Looking for a new propane grill.

My current grill got blown off my patio by heavy winds and damaged beyond repair.
I'm looking for a better one and have a question regarding burners.
Is there much of a noticable difference between a 4 burner and a 5 burner grill?
I like to indirect grill and would like to get the hang of smoking, if I can get the temp. low enough.
Any suggestions?

Look at the Webers, the Webers, and then take a look at the Webers. Great grills and customer service is top notch. I just made some of the best St. Louis spare ribs on mine a couple weeks ago using one burner and some hickory pellets rolled in a piece of foil. I used just one burner and the temp stayed at 225-250 all day.

I have a cheap ( for them) Vermont Castings grill that's 7 y/o & I think will last 7 years more.
They have a lifetime warrenty
3 burner $900
If you can afford buy a 4 burner.
I can smoke great with my $30 accessory
An AMAZEIMG SMOKER.

One of the things you'll want to look at are the BTU's of the burners themselves. Having more lower BTU burners isn't necessarily a good thing. Also some manufacturers are using 5 burners to replace their 6 burner models. This "value engineering" keeps the price down by putting 5 burners where there once were six. But is is easy to do a 3 zone fire with 6 burners. Five doesn't go into 6 very cleanly, nor four for that matter. Plus if they keep the grill the same width, cut down the burners and don't do anything else that 5 burner grill is not going to perform as well as the 6 burner it replaced.

I have been keeping my eye on the mid-priced gas grill market in hopes of finding a suitable replacement for my 8 year old Kenmore Elite. Sadly there no longer seems to be a midprice grill market. You have the cheapies and then you have the Webers and Vermont Castings. For mid-priced grills it seems like they are taking their low end grills and just adding more bells and whistles to them, as opposed to better build quality or useful features. You get more utensil hooks, or built-in lights, or other useless features. It makes you think it is a better grill in the store and by the time you get it home and find out how little you use some of these features, your stuck with it.

Also these days it is only the higher priced grills that use a grade of stainless that won't rust. Sadly the conclusion I am coming to is if I don't want a grill that will last only 2 or 3 years, you need to go high priced.

Jim

Been looking at this one for a while.

Abit more than a Weber but totally made
in the USA.

http://www.bullbbq.com/brahma-cart

The Lowe's Ducane is a cheaper "Weber." I'm very happy with mine.

I remember when Ducane's were a "premium" grill
but that was before Weber launced the Summit line.

Like Jim, I'm looking to replace a 10 yo Kenmore Elite 6 banger.
Sears rebuilt it 3 or 4 times under the extended warranty
(Which I HIGHLY recommend)
but it's just time to move on.

Also open to any suggestions.

The Weber E and S-670 models are leading the pack at this point.
The Brahma just looked kinda interesting, being USA made
and all. The top Napoleon grills are also out there
but parts nearby could be a problem.

-YB