Weber 426001 Q 300 Propane Gas Barbecue

This grill was easy to assemble and works well. The Q can generate plenty of heat. The only changes I would like to see is an electronic ignitor and the lack of lava rocks does not allow you to add wood chips for a smoky flavor.

Finally! A good compact grill with folddown shelves.Only one other make has this feature and its quality is poor. Can't understand why other manufacturers don't "get it" and offer grills for those of us who have limited space and need portability. I found the Q300 online. Home Depot carries the Weber line but this item is only available as an online purchase and costs about $100 more than the Amazon deal when figuring in sales tax and higher shipping costs.
It goes together easily and performs great, nice even heat. I did bolt casters onto the legs opposite the wheeled legs and this made it a snap to move in and out of its spot in my garage. Would be nice if Weber would add this feature upfront. It's a really nice grill, Weber shouldn't keep it such a secret!

I've had the Q300 for about 10 weeks and grilled on it 3-4 times per week. Grilled steaks, roasts, chicken (both direct and indirect heat), pork
loins, hamburgers and hotdogs and the Q300 handled it all.

Gets hot fast:
From start with both burners on high...3 minutes grill is at 310 degrees....7 minutes 400 degrees.....10 minutes 520 degrees....14 minutes maxes out at 590 degrees

I like to cook chicken and pork over indirect heat, so I really like having the two burners with separate controls. The larger burner runs the perimeter of the grill and a second, smaller burner, goes down the center.

Outside burner only (High)..maintains 400 degrees,(Low)..300 degrees
Center burner only (High)..maintains 300 degrees,(Low)..200 degrees
Both burners on (High)..maintains 590 degrees, (Low)..500 degrees

Heavy duty cast-iron cooking grates. Grates dimensions are 25" x 17.5".

The Weber Q300 is quite a grill. I've only had it a week, but would like to report some things I like about it and make some comments, as well.

First of all, I have been grilling for several years and gave up on finding a good gas grill for steaks. They just don't get hot enough unless you close the lid, in which case you have an oven instead of a grill. However Weber intended that steaks should cook on this grill, I have found that it is hot enough to sear a 1 1/2 inch steak and cook it rare with the lid open after preheating the grill with the lid closed.

Mission accomplished -- but wait, there's more.

12 chicken thighs cooked on "indirect" heat with barbeque sauce added late in the cooking cycle took about 35 minutes at a thermometer temperature of 250 degrees and were perfectly done. This brings up the definition of "indirect" cooking. The weber cooking grate has solid metal over each burner, so when the burners are on low, there is no direct flame on the food; however, the grate is still cooking things pretty fast. This is not a slow-cook smoker. (I notice that Weber's recipe for a whole turkey is to put it on a rack, in water, in an aluminum pan. So there are ways to slow it down, apparently.)

Close the lid and turn the flame up to reach 600 degrees, and you have a self cleaning oven that burned off the residual barbeque sauce.

Addendum June 27. Last night was "cedar planked talapia" night. After soaking the planks in water both burners were adjusted to maintain a thermometer temperature of 450 degrees with the lid closed while the planks preheated and the fish cooked for about 30 minutes. I would say that the fish was cooked just the right amount. The good news is that the boards didn't catch fire even though they are solidly black on the bottom side.

And that's the extent of my experience to-date.

Design: The Weber Q300 appears to have been designed. It's not just a few pieces of sheet metal and some pipes bolted together through holes. It is a two piece clam shell of rather high precision cast aluminum that appears to reflect radiant heat onto the cooking surface. This allows the use of a somewhat smaller burner for a grill this size. The clam shell fits precisely into the glass-reinforced frame with metal inserts pressed in the right places for a hand-full of screws. The frame and the aluminum grill body can easily be lifted or pushed on its rollers until the 30 lb cast iron grill plates and 40 lb propane tank are added. Still, no wiggle or wobble in the frame, even when so heavily loaded.

Assembly: If you are conversant with picture language, you can get about 75% of the assembly done. A few words are added at Critical Places, but they are easily over looked. For example, the first two screws that went in are the only ones that require washers, but the washers are not pictured in the assembly drawing where it says to put the screws in -- they are drawn really big somewhere else where you can't miss them later when you are trying to find out where they go. The only other problem was trying to find the axel, which is slender and slipped down between the layers of cardboard this thing was packed in.

But it was all there, it went together, and the only problem seems to be that the lighter only works on the center burner. Otherwise, a gem of a grill.

Excellent for grilling and small enough to fit in tight spaces. Finally a grill, not simply for large gatherings, but for two or three people!