Weber’s cheapest full-size kettle is part number 741001, and it costs $149.00. That buys 363 square inches, an enamelled bowl and lid, and two wheels. It does not buy anything that tells you what the fire is doing.
On the same page, Weber sells a 22-inch griddle insert for this bowl at $149.99. The accessory is dearer than the cooker it drops into. Cheap is not really the interesting word here. The question is what came out to reach that price.
Will you feel the gap? Weber publishes a tidy specification list for this grill. It also disagrees with itself in three places on the way down the page.
363 sq inPrimary cooking area, with no second tier above it
39.5 x 22.5 x 25 inHeight, width and depth with the lid closed
$149.99Weber's griddle insert, priced above the $149.00 grill
$139.99Weber Connect hub, the add-on that reports the fire
First Impressions of the Weber Original Kettle Charcoal Grill 22
The box arrives flat and is mostly bowl. Assembly is legs, wheels, ash catcher and grate, in that order. Weber advertises a $99 assembly service on this product page. The fine print restricts it to grills at $399 and up.
Upright, it looks like nothing else in a garden. The black porcelain reads glossy rather than painted. The lid sits down on the bowl rim without a gap. Two glass-reinforced nylon handles do the lifting, one on the lid and one on the bowl.
The wheels carry the Weber name and take rough paving without complaint. First cook, the lid goes on and the bottom damper does the steering. Smoke leaves the lid vent in a thin line rather than a cloud. Chicken thighs came off with skin gone properly tight and dark.
The flavour is charcoal and clean. Lighter fluid leaves a chemical edge, and none of it turned up here. Weber offers this model in one colour, black, which suits the shape.
Key Features of the Weber Original Kettle Charcoal Grill 22
There is not much to this grill, and that is the point. Two enamelled steel shells, a grate, some vents and a sweeper. Reading Weber’s specification list against Weber’s own marketing copy is the more interesting exercise.
Weber sells the shape in 14, 18, 22 and 26 inch. The 22 is the size the accessory trade is cut for. That matters more than any single feature listed below.
- 363 square inches, one tier: Weber gives the same figure for primary and total cooking area. Nothing hangs above the grate to pad that number. What you see is what cooks.
- Porcelain-enamelled bowl and lid: The description says the finish will not rust or peel. The feature panel on the same page says it resists rust. The warranty then covers rust-through for 10 years, which prices a risk the first line denies.
- Dampers, and Weber cannot say how many: The specification row reads one rust-resistant aluminium damper. The copy beside it describes lid and bowl dampers, plural. Both vents exist on the object in front of you.
- One-Touch cleaning system: Blades sweep ash off the bowl floor and into a catcher underneath. Weber names that catcher in a caption and lists it in no specification row.
- Plated-steel cooking grate: One paragraph says it retains heat. Another says it heats evenly. Those are different properties, claimed for one part on one page.
- Lid hook, so the lid never touches grass: The hook takes the lid on the bowl side while you work. A lid left on the lawn picks up grit, and this prevents that.
- Tool hooks on the handle: Tongs and a brush hang where your hand already is. Small thing, noticed every cook.
- Rotisserie, if you want one later: Weber’s 22-inch charcoal rotisserie fits this bowl and runs on an electric motor. It is promoted on the product page and never priced there.
Control on this kettle is geometric, not electronic. A deep bowl under a deep lid pulls air up through the coals. It leaves by the top vent. The two dampers set how fast.
Close the bottom damper and the fire starves within minutes. Open it and the bowl comes alive again. The lag is short enough to cook against rather than wait out.
The 363 square inches is the right number for this geometry. It is enough floor to bank coals hard against one side. A genuine cool half survives, so indirect roasting and direct searing share one session.
Nowhere on this kettle is there an instrument. Weber’s specification list for 741001 names no thermometer. The Connect hub that would tell you is $139.99, on the same page. So you cook by the heat under your palm, by coal colour, by smell.
That is learnable in a fortnight. It is slightly humbling in week one.
Build, handling and durability
The two shells are the whole argument. Porcelain enamel fused onto steel is glass. It does not flake off the way paint does, and it survives a wire brush. Weber does not publish the gauge of the steel underneath.
A buyer at this price is entitled to ask why. Around the shells, the parts are ordinary and honest. Aluminium dampers will not corrode shut over a wet winter.
The nylon handles stay cool enough to grab. The wheels pull backwards over a step without fuss. Nothing on the outside is asking to be admired.
Weber posts a California Proposition 65 warning on this page. It names nickel, which is what plating a steel grate involves. Combustion by-products carry their own warning, which is true of every charcoal fire.
No weight is published for this model anywhere on Weber’s page. In practice it moves like a wheelbarrow, tipped onto the wheels and pulled. One person can shift it across a lawn. Two people carry it upstairs without discussing it afterwards.
Running costs, upkeep and value
The grill is the cheapest thing on its own product page. At $149.00 it costs less than the $149.99 griddle insert Weber sells for the same bowl. It costs slightly more than the $139.99 Connect hub. It costs several times the $39.99 premium cover.
Add what you actually need and the sum moves. Char-Baskets are $19.99 and make two-zone banking trivial. A charcoal rake is $24.99 and lighter cubes are $5.99. The 12-piece fire starters are $6.99.
A plain cover is $19.99 against $39.99 for the premium one. Nothing on that list is expensive alone. Together they come to another grill.
Upkeep is one lever and one bucket. The One-Touch blades push ash into the catcher below. The catcher unclips and the ash goes out. Brush the grate hot and it stays clean for years.
When it finally goes, a plated-steel grate is a cheap part. At $149.00 the grill clears Weber’s own $99 free-shipping threshold. It misses the $399 assembly threshold badly.
You get the box delivered and you do the work. For a bowl warranted 10 years against rust-through, that trade looks sound.
Possible Weber Original Kettle Charcoal Grill 22 Complaints
- You are the instrument: Weber lists no thermometer on 741001. Nothing on the grill reports a number. New charcoal cooks feel this on a first low-and-slow attempt, where guessing costs hours. An aftermarket lid gauge closes the gap, as does the $139.99 Connect hub.
- Two years on everything that moves: The bowl and lid get 10 years. The One-Touch system gets 5, the grate and dampers and wheels 2. Year three is when a plated-steel grate starts to look tired. Replacements are cheap, which is the mitigation and the admission.
