How to choose a grill for your home

It's not always possible to get out into nature and cook a delicious and aromatic steak. For those who are crazy about this kind of food, grilling at home is the best option – a great way to cook delicious and incredibly aromatic food at home. And in order to fully realize your own culinary ambitions, it is enough to choose a high-quality grill for your home, taking into account the important characteristics and technical features.

The best home grill manufacturers

Compact grills for urban use can be found in the catalogs of every household appliance manufacturer. For this reason, when deciding to buy a grill for your home, you should give preference to well-known brands:

1. Philips

2. Tefal

3. Moulinex

4. Vitek

5. Sharp

Before you give preference to a particular model, you should study its characteristics and compare with its closest competitors, as well as study reviews about it on the Internet. You can find them both on social networks and on the relevant thematic forums dedicated to cooking and cooking.

How the home grill works

The purpose of home grills is to cook delicious fried food in no time. For this purpose, special electrical devices are used – electric heaters, quartz or infrared heaters, which heat the working surface of the grill and maintain it at the proper level, which ensures uniform frying and quick cooking.

Grill types

Modern devices of this type are usually divided into two main categories, depending on how the thermal effect on the prepared products occurs.

Contact grills

Devices where food preparation is carried out using the direct thermal effect of a heated working panel. Provide uniform frying and quick cooking, and thanks to a large number of cooking modes, they allow you to fully reveal your own culinary abilities. Depending on the type of operation, all contact grills are divided into three main groups:

1. One-sided grills. Devices with a heated surface on one side. Simple and functional, require constant turning of the cooking food for uniform frying;

2. Double sided grills. Such devices are closed grills, the heated surfaces of which are located both above and below. Thanks to this design, uniform roasting and fast cooking are ensured. The downside is the inability to visually observe the food being prepared, you have to rely only on visual indicators and a timer.

Advantages

• Low price;

• Most models come with a special grease tray;

• Construction reliability;

• A large number of cooking modes;

• Decent functionality;

disadvantages

• Require special care and constant cleaning after each preparation;

• A lot of smoke is emitted during cooking;

• Grilled food is not healthy;

Non-contact grills

The products being prepared are placed on special rotating platforms located between the heating elements. The latter can be built into both the upper and lower part of the device, and into its walls. Thus, there is no direct contact between the heated surface and the food, and cooking is carried out only by thermal action. There are the following types of contactless grills:

1. Planetary. The bowl of food moves diagonally while rotating;

2. Vertical – the movement of the tray during cooking occurs from top to bottom;

3. Horizontal – rotate in a horizontal plane and provide uniform frying of the prepared products;

4. Shashlik makers. Cooking takes place by analogy with traditional barbecues, however, instead of coal, powerful heating elements are used here, while the rotation of the skewers is carried out by a mechanical drive.

Advantages

• Uniform cooking and the highest quality roasting;

• Low noise level;

• No smoke during cooking;

• High functionality and a large number of recipes and cooking programs;

• Burning of products is excluded due to lack of contact with the heated surface;

disadvantages

• High price;

• Whimsical to care and maintenance;

Selection options

Grill dimensions and geometry

A parameter that affects, first of all, visual perception. The device should have a laconic design and not stand out in its appearance against the background of the kitchen interior. The geometrical dimensions of the grill are directly related to the area of ​​its working surface: the larger the latter, the more food you can cook at one time, which is important for those who cook for a large family.

Power

This is a traditional parameter typical for all devices of this type without exception. The higher the power of the grill, the faster the cooking is carried out and the wider the range of temperature adjustments of the device. On sale there are both low-power devices, the nominal power of which is 600-800 W, and full-function devices, reaching 4500-5000 W in peak cooking mode and are excellent for catering establishments. The optimal models for home use are grills, the rated power of which is around 1500-2000 watts.

Materials from which the working surface is made

If you decide to get a contact grill, give preference to modern non-stick coatings, which make it possible to cook food in your own juice, without adding oil. The best of them is Teflon – a material that is unpretentious in care and cleaning, characterized by excellent functionality and durability. But steel or enamel models should be discarded.

Operating principle

All electric grills are divided into contact and non-contact. The former are good for summer cottages, as well as for places with thoughtful ventilation due to the large amount of smoke generated during cooking. On top of that, turning a delicious steak into coals due to oversight on such a grill is easy enough. Contactless grills are devoid of all these drawbacks, however, such models are much more expensive and whimsical in service and maintenance.

Availability of various cooking modes and built-in recipes

The more programs and recipes the grill 'knows', the more varied and delicious your diet will be. It is for this reason that manufacturers provide for simplified algorithms for controlling their devices in choosing a cooking mode. Such functionality does not require monitoring the condition of the products and guarantees that a tasty and juicy steak will be cooked after a set time with the required degree of roasting.

Additional elements

The most functional models are equipped with all sorts of additional elements that expand the functionality of the device and increase its price.

1. Thermoregulator. A special adjustable thermostat that allows you to change the temperature of the working surface directly during cooking, thereby affecting the final appearance of the dish;
2. A special container for oil and spices, dosing the addition of specific ingredients, depending on the selected recipe and automating the cooking process;
3. A tray for fat and juice released during cooking greatly simplifies the process of cooking, maintaining and cleaning the grill after cooking;
4. Convector that accumulates residual heat and is designed to heat the finished dish for several hours after the end of the cooking process;
5. Timer that allows you to set the estimated cooking time and set the delay for turning on the grill;
6. The presence of a non-stick coating, which greatly simplifies the cleaning of the device after cooking.

In the following articles, our experts will tell you how to choose a quality saucepan and which saucepan is better – enamelled or stainless steel.

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Attention! This material is the subjective opinion of the authors of the project and is not a purchase guide.