Charbroil Commercial Series Grill Review – The Most Versatile Grill

The Charbroil Commercial Series Gas Grill is a feature rich grill that was released this year. It comes as a 2-burner model up to the 4-burner with a side burner model that we tested. Charbroil sent us the grill that we used for the review.

I’ll cut to the chase. This is the most versatile grill on the market. You might be thinking, “a gas grill, how can that be?”, but with all of features that Charbroil built into this grill, it’s so much more.

It can be paralyzing to choose between all of grill choices on the market. Do you want the quick heat-up times with gas? What if you want the flavor of charcoal? Griddles are popular, maybe that’s the route to go?

The Commercial Series solves those questions for you by doing all of the above. It’s exceptional as a gas grill, and it’s good as griddle or a charcoal grill. Plus, it can run off propane or natural gas to add to it’s versatility.

Pros

• Versatility – Gas grill, charcoal grill, and griddle all in one.
• TRU Infrared Technology – I’m a believer in Charbroil’s TRU Infrared. This grill get super hot, super fast, for some juicy food.
• Value – While this isn’t a cheap grill by any means, it feels like you’re getting a lot for your money with the quality feel and features.

Cons

• Griddle Grease Drain – The grease drain on the griddle is precariously close to a burner. I’d like to see them redesign it.
• Stickers – The grill comes wrapped in stickers that you have to remove prior to use.

Features and Specs

• Retail price of $649 (check price) for the 4-burner model
• Available in silver or black
• 535 square inches of cooking space, plus it has an additional 200 square inch warming rack
• Stainless steel burners for longevity
• Lid mounted temperature gauge so you know when it warms up

If the 4-burner model is out of stock, or you want a very similar model, check out the Pro Series. The Commercial Series was originally a Lowe’s exclusive, while the Pro Series is available direct from Charbroil.

It’s $50 cheaper, but you sacrifice the side burner. I’ll be honest though, side burners are nice to have, but I hardly ever use them. Maybe I’m boring because I’m not cooking fancy sauces to go with my food.

Assembly

The Commercial Series is a little more difficult to assemble than other gas grills, but for good reason. Charbroil added design elements that look great but add to the difficulty of assembly. I’d budget a good two to three hours to put the grill together.

For other gas grills, the design isn’t well integrated. You put together the cart, drop in the cook chamber, then bolt side shelves on. What Charbroil did differently is they incorporated those elements into each other. An example of this is there is a triangular piece on the front of the grill that provides extra rigidity between the bottom of the cart and the right side of the cart. Rather than hiding that element, that door incorporates it for a nice look that also functional.

Another example is rather than just bolting the side shelves onto the cook chamber on the side, there’s a trim piece that wraps under the cook chamber in addition to the side bolts. It makes the side shelves integrate into the overall grill design rather than looking slapped onto the sides. I love how Charbroil took the time to incorporate these extra details, but it does make assembly take a little longer.

One other complexity that I ran into is bolting the handle to the lid of the grill. That should be a very easy operation, but it wasn’t for me.

While putting the first of two bolts in, I managed to drop the bolt in-between the lid and the heat shield on the lid. The heat shield comes pre-installed, and held on by sheet metal screws, with the metal on the lid rolled over it. At the attachment point for the handle, there’s an opening that easily will fit a screw through it. I may be the only person unlucky enough for this to happen to, but for any other unfortunate souls, read on.

At first, I was going to try to take off the heat shield, but after starting that, I became worried that I wouldn’t be able to nicely get it back onto the lid. What I did instead that worked is I took out the cotter pins that hold the lid on, then I shook the bolt to an opening at the bottom of the lid.

Next, I reached my fingers in the hole to stand the bolt up on it’s cap, and carefully used needle nose pliers to get it out. That last part relied heavily on my skills from the game Operation as a kid.

Hopefully that doesn’t happen to anybody else, but if it does, now you know what to do. One other word of advice is when taking off the lid, go slow despite wanting to get the fix over with, otherwise you’ll end up with pinched fingers against sharp metal like me.

