For crowd-pleasing outdoor breakfasts, outstanding Taco Tuesdays, and anything you would normally cook on your little frying pan, you need a griddle.
You want to impress your family and gatherings of friends with restaurant-worthy cuisine, which means that you won’t want any griddle, but you’ll want the best, a 4 burner flat top grill to outshine the rest. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to narrow down the best gas griddle, testing out popular brands and setting unworthy contenders to the side.
In our search for the best gas griddle, we’ve come down to the final two: the Blackstone 4-Burner Flat Top Gas Grill and the Camp Chef 4-Burner Flat Top Grill. In this post, we review and compare both griddles for your convenience, so you get an introduction to outstanding griddles while learning which griddle is best suited to your needs.
Blackstone Griddle vs Camp Chef:
Blackstone 4-Burner Flat Top Gas Grill
In comparison to the Camp Chef, Blackstone offers extra space that matters when taking into account how many people you’re feeding. The Blackstone griddle provides 720 square inches of cooking space on a roughly 36-inch flat cooking top.
This gas griddle features four stainless steel burners that provide a total of 60,000 BTU, which is more heat than the Camp Chef. The burners are independently adjustable as well and have multiple heat settings.
The Blackstone griddle rolls on four industrial-strength caster wheels. Two of the wheels are lockable, so the unit will stay in place while you cook.
The Blackstone is a powerhouse of a griddle, offering significant cooking space, powerful burners, and instant ignition. This flat-top grill is easy to assemble, takes propane as fuel, and includes top-quality features like independently adjustable burners, lockable wheels, and a thick and sturdy griddle plate.
Whether you’re looking for an outdoor gas griddle to cater breakfast to a party or whip up a stir-fry for a dinner event, Blackstone does the job.
The Blackstone griddle is a godsend when it comes to ample cooking space and nearly stove-like cooking, thanks to those adjustable burners. With convenient features and easy clean-up, its performance is impressive despite its grease setback and additional precautions when getting started.
If Blackstone is your brand, or if you’re looking for a high-quality griddle in general, this is one of the best Blackstone grills we can recommend.
Benefits
- Feeding Bigger Crowds: Due to the vast amount of space that the Blackstone griddle provides, you can cook for bigger crowds than you would be able to with the Camp Chef. To help you visualize the amount of space, you could fit about 16 steaks or 72 hot dogs on the entire griddle area. The griddle top itself is also easily removable so that you can use it as a serving plate.
- Adjustable Heat: The independently adjustable burners mean that you’ll be able to utilize four separate heat zones for cooking each of your ingredients exactly how you need to. You can set ingredients to the side to stay warm while cooking others on high heat, and if you’re only cooking for yourself, you can turn on only one burner or two to make yourself some chow.
- Thick Griddle Plate: The surface of the Blackstone griddle is a thick rolled-steel surface that ensures excellent heat retention to keep your food cooking well. The heat distributes evenly throughout the surface and eliminates the worry of hot or cold spots dotting your cooking surface.
Reservations
- The Grease Problem: While this griddle is undoubtedly fantastic, it does have one unfortunately stand-out flaw, which is the grease trap. The grease slides down a metal chute with a hole at the end, allowing oil to drip into the cup. Unfortunately, there’s a significant tendency for the grease to miss the tray entirely and drip down the legs of the unit instead. To fix this problem, you can install something on the end of the metal piece to direct the grease into the cup properly, but we do agree that it would have been helpful if the manufacturer had caught this problem.
- Cautionary Set-Up: Out of the box, the griddle top comes coated with a protective oil to prevent rust. You do not want to make the mistake of thinking that the griddle top is pre-seasoned, believing you can cook right on it out of the box. You’ll need to wash that protective layer of oil off with dish soap and then season your griddle after you remove that oil. Because the griddle top is carbon steel, it will rust if you don’t season your griddle properly. Oil the surface of your griddle until every inch is shiny black. As long as you season well, clean-up will be a cinch, and your food will get that flavor and crispiness you want.
