Camp Chef Portable BBQ Review

The Camp Chef is a basic, portable grill. It was a close contender for our Best Buy award, but the Smoke Hollow 205 edges it out. The Camp Chef is more expensive than the Smoke Hollow, but it has more even heating and greater maximum heat output. Both offer enough control for cooking almost anything you might want to cook. The Camp Chef is pretty bulky for its cooking area. The cooking area is suitable for a complete meal for 2 or the meat course for 4. For transport, it is about the size of the larger "six-pack" standard milk crate.

Performance Comparison

For the price, the Camp Chef scores pretty well overall. It is a little rattly and its construction quality doesn't inspire a ton of confidence. Its cooking performance is excellent, especially as compared to the similarly priced options. For its cooking surface area, the Camp Chef is a little bulkier than we would like.

The Portable BBQ grill is a reasonable value and offers heat control above its pay grade.

Output Power

Camp Chef claims that their Portable BBQ puts out 12000 BTUs. We have no reason to question this. For the surface area and price, we are impressed to see the u-shaped burner under the hood of the Camp Chef. This distributes the heat more evenly and makes for more heating power. When we max out the burner knob, pretty much any food item we would put on there will char in just a few minutes. In short, the Camp Chef makes all the heat you need.

Tailgating, ski-resort picnics, and camping out are all good uses for something like the Camp Chef Portable.

Claimed output, in BTUs, is just one variable in the output power comparison. Effective heat output is a function of the max BTUs possible, grill surface area, lid geometry, wind resistance, and grill burner shape. When the Portable BBQ Grill and the Editors Choice Napoleon TravelQ 285 both claim 12000 BTUs, you might expect that both are similarly hot. The fact is that both are hot enough, but to say they are equal is unfair. The Napoleon applies those BTUs to a greater surface area. The Napoleon also splits it between two burners. The Camp Chef almost roars while the Napoleon is more of a whisper. In the end, the max heat setting on both seems to produce about the same amount of heat. The Camp Chef is definitely hotter than the Top Pick Primus Kuchoma, but it doesn't seem to matter for normal cooking.

The piezo ignitor of the Camp Chef works most of the time.

Control

The u-shaped burner and wide-ranging knob of the Camp Chef give the user plenty of control. As noted above, the burner gets plenty hot for searing a steak. It can also be loaded down with thick, boneless-skinless chicken breasts and cook them "low and slow" without drying them out. The options between these two extremes are clear and well graduated. The u-shaped burner delivers your chosen level of heat to all but the farthest corners of the rectangular grill surface.

The Editors' Choice Napoleon TravelQ 285 sets the bar for control in a portable grill. Setting it apart from the Camp Chef is dual burners, a thermometer, and over $100. You get what you pay for. At the price, the Camp Chef is all you can expect and offers plenty of control.

A full load of vegetarian grilled delight. The Camp Chef can nearly do it all. Like any single burner grill, it cannot do indirect grilling. Otherwise it will do what you want it to do.

Portability

The Camp Chef Portable BBQ Grill weighs 20 pounds. For the surface area, this is right on par with the others. It is bulkier than others in this category, but not by much. The primary portability issues we had are with the rattly construction, a heat disperser that inevitably dislodges during transport, and a regulator that sticks way out unless you unscrew it. Screwing and unscrewing the regulator is somewhat tedious. In addition to being $50 less expensive, the Best Buy Smoke Hollow 205 addresses nearly all these concerns. It is 3 pounds lighter, similar in bulk, and rattles/disassembles itself less than the Camp Chef.

The Camp Chef regulator, in position, and the grease trap, pulled partially out. The regulator really needs to be removed for transport. Otherwise it sits out there vulnerable.

This photo shows the dislodged heat dispersal plate. Virtually every time the Camp Chef grill is moved, the plate comes out like this and needs to be replaced. It's not hard, but it's a dirty task.

Cooking Area

200 usable square inches of grilling surface is just right for a complete meal for two. If grilling just the meat course of a dinner meal, you can fit 4-6 servings on the Portable BBQ. This size range seems to be the sweet spot for portability and versatility. The Best Buy Smoke Hollow 205 and the Weber Q 11200 are about the same size as the Camp Chef. Both of these have straight burners. The u-shaped burner of the Camp Chef makes a little more of its surface area usable.

The u-shaped burner of the Camp Chef is very nice. For the price, we are impressed and pleased to see this in this grill.

Wind Resistance

We had no problems with the wind resistance of the Camp Chef. In multiple spring time Rocky Mountain grilling sessions and our standard "fan test", the Camp Chef never blew out and stayed just hot enough to sear a steak.

Best Applications

The Portable BBQ is a great upgrade from the Best Buy Smoke Hollow 205. It costs more, and rattles more in transit, but the Camp Chef puts out more heat and spreads that heat more evenly.

Value

The Portable BBQ Grill sits squarely between our award winners. It costs more than the Best Buy, but offers the u-shaped burner of the Editors' Choice. We recommend this grill and nearly granted it our Best Buy Award. For portability at a lower cost, the Best Buy Smoke Hollow is a better value and does all the kinds of grilling you might consider on the road.

Conclusion

Despite some small issues (rattly construction, protruding sloppy regulator), the Camp Chef is well-made and intelligently designed, at a reasonable price.