Setup and Seasoning

When I was putting the grill together I noticed that the grills had quite a few stickers on it advertising it’s features. I thought maybe we just got sent a floor demo model, but after doing some research it would appear that they all come like that.

I’m not sure why, but the stickers are a little difficult to remove. What worked best for me was to peel off all of the sticker material that I could, then use some Goo Gone with a rag and rub off the sticker residue.

After that, I used a grill cleaner to shine the grill back up and do the initial burn-in. There’s a little more involved with the initial setup with this grill because it can do so much.

Not only do you want to let it sit at high heat to burn off any manufacturing chemicals, you’ll want to season the griddle. I’d recommend cleaning the griddle with soap and water first, then following the initial seasoning process from a full-size griddle.

Cooking

Gas Grill

While the Commercial Series can do many things, where it excels is as a gas grill. It has Charbroil’s TRU Infrared technology, which is different than other gas grills.

Over the burners are metal emitter plates that sit across the cook chamber, directly under the grill grates. Heat radiates up from the emitter plates, into the grates, and into your food. It’s designed to heat faster, and to mimic the way hot coals heat, leaving you with juicier food.

You see lots of marketing buzz words with grills, but TRU Infrared was really impressive. This grill gets ripping hot, really fast. It will get to 500 degrees F in under 10 minutes, and it will easily bury the lid mounted thermometer if you let it. That’s exactly what you want from a gas grill.

A nice touch with the design of the grill too is with the cook chamber covered in emitter plates, there are little sight holes in the front to make sure your burners are lit. Lighting the grill was incredibly quick and easy, but it was still nice to check.

One other convenience feature that I appreciated with the grill is it has a propane gauge on the regulator. No more going to grill and realizing you’re out of propane part way though the cook, you can just check the gauge.

Griddle

The griddle plate was designed well for this grill. It’s thick, and even is reinforced on the bottom to prevent warping. There’s built-in storage in the cabinet for the griddle plate, which keeps it tucked away neatly when not in use, rather then sitting around in the garage.

To add to the versatility of this grill, the griddle takes up 2/3 or the cooking area. This leaves a little bit of space if you want to grill something while using the griddle. Pancakes and steaks may seem like a weird combination, but if you have little kids that are picky eaters, it makes perfect sense.

Does the griddle plate work as well as having a full size griddle? No, but it works well enough. The biggest complaint I had with it is the design of the grease drain.

The drain hole in the griddle sits near a burner, and drains into the grease pan for the grill. While I didn’t have any grease fires, it doesn’t instill confidence, and I could definitely see how cooking lots of greasy food could cause one.

It would be better if there was a funnel shape on the bottom that at least exited below the burner. Better yet, a separate grease cup just for griddling would be a game changer compared to other grills on the market.

I found myself only using the grease drain when I cleaned the griddle. That’s easier to manage than while cooking at high heat.

Charcoal Grill

A really neat feature of the Commercial Series, and many other Charbroil grills, is what they call Gas2Coal. You can buy metal trays that you fill with a layer of charcoal briquettes. They sit above the burner, so you can light them, and add cook with charcoal.

While it doesn’t work exactly like cooking with a charcoal grill, it is a great solution for a gas grill. It works well to get that smokey charcoal flavor on your food.

I don’t know if this an approved Charbroil method of cooking, but it also lets you have a gas zone and a charcoal zone. I don’t like much smoke flavor on my vegetables, but I like it on my meat.

I put a charcoal tray on one side, and cooked with a gas setup on the other. This let me cook at different temperatures and different levels of smoke.

It’s a perfect setup for high heat charcoal grilling. You could also use it for smoking with a similar two zone setup, and with keeping the lid closed.

Conclusion

The Charbroil Commercial Series was one of my favorite grills I’ve tested this year, and easily my favorite gas grill. You can tell they put some time into designing it, because it has many little details that make it a great grill. It looks good, it feels solid, and it’s extremely versatile. There’s not much more you could ask for from a gas grill.