Honest Review of The All New Weber Charcoal Heat Controller / Is It Worth $100.00?

we're doing a review of a brand new accessory for a Weber 22-inch kettle grills it is called the charcoal heat controller and that's what it is right there a lot of stainless steel on this we're going to dive deep into this folks we're going to show you how to put together we're actually going to use it and uh in the end I'm going to tell you is it worth 100 bucks let's get started all right so here's here's the box that came in and uh left it on my front porch and I was kind of looking for the other box because uh when I looked at the pictures of this that diffuser ring I didn't realize came in pieces you know you you look at the picture of it on and you know it doesn't really show that it comes in pieces but when you go to the uh description on on Weber's site it does say that it can be taken apart for easier storage so let's uh let's take a closer look at so people are going to ask does it fit to 26 it looks it's made just for the 22 and it's made just for a regular Kettle not the Jumbo Joe version of a 22. it's uh the in fact in the instructions they say no it's just for the regular 22 and it is uh 100 bucks so a lot of you that are familiar with Weber kettle Grill accessories I know about a company called Vortex that makes these that uh is pretty much that's a medium-sized Vortex pretty much the same size as the Weber vort as the well I can't call the web report text but the the Weber charcoal holder and uh this one is I guess it could could put it like this uh they say it holds one chimney of uh charcoal all right so when you get the two halves you gotta kind of both get them started and then hopefully they'll just yeah press together like that and then that'll sit on this leg of that uh interesting let's uh let's get it on a kettle all right so in the instruction manual it shows you the the different setups with uh using it as uh more or less uh you know snake method where you would like one end and it would go around you'd put your diffuser on top of that and then you'd be able to do low and slow so they say you can get uh I think if it's all the way filled up on both sides you can get seven hours out of this and then for high heat you would put in there look at that they're saying you could put uh a bowl in there with some moisture that's a good idea and then for high heat you would just fill up the middle of it and then uh you know you can sear some steak on it like that or use it indirect to do as as you would like a Vortex to uh do some chicken legs or chicken wings on the outside or whatever you wanted to do all right so we're gonna try it on I've got uh you may have not seen this one before well you may if you watched Tom first but YouTube but this is the Weber One Touch Platinum I believe they only made this for two years uh I think 2010 2011 someone's going to correct me if I'm wrong but a very unique design I love the shelves hope that's a little higher Center vent and I think the center vent will work really well with this setup and you can see we've got uh we got her in there and uh you know I want to try that snake method in there and just see not so much we'll go seven hours I just want to see how the heat and you can see they've got plenty of Gap here about a two inch Gap all the way around so they're they're allowing the heat to come up and uh our effective cooking space in fact I tell you well let's measure it all right so you can see your cook effective cooking area with this is 18 inches all right I got two piles of charcoal in there I'm just using some uh Royal Oak stuff here I don't want to expect good stuff on this test but we're going to light we're gonna light this end right here and we're gonna like that in over there I don't know why just because final vent is going to be open all the way get her going put the cover on put the grates back on put the diffuser on put for my Pucks in and then we're gonna shut it down and uh probably close that top vent to uh probably two thirds and just see what it does and see how I'm more concerned about how it affects that thing right there all right smokes rolling got started over there start over here I'm gonna put a diffuser on I had to back down on the charcoal pile was hitting this thing sits you get sits down low and I've got my four pucks we'll put the grate on put the four pucks one two three four and uh close the vent down to half one-third and then uh give you a look see in about 30 minutes all right so we're about 35 minutes um as you can see we're just below 200. I have the vent set right there which is what I like plenty of smoke rolling and our Oklahoma Joes 175 200 there and then 175 there so pretty consistent keep on I'm just going to keep on going the way it's going and uh I'm gonna go for a walk actually so I'll be gone for about an hour and a half give you a look in about an hour and a half all right folks two and a half hours into it here see the lid temp you can see that closer to about 275 now that situation is pretty much the same uh let's see how we're doing on the pucks see the pucks are getting discolored from the smoke so we are oh yeah we're climbing there 325 there 300 there almost 350 there that was always hot on that side and then uh right around 300 there I'm gonna I'm going to take off the grate and take off the diffuser and see how we're doing on chart all right let's see if we can get this off here we'll go into two coolest spots which should be right here and right there okay the charcoal is just about done probably got another half an hour we're gonna put this all back on here and see I think we'll definitely get the three hours that wasn't quite half and they said it would go for about seven hours so pretty close you know when folks start thinking yourselves because at the end here I'm gonna tell you whether I think it's worth 100 bucks start thinking whether you think it's worth 100 bucks and you can leave your uh thoughts down in the comments all right one last look folks let us home to 50 and the pucks 275. getting dirty there 250 I think and 275 and 250. so we're gonna um charcoal system all done we're gonna take this off let it cool down give you my final thoughts all right folks you got your final thoughts I I've got mine so uh 100 bucks is it is it worth it you know one of the biggest I'm gonna say disappointments because every picture you looked at it didn't show it I mean it really did a good job of not letting on that these were four sections I know you look in the practice description and it does say that if you if you bought one of these folks uh I would I would not take it apart because the more you take it apart the chances are good you're going to break off or damage one of those tabs and you break one of those tabs and you're pretty much done um uh it is very well made it's stainless steel it did handle you know the heat today no issues uh you know I I don't you know at the same time you didn't try I have no doubt that that's gonna work in fact if I was doing steak uh for for direct I probably would invert it like this um and then uh have the cast iron over it and cook like that but as far as this is concerned I'm a little disappointed in the fact that it's four pieces but I get it and it is I hate to say this only a hundred bucks is is there other stuff out there so I've purchased this one twice and used it and uh this one's 80 bucks on on Amazon and uh stainless steel and does uh you know it has a basket so you know but you can also uh set it in there and put the charcoal on the outside and I've done a review I'll leave the link down below to review I did on that works pretty nice there's a there's a bunch of other ones out there and you know and Weber makes something like that too but they only they don't sell it as an accessory they only sell it with certain grills so you know I I wish they would have just done that you know but that would probably be more than 100 bucks and I'm starting to ramble here so what do you think I I don't know I'm on the fence I really am is it worth it for a hundred bucks there's there's other stuff out there and that's why I looked to say you know there's other stuff out there that's less but time will tell with this and we will we will use it tell me what you think down in the comments hey if you made it this far and you want to support the channel don't forget the super thanks down below I would appreciate anything we can get to help keep on bringing these great reviews your way Tom horsman at YouTube don't forget to subscribe Thumbs Up And as always thanks for watching folks

Channel: Tom Horsman

Views: 32,312

Keywords: Weber, Weber accessories, Weber kettle, Weber 22” kettle accessories, Weber kettle charcoal Heat Controller, bbq, bbq charcoal, charcoal grill, charcoal grill accessories, tom horsman, tom horseman

Id: YgKEQ1lw_p0

Length: 9min 6sec (546 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023