The Best Barbecue Tools, According to Pitmasters and Our Tests

A Smoker

Dyna-Glo Vertical Offset Charcoal Smoker & Grill

$483 at Amazon $499 at Walmart View on Lowe's

James Beard Award-winning pitmaster Rodney Scott is straight to the point when it comes to his list of essentials. “The first thing you need is a grill or a pit,” he says. There are so many brands and models to choose from that it’s hard to claim one smoker is the best for everyone. Based on our smoker tests, however, we’d recommend the Dyna-Glo Vertical Offset Charcoal Smoker & Grill for its user-friendliness and quality results.

A Pellet Grill

Weber Smokefire EX4 Pellet Grill

$1,100 at Amazon $850 at Walmart View on Weber.com

While it may seem like a shortcut or even cheating to some, Christina Fitzgerald prefers to let a pellet grill do the heavy lifting for her smoking. The consistent temperatures, automated fuel feeding, and app integration that allows you to monitor the time and temperature take a lot of pressure off when doing competitive cooking. Not being chained to the smoker, and constantly monitoring the fire and meat temperatures, allows her to accomplish other tasks while the meat cooks, and she can go back and finish the meat over live fire. After testing 19 pellet grills, we like the Weber Smokefire EX4 because of its large capacity, easy setup, and ease of cleaning.

Charcoal

The Good Charcoal Company Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal

$28 at Walmart $20 at Home Depot View on Dkhardware.com

Charcoal fills a couple of needs in smoking. Most obviously, you can smoke your food over charcoal sans logs, chips, or chunks and get a clean smoke flavor from it. Charcoal also burns hotter and longer than wood. If you prefer using logs, charcoal can alleviate the fire-starting process — just light the charcoal in a chimney, with a blowtorch, or using a fire starter, and you’ve got a bed of coals in a short time that you can then start adding your logs to. No tinder or kindling is required. We tested 12 leading brands of lump and briquette charcoal and found The Good Charcoal Company Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal lights quickly, burns almost completely, produces little ash, and barely sparks. Plus, the company puts great effort into making a sustainable product.

A Pair of Tongs

Winco Tongs

$11 at Amazon $8 $7 at Walmart View on Wincous.com

Tongs rank high on Scott’s list. (He points to his perpetually singed arm hair as a testimony to barbecue’s heat.) They’re good for moving food around and can grab coals or pieces of burning wood while keeping your hands away from the fire. You don’t need rubber grips or coated tips, though. Bare-bones and heavy-duty, the Winco Stainless Steel Coiled Spring Utility Tongs hit Scott’s preferred length of 12 inches. While they may sound clunky, the tongs are tapered and have a scalloped edge for easy gripping.

Cast Iron

Lodge Cast Iron Skillet

$41 $29 at Amazon $25 at Target $15 at Williams Sonoma

Fitzgerald considers cast iron a non-negotiable piece of cooking equipment. While cast iron cookware can take many forms, like a Dutch oven, griddle, or grill pan, a decently-sized skillet can replace most of them. You can cook wet dishes, like sauces, stews, or beans. You can place cast iron over an open fire for frying, searing, baking, or sauteeing. If the fancy strikes you, flip the skillet over and make crepes on the now-edgeless bottom. Our tests found the humble Lodge Cast Iron Skillet to be well-rounded and equally well-performing, even when pitted against more prominent, high-profile names.

A Well-Insulated Cooler

Yeti Tundra 65 Cooler

$350 at Amazon $350 at REI View on Yeti

You know all that insulation in your cooler that keeps food and drinks cold? It also keeps food hot, if you need it to. Elliot Moss stressed the importance of letting meat rest after smoking while keeping it hot enough to serve. How does one accomplish that? He uses a well-insulated Yeti cooler that keeps meat hot at serving temperature for hours while it rests. In our tests, the Yeti Tundra 65 only gained 2.2°F over 24 hours, so you can expect similar results in the opposite direction, meaning it will only drop a small amount over several hours. It’s also large enough to handle big or multiple pieces of meat, but you can move it easily thanks to the built-in handles.

