The best charcoal barbecues under £100

The best budget charcoal barbecues under £100

Weber compact 47 charcoal barbecue

Best overall budget barbecue

• Available from Go Outdoors (£99)

This porcelain-enamelled, dinky version of their heftier grills is rust-proof, comes with an ash catcher and is perfect for small gardens. If you’re in the market for a serious barbecue arsenal, Weber’s chimney starter kit is well worth looking into. It’ll get your charcoal ready in quick-time and we found it ridiculously helpful when testing 15 barbies on a drizzly day in spring.

Bar-Be-Quick smoker and grill barbecue

Best smoker barbecue hybrid

We were super impressed by the fact this unassuming cylindrical contraption features four cooking functions. Speaking purely on barbecue terms, there are two tiers and the bottom one can be turned into a lidded portable barbecue. It’s not as sturdy as a traditional smoker, but it can retain a constant heat for up to three hours, so you could smoke whole chickens or pork ribs with ease.

Argos Home charcoal oil drum barbecue

• Available from Argos (£60)

Best budget barrel barbecue

Pros:

• Easy to use and light
• Good heat coverage
• Effective heat distribution

Cons:

• No tool storage
• Poor quality in parts

Star rating: 4/5

Compared to other charcoal barbecues on the market, Argos' basic barrel barbecue offers excellent value for money. An obvious strength is the price point. For under £50 you're afforded plenty of cooking space for two, or elements for four people. The efficiency and quality of cooking is worth more than £40 alone.

Vents in the bottom basin feed the coals with air to keep them heated. The shape of the barbecue means it's easy to achieve an even coal distribution so cool spots that are common in kettle barbecues are easily avoided. For the money, you can't get much better.

Read our full Argos Home charcoal oil drum barbecue review

Available from:
Argos (£60)

Lifestyle 22" kettle charcoal barbecue

Best large charcoal barbecue

Pros:

• Large cooking area
• Adjustable twin air-vent system

Cons:

• Ambiguous building instructions
• Cheap-feeling handles

Star rating: 3.5/5

If you don't mind interpreting diagram-based instructions with no text and have a set of basic tools in your cupboard, you'll feel rewarded by this barbecue once built. It's a cheap but cheerful model that's lightweight to lift and manoeuvrable thanks to its wheel. It will need to be under cover for wetter months.

Some useful features make it feel like a value-for-money purchase, the first of which being two cooking grills. They don't produce the char lines you look for from grills, and ingredients need to be oiled to prevent them from sticking, but you have the option to cook with high heat just above the coals, or lower and slower at the top.

An adjustable twin air-vent system gives you adjustability over the temperature with the lid on, which cooks ingredients the most efficiently. A removable ash-catcher is another user-friendly feature.

Read our full Lifestyle 22" Kettle charcoal barbecue review

VonHaus Barrel charcoal barbecue

• Available from VonHaus (£78.49) and Amazon (£78.49)

Best basic charcoal BBQ

Pros:

• Good build quality
• Big cooking surface
• Good height

Cons:

• Poor-quality wheels

Star rating: 4/5

An excellent example of the way barrel barbecues should look and work, Vonhaus' basic model has the archetypal style without compromising on capacity.

You can cook for a crowd thanks to a 73cm x 39cm grill. Under its fold-down lid, potato chips cooked exceptionally well with defined charring. Courgettes didn't stick and a whole spatchcock chicken cooked through in less than half an hour.

It's a bit tricky to clean, although that isn't unusual for barrels. It also lacks tools, which is a minor issue.

Read our Vonhaus Barrel charcoal barbecue review

Available from:
VonHaus (£78.49)
Amazon (£78.49)

Bar-Be-Quick Tandoori Smoker and Grill

• Available from Argos (£85)

Best multi-functional barbecue

Pros:

• Versatile
• Skewers included

Cons:

• Poor heat retention

Star rating: 3.5/5

This is a brilliant option for anyone who is looking for an entry-level to low and slow outdoor cooking, offering a standard BBQ grill along with a 'tandoori' attachment, smoker and fire-pit functions.

For the price, you trade off some build quality. The 'tandoori' function overstates the product's ability - for example, you're not able to blister naan breads on the side. But for anyone who wants an affordable multi-functional and portable barbecue, this is a great price.

Read our full Bar-Be-Quick Tandoori Smoker and Grill review

Available from:
Argos (£85)

How we tested budget barbecues

We tested a representative sample of barbecues and scored them against the following criteria. We tested each barbecue using an identical batch of popular BBQ food like burgers, chicken, sausages and halloumi & vegetable kebabs.

Ease of assembly: barbecues have to be put together from scratch, so we assessed for easy instructions. Clear manuals, minimal nuts and bolts and a logical construction process were judged favourably.

Manoeuvrability: unless you live in a balmy climate, you’ll have to move your barbecue in and out of indoor storage. Wheels and handles help in this respect.

Footprint: we looked for barbecues with neat shapes that can be slotted into a small storage space.

Ease of cooking: we judged the size and height of the grill and temperature control – food that’s charred outside but raw inside is the ultimate culinary no-no.

What didn’t set us alight?

Barbecues with poor air circulation. For coals to burn efficiently you need good ventilation from underneath, so any barbecues with coals laid on a flat surface don’t tend to work as well.

Design over practicality. Some gimmicky table barbecues or mini bucket barbies might look cool, but if you can’t fit more than a couple of sausages on, what’s the point?

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This review was last updated in August 2020. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability, please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.

What’s your barbecue of choice? We’d love to hear your product suggestions...