Grilling your dinner is one of the pleasures of summer. Sure, you want a grill that preheats quickly and does well on low and high heat but you also want a grill that's safe to use. In testing more than 100 gas grills to find the best and worst performers, Consumer Reports' grill experts also puts every grill through safety checks. And when the Brinkmann 810-6230-S gas grill failed our drop-lid test, posing a safety risk, we judged it a "Don't buy" in late April.
Shortly thereafter Home Depot stopped sales of the grill, Brinkmann then offered a fix to consumers who had already bought the grill, and replaced a part on all in-stock grills in Home Depot's stores and distribution channels. We bought this revamped grill and it passed our drop-lid test, eliminating the safety risk and the "Don't buy" designation.
Brinkmann 810-6230-S is now recommended
Ninety-nine percent of Brinkmann 810-6230-S gas grills are sold at Home Depot, according to Brandon Gleaton, vice president of Brinkmann sales. After we designated this grill a "Don't buy," Gleaton said they'd replace the crossover channels on all grills in Home Depot locations and their distribution channels to fix the safety problem we found. Our testers found that it does. Revamped grills have a green sticker on the box that says, "Includes new crossover channel." Grills manufactured after our results were made known to Brinkmann include the fix and those boxes bear a yellow sticker with the same message, says Gleaton.
Now that the safety risk is gone the Brinkmann 810-6230-S moves from the bottom of our Ratings of small gas grills and joins our list of recommended grills. The $130 Brinkmann preheated quickly and evenly and was superb in high and low-temperature evenness. Indirect cooking and temperature range were good and convenience was fair. Overall this grill scored 71 out of 100.
What about grills sold elsewhere?
This grill is also sold at Albertsons and Hy-Vee and Gleaton said he is working with them to find out if they want Brinkmann to fix their units. If so, the cartons will bear the green or yellow stickers. Otherwise, if you buy this grill at one of these stores, call Brinkmann's customer service at 800-527-0717 and ask for a new crossover channel, the part that fixes the grill's safety problem.
