Charcoal grills divide into two kinds. Some hand you a dial and a promise. Others hand you a tray and a damper. The C-Line 840 is firmly the second kind.
Char-Broil is precise about this grill’s metal. The cooking area comes to 840 square inches, 568 of them primary grate. Even the weight is given to two decimals, at 95.92 pounds.
What it never publishes is a single temperature. The spec table answers No under Temperature Range. So the question is what $219.99 buys, and what stays unsaid.
Size registers first. The footprint is 52.3 inches wide, and the lid tops out at 51.5 inches. At 95.92 pounds it arrives as a serious object rather than a purchase.
Two heavy-duty 8-inch wheels sit under one end. The other end stands on legs. Moving it means lifting one side and walking the thing across the slabs.
Assembly is required, and Char-Broil says so plainly in its own spec table. Budget an afternoon for it.
Then the details start arriving. There is a front shelf and two slatted side shelves. A wire shelf runs underneath for bags and tools. Two tool hooks are included.
Char-Broil mounts a cast aluminum bottle opener on the cart frame. None of that is cooking hardware. All of it is the difference between a grill you tolerate and one you enjoy.
Char-Broil spent the money there instead of on an ignition system. A charcoal grill has never needed one.
The wheels tell their own story. Two of them carry one end of the cart. A grill this heavy, with wheels at one end, lives where it lands. Choose its spot once, and choose it properly.
| Metric | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking area | 568 sq in primary, 840 sq in total | The 272 sq in difference is warming rack, not grate. |
| Fuel | Lump charcoal or briquettes, sold separately | There is no ignition, so bring a chimney starter. |
| Grates | Cast iron, oil-coated at the factory | They hold heat well and they want oiling. |
| Heat control | 4-level charcoal tray, dampers, smokestack | Every adjustment on this grill is mechanical and manual. |
| Assembled size | 52.3 x 30.48 x 51.5 in, 95.92 lb | Measure the gate before you measure the patio. |
| Warranty | 1 year on all parts | One term, no tiers, and no longer cover anywhere. |
| Shipping | Boxed flat, assembly required | Budget an afternoon and a second pair of hands. |
| Storage | Front shelf, two side shelves, wire bottom shelf | Somewhere to put food down before it goes on. |
Everything about heat here is mechanical. There is no ignition and no electronics. The controls are a tray at four heights, the dampers, and the smokestack.
That combination is genuinely capable. Coals high with dampers open gives a hot grate. Coals dropped with dampers closed gives a long, slow cook instead.
Cast iron under the food holds that heat when a crowded grate would otherwise sag.
What is missing is any published figure. The spec table answers No under Temperature Range. Char-Broil fits a lid gauge, then declines to say what it should read.
Fuel capacity goes unpublished as well. Nothing states how much charcoal the tray holds. For a grill whose whole heat story is that tray, the silence is conspicuous.
Manual control carries a cost and a payoff. The cost is attention. Nothing holds a temperature for you. Every change is a physical adjustment to the fire.
The payoff is range. A tray moving through four heights covers searing and slow work on one set of hardware. Dampers and a smokestack then trim what the tray has set.
Most cooks learn this within a season. Tray height becomes muscle memory and the dampers become the fine adjustment. After that the missing range matters less. The gauge and the food agree with each other.
So plan by feel and by the gauge. This grill will not tell you its numbers, because Char-Broil never printed them.
The materials read above the price. Cast iron grates, a stainless steel lid, steel side shelves, and 95.92 pounds of assembled grill.
No steel gauge is published for any of it. That is the usual gap on a page like this one.
Handling is the harder part. Two 8-inch wheels carry one end of a 52.3-inch cart. The other end gets lifted every time it moves.
Then there is the warranty. Char-Broil covers all parts for one year, and that is the entire term.
Cast iron and stainless suggest a grill built to last a decade. The paperwork commits to a tenth of that.
That gap is the thing to weigh before buying. Nothing here suggests the grill will fail inside a year. Everything suggests Char-Broil would rather not promise past one.
So register the purchase and keep the receipt somewhere findable. On a cart this size, a warped lid is not a part anybody shrugs at.
Charcoal is the running cost and it is not included. Lump and briquettes both work.
There is no ignition on this grill. A chimney starter or a torch joins the shopping list.
Upkeep splits three ways. The ash tray lifts out, which removes the worst chore. The cast iron wants oiling to stay ahead of rust. No grease tray exists, so drippings are the cook’s problem.
Value is where this grill argues hardest. Around $219.99 buys 568 square inches of cast iron over a four-level tray. It also buys a stainless lid, three shelves, an ash tray and a bottle opener.
Very little is held back for the accessories aisle. One exception matters. The offset conversion needs a second grill that Char-Broil never prices on this page.
There is a second running cost the page never mentions. No cover is included, and charcoal grills live outdoors year round. The stainless lid will handle weather better than the steel around it.
Against all that, one year of cover on 95.92 pounds of grill is thin. The value case is strong on the day and unsupported afterwards.
Both halves are real, and they point different ways. The hardware argues for keeping this grill a long time. The warranty argues for expecting nothing after the first summer.
The one-year term is the obvious one. Cast iron and stainless deserve better cover than that.
The published silence is the second. No temperature range and no fuel capacity leaves a cook guessing at both ends.
The third is logistics. This grill runs 52.3 inches wide at 95.92 pounds, with wheels on one end only.
None of the three is a defect exactly. Each is a decision Char-Broil made, then either published plainly or declined to publish at all.
Six categories on a fixed weighting, applied the same way to every grill. How we score.
A four-level charcoal tray, dampers and a smokestack give real mechanical control, though no temperature range is published anywhere.
One year covers every part on a 95.92 lb grill wearing cast iron grates and a stainless lid.
Cast iron grates, a stainless steel lid and steel shelves, with no published gauge for any of it.
Tool hooks, three shelves and a swing-clear warming rack, against assembly and wheels on one end only.
At $219.99 the cast iron, the stainless lid, the ash tray and three shelves all arrive together.
The ash tray lifts out and removes the worst charcoal chore, but cast iron wants oiling and no grease tray exists.
Char-Broil built a big, well-equipped charcoal grill and priced it like a small one. Every control on it is manual and honest. Just read the warranty before the sales copy, because one year is the shortest thing here.