Every grill review on this site carries one Avid Griller Score out of 10. It is never assigned by hand. It is computed from six categories, each with a fixed weight, and every review uses the same six.
Publishing the method is the point. A score you cannot interrogate is just an opinion with a decimal point.
Who does the testing
Every review here comes from hands-on time with the grill. Our founder, Oren De M., has personally tested more than 200 grills. Our managing editor, David Green, has reviewed more than 150. One of them puts their name on every review, and each has a page listing every review they have written.
The six categories
| Category | Weight | What it covers |
|---|
| Heat Performance | 25% | Output, sear, temperature range, evenness, recovery |
| Long-term Reliability | 20% | How it holds up, known failure points, warranty strength |
| Build Quality | 18% | Materials, thickness, fit and finish, stability |
| Ease of Use | 15% | Assembly, ignition, controls, everyday handling |
| Value | 12% | What the price buys relative to the tier |
| Maintenance | 10% | Cleaning effort, grease management, parts replacement |
Heat carries the most weight because it is the job. Value carries less than you might expect, because a cheap grill that cooks badly is not a bargain.
Each category score appears on the review with one sentence naming the specific feature or shortcoming responsible for it. If a number is not explained, it should not be there.
Grill covers: five categories of their own
A cover cooks nothing, so heat and the rest of the grill scorecard would measure nothing on it. Since version 2.2, covers are scored on five categories built for the job a cover does.
| Category | Weight | What it covers |
|---|
| Fit | 25% | How well it fits the grills it is sold for, and what holds it snug |
| Weather Protection | 25% | Water resistance, sun and fade resistance, seams, and vents against mold |
| Durability | 20% | Fabric weight and weave, stitching, straps and buckles, the warranty |
| Ease of Use | 15% | Getting it on and off alone, handles, weight, how it fastens and stores |
| Value | 15% | What the price buys against other covers of its kind |
The score bands, the tier rule and the two rules below apply to covers exactly as they do to grills. A cover’s score sits on the same scale out of 10, but it is a verdict on a cover, so covers are never ranked against grills.
What the numbers mean
| Score | Means |
|---|
| 9.0 to 10 | Best in its class on this axis. Rare. |
| 8.0 to 8.9 | Clearly good, with a named reason. |
| 7.0 to 7.9 | Competent with a real compromise. |
| 5.0 to 6.9 | A genuine weakness a buyer will notice. |
| Below 5 | Broken or disqualifying. |
Scoring against the tier, not the catalogue
A grill is judged against the ones a buyer would actually cross-shop it with. A portable is not marked down for lacking a rotisserie, because no portable has one. It is marked against other portables.
This is what keeps an 8.2 on a $250 travel grill and an 8.2 on a $2,000 built-in from meaning the same thing about the same money.
Two rules we hold ourselves to
- A real weakness scores below 8. Six categories all sitting between 8.5 and 9.5 is a brochure, not a review.
- The scores have to spread. At least 1.5 points between the best and worst category. A flat scorecard means the categories were never thought about separately.
The number beside the byline is that weighted score and nothing else. There is no second opinion hiding behind it, and no separate star rating. We retired the five point scale, because one review cannot honestly carry two verdicts.
Every score we have published is on one page: every grill we have scored, ranked on all six categories.
What we do not do
We do not publish invented measurements. Where a figure comes from the manufacturer’s published specifications, that is what it is, and where something could not be verified, the review writes around it rather than filling the gap.
We do not summarise other people’s reviews and call it ours. If you want to know what owners think, the retailer page is one click away.
Changelog
Every change to how we score, newest first. When a change moved scores already published, the entry says so.
Version 2.2: Grill covers are scored on five categories of their own.
October 19, 2026
A cover cooks nothing, so the six grill categories would measure nothing on it. Covers are scored on Fit (25%), Weather Protection (25%), Durability (20%), Ease of Use (15%) and Value (15%), with the same score bands and rules as grills. Grill scores are unchanged, and covers are never ranked against grills.
Version 2.1: Models from one family are scored side by side.
October 14, 2026
When several grills from one line are scored at once, one editor now scores them together. Weber kettles scored separately had come out with their heat scores in the wrong order on the same fire.
