Review: Weber Spirit E-330 Gas Grill

Not to sound ungrateful, but the logistics of shipping the grills and smokers I review are almost always a pain in the butt. I often have them sent to my folks’ house in New Hampshire and put them through their paces in the summertime while feeding a hungry crowd. One disaster involved a smoker company whose rep promised someone would come to pick it up the day before I was set to fly home to Seattle. I assumed "someone" meant a dude in a truck, not the college kid in a Buick SUV who knocked on my parents' door.

"Hi, I won the contest," he said in a phrase turned question as he could tell I had no idea who he was.

Instead of arranging for a dude in a truck, the Georgia-based smoker company rep took to social media and announced a "contest" wherein (I'll paraphrase) they gave out my parents' home address to the first rando willing to drive to remote New Hampshire to take away the smoker. That kid and I gave it our best, but his trunk was too small and he drove away empty handed.

Suffice to say, I was excited to hear that, before my most recent visit, Dad mentioned having bought a fancy new Weber gas grill—a souped-up version of the sturdy basic model I own and love. It almost felt too easy.

Dad's Weber Spirit E-330 has three main burners that run front to back, just like my Spirit E-310 ($619), plus two perks mine doesn't have: an extra "sear burner" nestled between the left and center burners and a side burner tucked into the built-in table on the left. Mom and Dad also got a pair of rattan rocking chairs, my new favorite grill accessories. You might say that's not a grill accessory the way a fish basket is, but that's an overly strict definition. Plus, the chairs helped create a little chill-n-grill zone on the back deck, a little place to hide when pre-dinner family-rama got to be a bit much.

I got straight into setup and testing, using a ThermoWorks Signals thermometer to monitor my work, with a stubby probe taking the air temperature just above the grates and one or more cooking probes to take the internal temp of the food. Here, Meathead Goldwyn's reference cookbook Meathead is a big help. In it, he makes a strong case for what's known as "two-zone" heating, essentially an over-the-flames "direct zone" and a cooler "indirect zone" to the side of the heat source where food cooks through at a steady rate, oven style. Goldwyn suggests 225 or (less often) 325 degrees Fahrenheit for the indirect zone. Using the zones instead of cooking over a flame the whole time brings your chances of success way up.

Case in point, I cooked a cowboy (rib) steak, a thick ribeye with a bit of actual rib, that puttered along in the indirect zone at 225 degrees until the internal temperature came up to 110 degrees. At that point, I cranked up the left burner and sear burner on the direct side and put the steak over the hot spot to give it a dark crust.

The Weber did a nice job of holding that indirect zone right at 225 degrees, a steadiness you want in a grill as it creates predictability in your cooking. In my case, that steak came out just like it was supposed to: pleasingly pink inside with a dark crust on the top and bottom.

With probes in place, I could track what was happening without even moving from my rattan rocker, only getting up when the thermometer alarm beeped. Pretty much all I had to do was set the left dial to medium, close the lid, and crack a cold one. Later, I'd learn that a 325-degree indirect zone, which you might use for chicken thighs, was a bridge too far for just one burner on this grill, something the folks at Weber acknowledged; they suggested using the left and right burners together to get that hot. This puts the indirect zone—albeit a smaller one—in the center.

One thing I was happy to discover was that the built-in thermometer on the lid, often useless on other grills, was surprisingly accurate at telling the air temperature at grate level. In fact, for most cooking it worked well enough that there was little point in using the air probe to monitor the air temperature inside the grill.

So let me come out here and advocate for something Meathead also has on his wish list but that appliance manufacturers are reluctant to embrace: a gas grill thermostat, where you could just turn your grill up to 325 degrees, oven style. A sizable hunk of grilling and barbecue with gas grills is—or often should be—cooking for a set period of time at a steady temperature. For some reason, the gas-grilling industry (not just Weber and ThermoWorks) is happy to sell you fancy thermometer setups to help hit your marks with temperature, but I think the Macho Grilling World fears an emasculatory sensation if that feature were built in, because it's too close to baking. Maybe manufacturers could market the idea of "control" here?

