About Outdoor Cooking

We're an independent editorial site covering outdoor cooking gear — grills, smokers, pizza ovens, cast iron cookware, and the accessories that close the gap between "I bought a kamado" and "I cook on it weekly." The category sells $200 grills next to $2,500 kamados next to $1,000 pizza ovens, and most "best of" content online papers over the question that matters: what are you actually going to cook?

Our methodology

Every roundup and review on this site is built from four sources:

1. Manufacturer spec sheets — cooking surface area, BTU ratings, materials (ceramic, stainless, cast aluminum), warranty terms, and replaceable parts. We list these verbatim so you can compare like-for-like.
2. BBQ community forums — Smoking Meat Forums, r/smoking, r/BBQ, AmazingRibs, and pitmaster-specific communities. These threads surface what manufacturers don't advertise: which gaskets fail at year three, which ignition systems give out, which gauges are accurate vs decorative.
3. Verified-purchase reviews across Amazon, manufacturer-direct stores (Weber.com, BGE.com, Traeger.com), and BBQ-specific retailers — weighted for recency and filtered for patterns rather than individual outliers.
4. Competition pitmaster and steakhouse interviews when relevant for higher-end equipment. The people who run these units commercially know what holds up.

What we don't do

We don't accept product samples in exchange for coverage. It changes how you write whether you mean it to or not.

We don't publish "sponsored" reviews disguised as editorial picks. If we feature a product, we got there through research — never through payment from the manufacturer or retailer.

We don't quote live prices in our content. Grill prices fluctuate by season (grills are deeply discounted in September; pizza ovens in February). Every "Check price" link on this site routes to the retailer's current listing so you see the real number at the moment you click.

How we make money

Most outbound product links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and end up buying, the retailer pays us a small commission at no additional cost to you. That commission funds the research hours behind every piece on this site.

You can read the full disclosure on our affiliate disclosure page.

How to reach us

Spotted an error in one of our reviews? Have a piece of gear you think deserves coverage? Email us at hello@outdoor-cooking.pages.dev.