Version 2.0: One score out of 10, scored to a tenth.
September 22, 2026
The five point star rating was retired, so every review carries one Avid Griller Score. Every category score rose by 0.5, because the middle of our scores sat at 7.6 against the 8.0 to 8.9 band our own table calls a competent product. Reviews written before the scorecard were converted from their stars, keeping their order: 1.8 times the stars, less 0.1. From here on each category is scored to one decimal, and a round .0 or .5 is never the default.
Version 1.1: The score bands are read literally.
August 27, 2026
8.0 to 8.9 is the normal home of a competent current product, not a prize. A 9.0 needs a named lead over its rivals, and a real weakness scores below 8. The 52 scorecards published before this were all scored again against these rules.
Version 1.0: The six category scorecard.
August 11, 2026
Six categories with fixed weights, the same on every review, and one sentence explaining each category score. The headline score is the weighted average of the six.
Errors and corrections
When we find a mistake in a published review, we fix the page and record it here, with the old and new numbers.
October 20, 2026
The review priced Masterbuilt's own cover only at its $69.99 direct price and called Comnova about half. Amazon sells that cover at $39.97, about three dollars more. Value fell from 9.1 to 8.3 and the score from 7.69 to 7.57.
October 20, 2026
The review read Weber's lid closed dimensions as the folded size, and so claimed folding saves 12.8 inches of height. Weber prints no folded size, and the review now says so. The score is unchanged.
October 20, 2026
The review said the dearer Weber 7150 differs only by a fade claim. Weber's own data shows heavier cloth, a longer drop and a top handle, and the text now says so. The score is unchanged.
October 16, 2026
Its Long-term Reliability score (7.1) assumed the five year warranty applied only to ovens bought from ooni.com, as Ooni's product page says. Ooni's warranty terms set no condition on the seller, only registration within 60 days, which is how we scored the Koda 16 and Koda 2 Pro. Scored side by side it is now 7.7, and the overall score went from 8.06 to 8.18.
October 16, 2026
Its Long-term Reliability score (8.5) sat below the Classic II's (8.7) on the same Kamado Joe warranty terms. Scored side by side it is now 8.7, and the overall score went from 8.84 to 8.88.
October 16, 2026
Scored side by side with the Classic I and II, as version 2.1 asks, the Classic III had a lower Heat Performance score (9.2) than the Classic II (9.3) on the same fire, plus a smoking insert the II lacks. Heat Performance went to 9.4, and the overall score from 8.74 to 8.79.
October 16, 2026
The review gave the warranty as 1 year, repair or replace, taken from the Amazon listing. Char-Griller's own warranty page gives its grills 5 years against burn and rust-through, with surface rust excluded. Long-term Reliability went from 6.4 to 7.1, the same as the AKORN Jr. on the same terms, and the overall score from 7.74 to 7.88.
October 16, 2026
The review said Kamado Joe publishes no warranty. Kamado Joe does, on its own warranty page: lifetime on the ceramic, 5 years on metal parts, 2 years on the gasket. Long-term Reliability went from 8.5 to 8.7, and the overall score from 8.91 to 8.95.
October 14, 2026
Scored one at a time, the Weber kettles came out with heat in the wrong order on the same fire. Scored side by side, the Go-Anywhere's Heat Performance fell from 9.3 to 7.9 on its 160 square inch grate. The Q 1400 rose from 6.8 to 7.3, since it runs the Q 2400's watts on less grate.
September 22, 2026
The page showed a score of 0.0, a data entry error. Its own category ratings average 4 out of 5, which converts to 7.1, and that is the score it now shows.
Six scores across five reviews
August 30, 2026
Three 9.0 scores named features rather than a lead over rivals, and fell to 8.5: Broil King Crown 520 ease of use, Nexgrill Daytona heat and Char-Griller Flat Iron ease of use. Three heat scores sat above 8 while the review named a real weakness, and fell to 7.5: Traeger Irontop, Traeger Woodridge Pro and Char-Broil Bistro Pro. These were the scores at the time, before the 0.5 calibration of version 2.0.
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