After that, I went nuts, starting with a grilled-vegetable extravaganza, which is a nice way to see how quickly and evenly a grill cooks. Early testing revealed that, despite a bit of extra heat along the back wall, the E-330 nails the basics the way Volvo did in its "They're Boxy but They're Good" era. This meant zucchini planks seared before getting all flabby, and I could get tasty grill marks on onion wedges over higher heat, then park them on a cooler part of the grill to soften and sweeten. Toward the end of cooking, I grilled portobellos on the hot side, easy peasy. A few nights later, my brother-in-law and I sipped beers in the rockers like aspiring geezers while my sister, the most intuitive and naturally gifted home cook I know, one-upped my veg grilling performance while cracking jokes and sipping her chardonnay on ice.

On gas grills, most of your searing comes from the contact with the grate. The Weber's ceramic-coated cast-iron grates have a triangular form to them, flat faces up on side A, the pointy edge on side B. Weber suggests the flat side for searing and the pointy side for delicate food that might stick. In reality, you're probably going to pick one side and never flip it. I like searing, so I use the flat side.

Speaking of searing, I really enjoyed having the sear burner, essentially an extra burner tucked between the center and left burners, turning the left two-thirds of the grill into a fairly uniformly ripping-hot surface. Did I occasionally wish it had more zip? Sure, but it's a fantastic addition to this grill and I used it to make asparagus spears, quickly crisp up steak and salmon skin, and give hamburgers and plant-based burgers color on the outside while leaving the interior pink and juicy. (Side note: For excellent plant-based burger guidance, check out the Cooking With Plant-Based Meat cookbook from America's Test Kitchen, which I reviewed last year.) I found the extra burner particularly helpful for bigger cuts and for hosting larger groups of people.

I also enjoyed having the side table with the burner tucked into it. Mom prefers having seafood cooked outside "so it doesn't stink up the kitchen," so Dad and my sister used the side burner to boil lobsters one night and steam clams another. Having that burner there was great for steaming corn on the cob while grilling something else. It being summer, I appreciated more ability to cook outside instead of making an already-sweltering kitchen even hotter.

The longer I cooked with the Weber, the more I enjoyed it. I made three racks of ribs one night over indirect heat, taking up almost every bit of its 529-square-inch cooking surface without overwhelming it. I also appreciated that size, efficiently cooking for two like my E-310 does at home and capably handling larger parties. If you're like me, a little grease fire is a regular event in your life, but that's sloth, not the grill; the Weber's drip tray is easy to slide out and scrape clean, and draining or replacing the drip pan is easy.

It's not perfect. A harder and faster sear would be welcome, as would more control over the sear burner's heat, which is essentially on/off. A little compartment for wood chips and chunks that could slide in next to the left burner would be grand for creating a bit of smoky goodness.

My dad, who assembled the grill, didn't appreciate how stooped over you need to be to hang the propane tank on the hook inside the cabinet. Then again, the whole setup is much better-looking with the tank hidden in there as opposed to out under a side table, so I'm not sure that's fixable. On a related note, my E-310 has what I call a hard-wired natural gas option, where I connect the grill directly to a valve coming out of the side of my house, so there's no propane tank to refill. For some reason, that's not an option with the E-330, meaning you'll be making regular trips to fill the tanks at your local hardware store.

You'll definitely want to spring for a grill cover. Weber's feels like a cash grab at $90, but I own one, and it has suffered several years of the crazy heat and sun of my porch in the summer and Seattle's wet winters. It has a few more of each left, so I can't complain.

There are plenty of more powerful and more expensive grills out there. You probably don't need them. If you were thinking of a pricier model, consider putting that extra money toward a pair of rattan rockers. From your new perch, you may realize that the Weber E-330 is a near-perfect basic grill that, with a side burner and the sear burner, gets a turbo boost, Volvo style.