There are some scorching spots. The left-rear facet of the grill was constantly hotter in temperature-gun readings and cooked noticeably quicker. That’s common although, each grill I’ve ever tried has scorching spots. What’s uncommon concerning the Spark One is the way you arrange the two-zone system.
Two-zone cooking refers to cooking with each direct and oblique warmth. It’s a cornerstone of nice grilling, and it is easy to do with most charcoal grills: transfer the charcoal to 1 facet. That facet will probably be a lot hotter and turns into your direct cooking zone, and the opposite facet is your oblique cooking zone.
With the Spark One, it is slightly extra sophisticated. You need to take away the warmth diffuser from the middle. Then immediately above the Briq is the direct warmth, whereas throughout it’s the oblique cooking areas. It works, nevertheless it’s awkward to maneuver issues round when grilling since you are not going from one facet to the opposite, however round in a circle. It’s not a deal-breaker, however it is going to take some follow.
Proprietary World
The solely actual drawback with the Spark grill is the proprietary charcoal. It’s not low cost, about $5 a Briq, and one Briq is one prepare dinner. Well, ideally. If you are cooking for 2 individuals, say grilling up some burgers fast, you may use considerably lower than a full Briq. There’s no approach to cease the remainder from burning up although, so you find yourself utilizing a complete factor.
If, then again, you are cooking a complete rooster and also you want just some extra minutes … properly, you higher begin your oven, as a result of there is no approach to throw a pair extra Briqs on such as you would in a typical charcoal grill.
Briq choices are restricted as properly. The solely ones out there now are for high-heat cooking. The Spark actually excels from about 450 levels to 850 levels, with 500 being the candy spot in my testing. If you need to do a gradual prepare dinner, say ribs or brisket, you may want Spark’s low-and-slow Briq, which I wasn’t capable of check.
That will get to the center of the issue with proprietary charcoal—availability. You can order Briqs on-line from Spark, but when the corporate goes out of enterprise, you’ve got obtained a $900, outsized paperweight. That’s technically not true, as you’ll be able to prepare dinner with common charcoal, however every part nice concerning the Spark would cease being nice. The precision temperature management is gone, it is a ache to mild, and ultimately, it’s going to prepare dinner no higher than a $20 grill from an enormous field retailer. You want the Briqs.
Therein lies the rub: costly Briqs with restricted cooking choices. If you’ll be able to dwell with that, the remainder of the Spark One is nice, and it actually does ship on its promise of charcoal grilling made easy.