How to choose a home electric grill? | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

Grilling juicy steaks, burg­ers, or veg­eta­bles does­n’t have to be out­doors. With an elec­tric grill, you can cook deli­cious meals right at home every day. And we will talk about how to choose an elec­tric grill, what func­tions the device has and how to approach its pur­chase.

An elec­tric grill is a rel­a­tive­ly small kitchen appli­ance that cooks food not on an open fire, but using infrared heat. It works due to tubu­lar elec­tric heaters or quartz lamps, which can be locat­ed both from below and on the sides. Depend­ing on the spec­i­fi­ca­tion of the device, the elec­tric grill may include the func­tions of heat­ing food, fry­ing, bak­ing and stew­ing. In prin­ci­ple and func­tion­al­i­ty, it resem­bles a microwave oven with some dif­fer­ences.

What are electric grills?

Elec­tric grills are divid­ed into sev­er­al types, the main para­me­ter is con­tact and non-con­tact. Non-con­tact grills have a closed design. Often they are also called skew­ers. We are con­sid­er­ing con­tact elec­tric grills, the design of which pro­vides for con­tact with food dur­ing the cook­ing process. Such grills can be open (that is, one-sided), closed (like waf­fle irons or sand­wich mak­ers) and com­bined. The lat­ter pro­vide for the pres­ence of remov­able struc­tur­al ele­ments and pan­els.

It should be not­ed that elec­tric grills can be portable and sta­tion­ary. Sta­tion­ary devices are much larg­er and designed for large vol­umes of cook­ing. Most often they are used in cater­ing. A portable grill is ide­al for cook­ing at home or in the coun­try, for a small num­ber of peo­ple.

Technical characteristics of the electric grill

When choos­ing a mod­el of elec­tric grill for the home, be sure to take into account the func­tion­al­i­ty of the device and its specifics. First of all, it is nec­es­sary to note the pow­er of the device: the high­er the pow­er, the faster the food will be cooked. The greater the load on the net­work. The aver­age pow­er of an elec­tric grill varies from 0.7 kW to 2.2 kW.

The size of the device is also impor­tant, espe­cial­ly its work­ing sur­face. In this case, you need to at least rough­ly rep­re­sent the vol­umes you are count­ing on. Also, con­sid­er the height of the work­top if the grill is of a grate design. If you are plan­ning on cook­ing large cuts of meat or roast­ing whole veg­eta­bles, you will most like­ly need enough space. There­fore, before choos­ing a grill, it is rec­om­mend­ed to make a list of dish­es that you want to cook most often. This will help not only not to make a mis­take, but also to choose a device that will real­ly be use­ful to you.

materials

Elec­tric grills are made from dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als and even the work­ing sur­face of dif­fer­ent mod­els may dif­fer. It is best to choose a non-stick coat­ing, since the fat from the meat from it will be much eas­i­er to remove than from any oth­er. In addi­tion, on such a sur­face, you can fry foods with­out using oil.

There are grills with enam­el coat­ing, it is not as durable as met­al.

As for the body mate­r­i­al, it can be either met­al or plas­tic. Of course, the met­al case in every­day life is much more con­ve­nient, although it makes the design of the device heav­ier. The plas­tic case of the device is less resis­tant to break­age, but such an elec­tric grill costs less. If you choose a plas­tic case, pay atten­tion to its heat resis­tance to avoid melt­ing.

Electric grill functionality

Depend­ing on the mod­el, the elec­tric grill may have addi­tion­al use­ful fea­tures that great­ly sim­pli­fy the cook­ing process. Among these func­tions, readi­ness indi­ca­tors can be dis­tin­guished, as a rule, spe­cial light bulbs that will indi­cate the degree of roast­ing of meat.

A fea­ture that many peo­ple find indis­pens­able is the tem­per­a­ture con­troller. It can set the tem­per­a­ture either sep­a­rate­ly for dif­fer­ent sur­faces or togeth­er. In some mod­els, the reg­u­la­tor is lim­it­ed to three modes, in oth­ers it sets exact­ly the tem­per­a­ture val­ue.

A num­ber of mod­els of elec­tric grills are equipped with a timer and an auto­mat­ic shut­down func­tion. This is per­fect if you don’t have time to con­stant­ly keep an eye on the foods you cook.

The keep warm func­tion is very use­ful if you are cook­ing for a large group, and the delayed start allows you to load food in advance and start cook­ing at the right time.

Budget and extras

Of course, the more fea­tures a device has, the high­er its price. On aver­age, an elec­tric grill can cost from 1,500 to 50,000 rubles, depend­ing on the size and char­ac­ter­is­tics. The brand of the man­u­fac­tur­er also plays a role. So, among the man­u­fac­tur­ers, well-known brands can be dis­tin­guished: Tefal, BBK, Delonghi, Gas­tror­ag, Red­mond and many oth­ers.

In order to deter­mine the price, look first of all at the dura­bil­i­ty of mate­ri­als, the met­al case and non-stick coat­ing will allow the device to last longer, such elec­tric grills can cost from 3,000–5,000 rubles. For the rest, rely on the ratio of char­ac­ter­is­tics that inter­est you.