Camp Chef 4-Burner Flat Top Grill
The feature that stands out the most with this unit is that it isn’t only a griddle. Underneath the nonstick griddle top is a grilling surface, making the Camp Chef a 2-in-1 griddle gas grill cooking station.
While the four stainless steel burners only supply 12,000 BTU each (only 48,000 total compared to Blackstone’s 60,000 total), the burners do their job well. The cooking surface heats up a lot quicker and provides that instant heat that the push-button ignition promises.
A helpful feature this griddle comes with is its adjustable levelers for the legs of the unit and for the griddle itself, allowing you to make sure your griddle has balance and a perfectly flat surface.
When it comes to a griddle that pulls out all the stops, the Camp Chef is the product you need in your life. From foldable shelves to a hidden grilling surface to adjustable levelers, you aren’t just getting a griddle with high performance, but a griddle with access.
For the run-down on every feature this propane griddle offers, let’s jump right into our Camp Chef flat-top grill review.
The Camp Chef is a champion when it comes to versatile cooking and helpful user features. With effective heating, push-to-start ignition, and interchangeable griddle and grilling surfaces, this griddle is a king among outdoor cooking units.
Despite a limit on space and the care you need to take when cleaning, the Camp Chef is a worthy investment for cooking up breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Benefits
- Multiple Functions: The griddle and grilling function may be one of the most significant advantages this station has over the Blackstone. The griddle allows you to serve about 50 people at maximum capacity, and then when you finish, you can uncover the grill and start cooking a whole new course. Anything that you could cook in a cast iron pan or a skillet, you can cook on the Camp Chef.
- Keeps in Flavor: The benefit of having that leveler to keep the surface perfectly level is that the juices from your food won’t slide every which way. Keeping the juices in one place allows your food to keep its flavor and form those perfect crispy edges that make meat and vegetables so marvelous on your tastebuds.
- Extra Space: The Camp Chef griddle and grill also come with two foldable shelves to give you extra space. You’ll be able to keep cooking utensils with you, prepare ingredients, and keep plates on hand to serve our food right at your cooking station.
- Better Grease Trap: Lastly, we’ll have to mention that the grease trap performs a lot better than the Blackstone. The grease catcher rests at the bottom left of the griddle, and excess grease falls right into the grease tray, as it should. Luckily, since the griddle surface is nonstick, you shouldn’t need to use too much oil in the first place.
Reservations
- Space: Even with all of its extra features, the Camp Chef is somewhat cut for space when you compare it to the Blackstone. You get about 604 square inches of griddle surface and 501 square inches of grilling space. The area still gives you room to cook for a lot of guests, but you don’t quite get the amount of space you get with the Blackstone.
- Extra Care: While you should take good care of any outdoor cooking appliance, the Camp Chef needs a little extra TLC (tender loving care) to keep it performing as best as possible. For example, during the cleanup, you’ll want to scrape off all the excess food while the griddle is still hot; otherwise, the leftover bits will probably stick to the surface and become a pain to try and remove. Additionally, seasoning the griddle surface should prevent any rusting, but to take the most precaution, you can purchase Camp Chef’s grill cover to protect your unit from the elements. You’ll need to fold down the shelves, but otherwise, the cover will slip over with ease.
Insights and Takeaways
To determine the best griddle cooking station out of the two, the choice isn’t easy. Both offer their own benefits and unique features, so each may be suited to someone with different needs. If your passion is cooking for crowds, you’ll want the Blackstone for its power and spacious cooking surface, but if you want precision and user-friendly navigation, the Camp Chef is your best bet.
If we did have to choose one, the Camp Chef would probably have to be our pick of the crop. While it doesn’t have as much space as the Blackstone and takes a little extra care to keep in tip-top shape, the heating is arguably more even and quicker to start than the Blackstone. Not to mention, the Camp Chef doesn’t have a glaring problem with its grease management system.
Whether you go with the versatile Camp Chef or the sturdy Blackstone, you’ll be giving yourself a cooking edge that will impress the stomachs of everyone you cook for.
