerous burgers and brats - and I can't say that I've had the fire issue others have mentioned. The grease seems to drain into the grease bowl pretty well. The fire is hot, flare ups are kept to a minimum, and the temperature is very even accross the entire grill.

The bad:
1. Make sure you buy a cover. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but after the first rain, the igniter went out. Additionally, mist is getting into the thermometer. No need to buy the official grill cover for this though.
2. The box is heavy. As such, when my grill was delivered, soem of the parts were bent.
3. Worst of all, the instructions for assembly of this grill are horrible. If you do buy the grill, make sure you're good at putting things together. Additionally, they don't tell you what direction to put many of the parts on, so make sure you read multiple steps ahead to ensure you are putting things together properly. Throughout the first 10 steps, there were at least two occasions wher eI had to take things apart and rebuild them due to the instructions not telling me which way to put the item.

As far as customer service goes, I can't complain. I called to ask for a replacement igniter module as well as two pieces I had to break to take the grill apart rebuild it, and they are sending them. Don't ask for support via email though...I'm still waiting for a response to that.

Would I buy this grill again? Well, I'm not afraid of doing work to get a good value...so I would. I am quite handy and do most of my own work around the house, yet if I would've known the headache of assembling this grill, I probably would've tried to find it in stock at a store and had them assemble it.

Excellent grill for the money! We just picked this grill up from Menard's (for $[...] after a $[...] mail-in rebate) and we couldn't be happier! While the assembly instructions leave quite a bit to be desired, that overall construction of the grill along with the features make it an excellent choice. The lid material is quite heavy and while only the test of time will tell whether the grill holds up, for only $[...] it is a risk we are willing to take.

Pros: Heavy construction for an entry-level grill, Great pricing if you can find it on sale, three burners light quickly and seem to heat evenly, and the larger cooking surface is very nice.

Cons: Poor assembly instructions

Overall this is a VERY good grill for the money and we would highly recommend it to our friends and family.

If you are looking for a good gas grill and you are on a budget, then the $170 for this is probably a good buy. Frankly I don't see the need for $500, $800, $2000 grills that are mostly name buying or grill envy inducing. You buy a grill to cook food not to be backyard bling. If you one of those huge backyard million dollar mansion types, then your not reaidng this anyway and move on to you Weber's and such. For us down to earth people this will suffice.

I've read alot of reviews saying that the directions are utterly useless and hard to understand. I don't know if Char-griller re-wrote the directions or what but I didn't find them difficult to follow. Maybe if you are the type that only looks at the pictures to assemble things, you might have a little prblems, are they are all in grey scale and not color, but even the picies are marked with stickers saying things like, "this side faces inside" or "this is the long wired burner tube". Sometime you might even feel alittle insulted that they tell you the burned tube has a longer wire attached because its some 4 inches longer and VERY obvious. But the directions have words besides pictures and they are quite clear on what to do and what pieces you need. Plus the screws/bolts/washers are very nicely packaged with sizes printed on both sides of the pack.

I'm not mechanically inclined by anymeans, but save your wallet some heartache and put it together yourself. all you need is one phillips head screw driver (maybe a pliers for when you attach the warming grate). But other than that its simple to assemble, eventhough it took just over two hours doing it by myself. But even the directions tell you that you need two people. Well you don't. The hardest part is getting the cart legs to stay put when your attaching the all and connecting them.

There was only one piece that I had to bend slightly to make it fit and that was the front panel. There was alittle too much bend in the top of the piece but once I bent it down about 10 degrees it fit perfectly. As for the rest of the grill, everything lined up perfectly and went together without any naughty words needing to be uttered.

This grill heats up very quickly, but then again I've never had a gas grill before so maybe everyone does, but I can get the temp to 600+ in around 5 minutes.

The one thing that I noticed is that there seems to be quite a bit of manufacturing oil residue. And it is real sticky when you putting the top and bottom grill barrels on. The directions say to run it for 15 minutes with the ild closed to get rid of it, but there is still quite a bit left. Maybe I just got an oil happy factory cutter, but I won't speculate on that.

The surface area is quite large for the over all size of the grill. Most grills seem to be wide and shallow where as this is quite deep and could be an optical illusion, but nice size for my family of four.

I'll update with more comments when I get a few meals put on this.

Over all I am very happy with the grill and my decision to assemble it myself.

The three piece grate system seems to stay in place well enough and should present a problem. They are also porcelain coated cast iron and should hold the heat nicely and be easy enough to clean. Another cleaning feature I like is the easy to reach drip pan. some people have written that it doesn't drain well, but I can't comment on that yet, but will in an update post later. The nice sized pull out pan seems large enough to not have to worry about it overflowing except in the large of cookouts doing multiple full loads.