Models of electric grills

Tefal Opti­grill GC702D34 is an elec­tric grill for the home that fea­tures a Teflon non-stick coat­ing that is easy to clean. The col­lapsi­ble design allows you to remove the device pan­els and the tray in order to wash them in the dish­wash­er. Tefal Opti­grill is suit­able for cook­ing steaks, veg­eta­bles, fish, etc.

The pow­er of the elec­tric grill is 2000 W, and the con­trol is com­plete­ly elec­tron­ic. In total, the design includes 2 remov­able pan­els. Adjust­ing the degree of heat­ing allows you to select the appro­pri­ate degree of fry­ing of dish­es. The con­trol pan­el itself includes sev­er­al cook­ing modes, depend­ing on what exact­ly you plan to cook. The con­trols are intu­itive, so you’ll quick­ly get the hang of it and in less than a month you’ll for­get how dif­fi­cult it was to cook meat before the Tefal Opti­grill. The device is equipped with a spe­cial patent­ed sen­sor that allows you to deter­mine the thick­ness of the steak, the num­ber of pieces of meat, and, depend­ing on the data obtained, deter­mine the fry­ing time so that you always get exact­ly the dish you want. Tefal Opti­grill fits eas­i­ly in the kitchen, you can take it with you to the coun­try house and cook eas­i­ly and sim­ply.

An elec­tric grill that com­bines an afford­able price and wide func­tion­al­i­ty is Sin­bo SSM 2529. This device mod­el is equipped with rub­ber­ized legs that pre­vent slip­ping on the table dur­ing cook­ing, and a spe­cial han­dle that allows you not to get burned, regard­less of the degree of heat­ing of the elec­tric grill. The pow­er of Sin­bo SSM 2529 is 2000W, so you can cook any­thing in it, from hot sand­wich­es to steaks and meat­balls. At the same time, the elec­tric grill does not accu­mu­late fat, it imme­di­ate­ly flows into a spe­cial tray, with­out hav­ing time to soak into the food. Two heat­ing ele­ments even­ly dis­trib­ute heat, fry­ing food and ensur­ing the required degree of readi­ness in a short time. Remov­able ele­ments are made of alu­minum and have a spe­cial non-stick coat­ing that facil­i­tates the clean­ing process. Man­age­ment is car­ried out using a sim­ple and under­stand­able elec­tron­ic pan­el, and light indi­ca­tors will inform you about the readi­ness of food. The Sin­bo SSM 2529 elec­tric grill is ide­al for the home.

Elec­tric grill from Delonghi CGH912 is a ver­sa­tile device for the home, designed to pro­vide an easy and con­ve­nient process for prepar­ing var­i­ous dish­es. With its com­pact size, it fits com­fort­ably in the kitchen and allows you to cook quick­ly and in large quan­ti­ties. Delonghi heats up quick­ly and fries even thick pieces of meat. The pow­er of the device is 1500W. The design of the device is col­lapsi­ble, and the kit includes two sets of remov­able plates with non-stick coat­ing. The device is suit­able for cook­ing var­i­ous prod­ucts: meat, fish, veg­eta­bles and even scram­bled eggs. You can cook both on a closed grill, and by unfold­ing the device and get­ting two acces­si­ble sur­faces for fry­ing. The pack­age also includes a con­tain­er for col­lect­ing fat, which allows you to get healthy food. Con­trol is car­ried out using three con­ve­nient reg­u­la­tors: on, tem­per­a­ture and timer. Indi­ca­tor lights let you know when the food is hot and done, and the con­ve­nient han­dle stays cool while cook­ing, mak­ing it easy to open the grill and pick up your food.

BBK BEG2001 is a sim­ple and clear grill with a clean design. Thanks to its design, you can quick­ly pre­pare dish­es from veg­eta­bles, fish or meat. With its afford­able price, BBK BEG2001 has a wide range of func­tion­al­i­ty. At the same time, con­trol is lim­it­ed to one Rus­si­fied reg­u­la­tor. The lid can be opened and rotat­ed through 180° for a large work sur­face. The design of the elec­tric grill is col­lapsi­ble and allows you to remove non-stick sur­faces, which sim­pli­fies the process of wash­ing them. The device pro­vides tem­per­a­ture con­trol, in addi­tion, there is a func­tion of heat­ing food and pro­tec­tion against over­heat­ing of the device.

A spe­cial han­dle allows you not to touch the heat­ed ele­ments, pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion from burns and injuries. The kit also includes a con­tain­er for drain­ing fat, so that your prod­ucts will not accu­mu­late it and you can pre­pare healthy and whole­some meals for the whole fam­i­ly. The BBK BEG2001 is easy to clean and store, and the price beats many more expen­sive mod­els of elec­tric grills. This mod­el is an excel­lent choice for home and for giv­ing, you can take it with you on trips and eas­i­ly pre­pare a deli­cious and hearty lunch.

An elec­tric grill can help you tran­si­tion to a health­i­er and tasti­er diet, as well as pro­vide you with the abil­i­ty to cook steaks or burg­ers any time of the year with­out leav­ing your home and wait­ing for good weath­er. By choos­ing the elec­tric grill mod­el that is right for you, you can sim­pli­fy the cook­ing process and nev­er wor­ry about the long and tedious process of cook­ing meat, veg­etable and fish dish­es. If nec­es­sary, you can eas­i­ly replace most of the acces­sories and remov­able parts, there­by extend­ing the life of the device and with­out giv­ing up the usu­al tasty and healthy dish­es.