BBQ shopping starts innocently and ends in a spreadsheet. Burner counts, hood heights, cooking areas, side burners, cabinets. The spec sheets make it feel like more must be better, and plenty of Australians end up with a four burner monument that cooks sausages for two on one corner every second Sunday. The right size BBQ is not the biggest one that fits. It is the one matched to how you actually cook. Here is how to work that out before you buy.
Start with the cook, not the specs
Be honest about three things. How often do you barbecue? What do you usually cook? And how many people are usually eating? A weeknight cook doing chops and vegetables for a family has completely different needs to an entertainer roasting for twelve each month, and both differ from the balcony dweller grilling for two.
Write your real answers down before you look at a single product, because showrooms are persuasive and the big units are impressive. The point of this guide is that the impressive unit and the right unit are sometimes the same thing, and often not.
What extra burners actually buy you
More burners do not mainly mean more food. They mean more control. With multiple burners you can run different zones at different heat, searing over one, cooking gently on another and keeping finished food warm on a third. Multiple burners also unlock indirect cooking, where the food sits over an unlit burner while lit ones surround it with heat, which is how a BBQ with a hood roasts without burning the base of everything.
So the burner question becomes practical. If you grill quick-cooking food and serve straight away, a compact two burner does the job with less gas and less cleaning. If you like roasts, whole chickens or cooking several things at different temperatures, the extra burners earn their place. What rarely earns its place is buying a big unit and only ever lighting half of it, which is also unkind to the BBQ itself.
The hood question
A hooded BBQ is also an oven. Close the lid and you can roast, bake and cook thick cuts through without incinerating the outside. An open grill or flat top is a dedicated searing tool, brilliant at what it does but limited to it. For most households wanting one appliance that does everything, the hood wins. If your cooking is genuinely all quick grilling, the simpler unit is cheaper to buy and easier to clean.
Measure the space it will live in
Now bring the tape measure out. A BBQ needs more room than its own footprint. There should be clear space around and above it, safely away from walls, fences and anything flammable, with the manufacturer's stated clearances treated as the minimum. Add the practical zones. Somewhere to land a tray, somewhere for tools, and a clear path back to the kitchen, because a BBQ you have to shuffle around to use is a BBQ that gets used less.
Check the width with the hood open, not just closed, and remember the gas bottle needs a ventilated home too. If this is your first barbecue, our BBQ for beginners set-up checklist runs through the bottle, the placement and the cover before your first cook. If bench space is short, cart models with side shelves carry their own, and full outdoor kitchen style units build the bench in around the cooking.
Small spaces and portables
Balcony and courtyard cooks have real options now. Compact and portable units deliver proper grilling from a footprint the size of an esky, and the best of them come with stands or scissor legs so they work at bench height at home and then travel to the park or campsite. If you live in an apartment, check your building's rules about BBQs and fuel types on balconies before buying anything, because buildings vary and it is far better to know first.
For small-space cooks, the honest advice is that a quality compact unit used weekly beats a big unit that dominates the balcony and makes the space worse the six days it is not in use.
Buy for the cook you are most weeks
The pattern with BBQs mirrors dining tables. People buy for the biggest event they can imagine rather than the life they live, and the everyday experience pays for it. Size the BBQ for your usual cooking with a little headroom, not for the once-a-year party, because the once-a-year party can always be catered in shifts and the everyday cook cannot be shrunk.
When you are ready to compare, our BBQs and outdoor cooking range runs from portables through to full outdoor kitchens, and the BBQ accessories collection covers the covers, tools and extras that finish the setup. Pick the size that matches your Tuesday, and your Saturday will still be fine.