An Instant-Read Thermometer

ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE

$115 at Amazon View on Thermoworks.com View on Kingarthurbaking.com

All three pitmasters we spoke with gave a surprising answer to the type of thermometer they prefer. Instead of the more high-tech leave-in grill thermometers on the market, they prefer a digital instant read. The three specialize in whole-hog barbecue, and the instant read because allows them to quickly check multiple parts of the pig of varying thicknesses and densities. This minimizes the time they have to leave the pit open, keeping the inherent temperature variations to a minimum. The Thermoworks Thermapen One stood out in our tests for its speed, accuracy, and thoughtful design — its large, back-lit, rotating display orients itself, so you’re not reading it upside down.

A Grill Thermometer

ThermoWorks Smoke Thermometer

View on Thermoworks.com

We’re going off script here a bit, but hear us out. As we said, these pitmasters all do whole-hog barbecue, and the need for multiple, quick readings with an instant-read thermometer is very real. But taking things down a notch, if you’re working with cuts of more uniform shape and size, say, a pork butt, brisket, or even a chicken, you may want to consider a wireless meat thermometer. 

The idea is simple: you put a probe into your meat (you can use another probe to monitor your pit temperature), the probes report to the base unit, and the base unit reports to a remote monitor or app. You’re now free to go about other activities (remember, looking ain’t cooking). We tested 13 models and found the ThermoWorks (the same company that makes the Thermapen One) Smoke the best for accuracy (less than ½ a degree), speed, and connectivity range. It also has some cool features, like historical tracking of your cooking times and temperature.

Grilling Lights

Permasteel Grill Lights 2-Pack

$20 $18 at Amazon $18 at Wayfair View on Bed Bath & Beyond

All-night smoking is not uncommon, but it’s much easier when you can see what’s happening. Whether it's checking the corners of the firebox or getting a landscape view of your food, grill lights help — a lot, according to Moss. He prefers a hanging lamp and a folding, directional LED flashlight, while we prefer the Permasteel 2-Piece Grill Lights set. Out of all the grill lights I tested, these are the ones I'd recommend to almost anyone. I found they gave great coverage, with a gooseneck design that allowed me to point the cluster of nine LED bulbs on each light in almost any direction to reach the dark corners or light up the entire pit. And they're magnetic, so they’ll stick to your pit.

A Cleaver

Messermeister Heavy Meat Cleaver

$60 at Amazon $83 at Kohls.com View on Messermeister.com

From the standpoint of preparing whole hog barbecue, a cleaver is a must. Two of the three pitmasters included it on their lists of must-have tools. A cleaver is there to break ribs so you can flatten your pig (although, I’ve used an axe and a machete at separate times, in a pinch) for more even cooking. Aside from that, a cleaver makes short work of the meat from hams and butts, which is handy even if you’re just cooking a pork butt. One of our favorite butcher knives, the Messermeister Four Seasons blends the heft needed to hack through bones with an edge fine enough to mince herbs.

A Chef’s Knife

Mac Knife 8-Inch Hollow Edge Chef's Knife

$155 at Amazon View on Cutleryandmore.com

When necessary, a chef’s knife can fill multiple roles. It can serve as a slicer for brisket, trim fat and silver skin like a fillet or boning knife, chop pulled pork, or just be the slicing and dicing knife it’s designed for. Fitzgerald lists a chef’s knife before any others because of its versatility. We tested over 20 chef’s knives and found the Mac Knife 8-Inch Hollow Edge Chef's Knife to be the best of the lot. The Mac’s Japanese design makes it lightweight yet super-sharp and capable of handling most kitchen tasks. Its dimpled blade helps keep food from sticking to it and aids in making it a serviceable slicer when called upon.