Wil cheapo Charcoal grill do the trick?

I have a decent gas grill but since reading "How to Grill," I also want charcoal. We plan on taking a trip up to my folks and they don't have a grill, so my wife said "Hey - let's get that portable grill at home depot."

It's the aussie. It's not a table top grill, but it is a square, flat lid. Not a dome like the weber or sunbeam, Also, the grate doesn't have the openin glids to add coals.

Will I be able to effectively do ribs, brisket etc on this cheap grill? I imagine I just wouldn't be bale to do tall itmes like turnkey or beer can chicken.

Advice please.

P.S. Of these two, whiich do u think would be better?
http://www.kmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1302413&cp=821289.784605&parentPage=family
or
http://www.kmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=977290&cp=784605&parentPage=family

You might be able to do ribs, but I don't think you could do a brisket. Let me explain why. Both of the grills had about 400sqin of cooking space. That is about 20in per side. A whole untrimed brisket would cover most of that space, thus you could not create an indirect fire. My advice would be a weber kettle. More expensive but worth the investment.

Thanks. I forgot about surface space and was only thinking about the shape etc. They do have a larger one, same size as the weber kettle. I bought the 22.5 inch kettle to try out charcoal grilling. I do pretty well on gas but want both.

I stuffed the lighter chimney too tight, so it didn[t flame up and my coals took way long to light. Then it felt really hot and I forgot momentarily about controlling the heat. I was trying the 3 zone fire. Once I got my brain working, my coals hot and my heat correct though, the chicken and asparagus tasted great.

I'm sure someday I'll step up to a real nice weber kettle, but for 40 bucks this will do the trick.

FYI - Home Depot had two 24 Lb bags of kingsford for $7.88.

I just started using parrafin starters to start my chimney. I love them, they light up fast and easy.

I plan on trying those. And I think I need the weber chimney. it is bigger. The one I have seems like my coals are spread thin if I do a 3 zone fire. Like I have to have space between them to cover enough area. Altho the temp did seem fine even in those areas.

I know what you mean about the chimney being too small. I use two when ever I am cooking more than one steak. Also I notice that with the chimney I have it takes about 25 minutes to heat and the charcoals don't always light evenly. I wonder if the Weber would work better?

I bought the weber this morning. I'll let you know after July 4th. The smaller one I got took a long time too.