I was very suprised at the weight of this grill for the cost. This looks and feels like a heavy charcoal grill (probably since Char-griller is more known for that type of grill). I liked it better than the shiny, "polish me every weekend" looking cookers out there and it lends itself to being rather manly in appearance as apposed to a lot of the fairy foo-foo stuff out there. The box weighed around 90 pounds and assembled with the tank on it it still sits around the same weight, so I don't think anyone short of tornado ally dwellers need worry about it blowing over, even with a cover on it.

I would have liked to be able to have those lava rocks or similar things in the bottom of the grill to help against flare ups from the food juices but there doesn't seem to be alot of room to put stuff like that in there as the heat shields are within a few inches of the grates. I remember a friends older grill have lots of room and the burners/heat shields were under all the lava rocks and it looked nice and it helped with flare-ups quite a bit, but it seems all the grills are made like this now. Hmm. I wonder why.

One thing I'd like to see changed is the thin side tray. Not so much because it feels flimsy, because it feels solid enough to hold stuff, but when you move the grill, I'd like to see something alittle more robust to grab hold of to move this 90+ pounds around with.

In closing, if you want a gas grill, don't have alot of money, want a masculine look, buy this. remember its the quality of the cook that makes a good meal and not spending alot of money on asthestics.

Anyway, I'm off to the store to buy some grilling food so I can update this later.

After reading reviews on dozens of gas grills, it came down to the little Char-Griller 3001 but it was big on features...I got the Char-Griller Pro 3001 at Lowes for $150. Took it home to assemble because I like to see just what makes my grill tick. Instrucions were EZ to follow and I had no difficulties as some complained about. On the very first use of this grill, I knew it was the right choice. The grease drip system may not be the best, but it served it's purpose well and did collect the majority of the grease drippings. Keep it cleaned regularly and you will have less fires. Simple to maintain. The heat can be regulated to exactly what you want, but this grill can get very hot if needed! My very first use of the grill was Drunken Chicken. My setup could do 2 chickens. I used Weber "Beer Can Chicken" rub and 2 cans of Coors beer. I used the two outside burners and left the center burner off. The temp held a perfect 350-375 throughout the cooking time without a problem. It was awesome! I also set a smoker box full of mesquite that smoked the chicken nicely. The chicken cooked evenly to a golden brown and was absolutely moist and delicious! The next day, I grilled oysters in the shell and 2 prime rib steaks at once. No issues...No flare ups. Just a great grill to use. The value will out do the expensive grills many times over! PLUS, the build quality and looks are top shelf too. Buy the matching cover, it fits like a glove and is also well made.

We recently purchased this grill from a local home improvement store for $189 and I am impressed with it. It seems to be well made and has some nice features such as the side burner, all-metal parts except for the wheels and knobs, and an electric starter for the main burners. The grill has a three piece porcelain coated grate, which is really nice for cleaning purposes because a large single grate can be somewhat difficult to tote around and clean in the sink. If you normally grill small amounts of food like my wife and I do, I can just cook on one section, pop out that single grate, and the other two stay in the grill. Probably what I like about this is the amount of heat it puts out. After putting it together, I turned on all three burners and let it run for a few minutes to burn off any oil left on the grill. It was showing almost 700 degrees in less than 10 minutes and that was with the two chimneys on top. I have not used the side burner, but it looks plenty powerful enough to do some decent cooking such as heating up beans or boiling corn. The side shelf is very sturdy and has hooks for hanging grilling tools. The LP tank is smartly placed on the wheel side, which makes moving the grill much easier and the tank is held securely with a long screw that extends through the holes in the bottom ring of the tank. It has a nice warming rack that stays secure, and has the capability to have other accessories added including a rotisserie.

I saw some reviews online that complained the grill is hard to put together, but I had no trouble. With minimal help from my wife to help line up holes, we had it put together in less than an hour using a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. It would be quite a bit more difficult to do by yourself, but could be done.

As far as complaints, I really only have a couple. First, some of the metal parts were bent a little bit out of the box. This may be a result of handling after it left the factory, but I don't think so. The problem was minor and not noticeable after assembly. Second, the grill is made in China, which is just a personal gripe and not necessarily a dig at the product itself.

Overall, we are both happy with the purchase, especially considering it came in at less than $200. Yes, a Weber would be a much better grill, but it will also cost you more than twice the price. With minimal maintenance such as cleaning it and keeping the rust off, it should last many years.