Most indoor grills sell themselves on cleanup. The Hamilton Beach Searing Grill, model 25360, sells itself on heat instead.
The name is the claim. Turn the dial all the way round to SEAR. A green light glows once the grill reaches 450 degrees. That number is the whole reason to pay more than a plain plate grill.
Then Hamilton Beach put a hood on it. A lid keeps flavour in, as the company describes it. A lid also keeps water vapour in.
Vapour is the first thing a crust has to drive off. So which of the two did you buy?
First Impressions of the Hamilton Beach 25360
It arrives as one machine with a lid, not a clamshell press. The plate sits in a black body with stainless trim at each corner. The hood lifts on a hinge at the back, under a long tubular handle.
Nothing needs building. Drop the grid into the body, slide the tray in underneath, find a socket.
The dial is the surprise. It sits low on the front right, marked MIN at one end. Numbers climb round the face, and past the last of them sits SEAR.
You turn to SEAR; you do not dial 450. A small red flame marks it, above where the printed numbers stop. Two small lights sit at the opposite corner. One is marked POWER and one READY.
The green READY lamp is the only instrument here. It does its one job well.
First cook, hood down, chicken thighs. Marks arrive fast and read as grill marks rather than pan browning. The ridges are deep and set well apart, which is why they print so cleanly.
The kitchen smells of grilling rather than frying. That is the point of owning one.
Key Features of the Hamilton Beach 25360
The feature list is short. Unusually for this brand, most of it concerns heat rather than washing up. Three things set the 25360 apart from its cheaper stablemates. The dial, the hood, and a grid that lifts out whole.
- Adjustable heat from 200 to 450 degrees: This is the headline figure and the reason the product has its name. The plate grill beside it in the Hamilton Beach range publishes no heat figure.
- A sear position at the top of the dial: Hamilton Beach’s stated method is to sear first, then turn down and finish. The dial is laid out for exactly that move.
- Removable hood: Lift the whole lid free and put it in the dishwasher. Few lidded grills allow that, because a hood is usually fixed to the body for good.
- Stainless steel: The hood face, the lid handle and the corner trim are stainless. The rest of the shell is black plastic, and the trim is there to be seen.
- Ready and power lights: The green lamp confirms the grill has reached whatever you dialled in. Beyond that lamp, the grill tells you nothing.
- 118 square inch nonstick grid: It lifts out in one piece for the dishwasher. Up to 8 servings is the maker’s count, not a measured one. Treat it as packaging language.
- Integrated drip tray: Slide it out at the front; it washes alongside the grid. Fat from a searing cook has to collect somewhere, and it collects somewhere detachable.
Absent is anything telling you what the grill does between those two lights. No window in the hood, no gauge, no second zone to move food into.
Start with the number, since the product is named after it. By indoor standards 450 degrees is a genuine searing heat. Outdoors it is roughly where searing starts, and nowhere near where it stops.
That shapes what belongs on the plate. Flat steak, burgers, chops and fish take the marks beautifully. A thick cut will cook through before the outside builds much of a crust.
The 200 degree end is the other useful half. Sausages and bone-in chicken want time rather than a blast.
Now the hood. It complicates the whole picture. Closed, it catches the heat coming off the plate and works the top of the food. Open, it does nothing except stay out of the way.
A lid over a wet surface makes steam. Meat gives up water and the water has nowhere to escape. The surface stays damp and browning stalls.
The remedy is yours to apply. Crust the food uncovered first, then lower the lid.
So the honest answer to the question this grill poses is a split one. It can sear. It can hold flavour under a lid. Doing both in the same minute is what it cannot manage.
Build, handling and durability
Two details on this body punch above what $64.99 usually buys. The hood lifts clear of its hinge, and the grid comes out in one piece. Neither is usual at this end of the market.
What is not published is everything under the coating. Hamilton Beach says nonstick and stops. The substrate goes unnamed, the coating unnamed, the weight unpublished.
That silence costs the grill something real, because the coating decides how long the appliance lasts. A worn grid ends it. And if it fails early, the product page names no warranty period.
The machine itself is easy to handle. The lid handle sits well forward of the stainless face. That face is stamped HOT SURFACE inside. The stamp is caution rather than reassurance, and it is worth believing.
The body sits low and flat on a worktop. Pressing a chop down does not rock it. On a lidded grill you push down more often than you expect.
Running costs, upkeep and value
Electricity is the only fuel and it barely registers. The cost that matters on this grill is a part, and it is a strange one.
The replacement cooking grid is listed at $71.99. The grill sells for around $64.99 at Amazon, at Walmart and direct from Hamilton Beach. The one component guaranteed to wear costs more than the entire machine.
That is not a footnote. It turns the 25360 from something you maintain into something you replace. Once the nonstick gives up, the rational move is buying another grill.
The drip tray is the other half of that story, priced sensibly at $17.99. It is also the part least likely to fail. The pricing runs the wrong way round.
Cleaning is where this grill is genuinely strong. Three parts come away in seconds: grid, tray, lid. All three are dishwasher safe.
The hood is the surprising one. A lid catches every spatter from a searing cook.
Price is flat across all three sellers we captured, so there is no bargain to chase. Around $64.99 buys a hood, a dial and 118 square inches of ridged plate. Measured against indoor grills with no heat setting at all, that is a fair exchange.
Possible Hamilton Beach 25360 Complaints
- The lid and the sear pull against each other: Hamilton Beach sells the hood as a flavour keeper. The top of the dial is sold as the crust maker. Closed over juicy food like chicken, the hood holds moisture and browning slows. Cooking in two stages fixes it, though nothing on the grill teaches you that.
- A replacement grid costs more than the grill: At $71.99 against around $64.99, the arithmetic never favours repair. The wear has to happen before anyone discovers the pricing. That is a poor moment to learn it. Treat the 25360 as a consumable from the start and it stops stinging.
