The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal Grill and Smoker sounds like the perfect little barbecue. Charcoal flavor. Portable size. Smoking and grilling. A fan-controlled temperature system that promises less fire management than a regular charcoal smoker. And honestly, we wanted to love it.
We’ve cooked ribs, pork shoulder, lamb, steak, burgers, vegetables and more on this thing. It does make good food. It is genuinely portable. And, for the right person, there is still a lot to like. But it is not the easy, set-and-forget charcoal smoker we hoped it would be.
Editor’s note: This Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal review is based on our real use of the barbecue-only version. The version with the cart is the same barbecue, just mounted on a stand.
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Table of Contents
Quick Verdict
The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal Grill and Smoker is a clever little barbecue, but it needs more babysitting than we expected. It gives you real charcoal flavor in a portable setup, and it works best when you treat it more like a small outdoor charcoal oven than a true smoker or high-heat grill.
The biggest issue is that it does not behave like a proper set-and-forget smoker. The temperature dial has no markings, the minimum temperature is 250°F, the hopper needs topping up more often than we expected, and the heat can be inconsistent during longer cooks.
Buy this if:
- You want a portable charcoal barbecue
- You like the idea of smoking and grilling on one small unit
- You mostly cook for 2–4 people
- You do not mind checking fuel and temperature during the cook
- You want charcoal flavor without using a full-size smoker
Skip This if:
- You want true set-and-forget smoking
- You want to smoke at 225°F
- You want strong high-heat grilling or steakhouse-style searing
- You regularly cook larger cuts or multiple racks of ribs
- You do not want to rely on electricity or batteries
Also available at: Walmart
At a Glance
Strengths
- Real charcoal flavor
- Compact and genuinely portable
- Cooks better as a small roasting barbecue than expected
- Lid locks for transport
- Can smoke and grill
- Decent build for the price
- Works for small families, couples, camping or tailgating
Weaknesses
- Not really set and forget
- Minimum temperature is 250°F
- Hopper needs topping up during longer cooks
- Temperature dial has no numbers
- Temperature can swing
- Hard to get really hot for grilling
- One end of long cuts can sit too close to the firebox
- Needs power for the fan to work properly
Best use case:
The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal is best for someone who wants a compact charcoal barbecue for smaller cooks and does not mind managing the fuel. It is not the best choice if you are buying it because you want a portable smoker that runs itself.
My Real Cooking Experience With the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal
The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal Grill and Smoker is one of those barbecues that makes a lot of sense on paper.
You load charcoal into the side hopper, light it, set the temperature dial, and the fan helps control the burn by blowing air onto the charcoal. In theory, it’s a bit like a charcoal smoker crossed with a pellet smoker.
In practice, it’s more hands-on than that.
The first thing to know is that the lowest temperature is 250°F. So while you can absolutely smoke on it, it doesn’t really hit that classic 225°F low-and-slow range a lot of people want.
We’ve cooked ribs, pork shoulder, lamb shoulder, steak, burgers, vegetables, and other smaller cooks on it. The food can turn out well, and the charcoal flavor is definitely there. It’s not too heavy or harsh, but you do get that proper charcoal taste that’s missing from a lot of easier portable cookers.
Where it gets frustrating is temperature control.
The dial has no numbers on it, so you’re not setting it to a precise temperature. You’re estimating where it needs to be, watching the built-in thermometer, and adjusting as you go. Masterbuilt recommend starting high, letting the cooker come up to temperature, then backing the dial down until the fan stops. In theory, that should hold you roughly where you want to be.
In real use, we found it changes depending on the outside temperature, the type of charcoal, how full the hopper is, and how much food is inside. So it can feel a bit different every cook.
The hopper is the other big thing. Masterbuilt say you can get up to 4 hours of cook time from one hopper, but we’ve never got close to that with lump charcoal. In our experience, you need to top it up every 1–2 hours, and often closer to every hour if you want to avoid the fire dropping too low.
That’s where the “set and forget” idea starts to fall apart a bit.
You can’t really just leave it alone for long cooks. If the charcoal burns down too much, the temperature drops, then when you add more charcoal you get another spike. We found it worked better to keep topping it up before it got too low, but that still means checking on it fairly often.
On one pork shoulder cook, the ambient temperature steadily dropped, then spiked after a refill, then dropped again before another top-up. The pork still turned out alright, but it definitely wasn’t a relaxed cook. I ended up relying on my MEATER thermometer alarm to tell me when the chamber temp had fallen too low.
Ribs were another cook that showed the limitations of this barbecue. A rack fits, but one end sits closer to the firebox, and we found that end was harder to stop from charring a bit. Between the small cooking space and the temperature fluctuations, the ribs came out a bit drier than what we’d get from a larger smoker.
Where we actually liked this cooker most was with roasting.
That ended up being our favorite use for it. Lamb shoulder, pork shoulder, and similar cuts worked better than trying to treat it like a true low-and-slow smoker or high-heat grill. The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal works best when you think of it as a small outdoor charcoal oven that also happens to smoke and grill.
Performance Breakdown
Temperature Control
This is the biggest weak point of the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal.
The fan does help, and sometimes it holds temperature reasonably well once you’ve got it dialed in. But other times it can be up and down, especially as the charcoal level drops or after refilling the hopper.
Because the dial isn’t marked, there’s also a bit of guesswork involved every time you cook. You do get a feel for it over time, but it never becomes as simple as setting a pellet smoker or a gas grill.
If you’re buying this because you want easy charcoal cooking, that’s only partly true. It is easier than managing a fully manual charcoal setup, but it still needs babysitting.
Smoke Flavor
The flavor is one of the better parts of this barbecue.
You do get proper charcoal flavor, and food comes out tasting good. It’s not an overpowering smoke profile, but it does taste like food cooked over charcoal rather than food cooked in a generic outdoor oven.
That said, the flavor alone isn’t enough to make this a great smoker. The food tastes good, but the actual smoking process is more fiddly than we’d like.
Grilling Performance
We wanted to like grilling on this more than we actually did.
The fire sits in the side firebox, so you’re not cooking directly over open charcoal. That means it behaves more like indirect grilling than traditional charcoal grilling.
It will cook burgers, steak, vegetables, and thinner meats. But in our experience, it struggled to get much above 400°F. We had a hard time getting the kind of hotter grilling performance we’d want for really good steaks, and one time we actually finished the steak inside because the grill just wasn’t getting where we wanted it.
For thinner meats or teppanyaki-style cooks, it worked better. For proper high-heat charcoal grilling, not so much.
Capacity
The cooking area is 200 square inches, which is enough for smaller cooks but not much more.
You can fit about 6 burger patties, one rack of ribs, a butterflied chicken, or a pork shoulder or lamb shoulder. A full brisket won’t fit unless you cut it in half. And there isn’t really room for two racks of ribs side by side.
Height is a bit better than the footprint suggests. We did fit a taller pork shoulder in there, although one larger one touched the lid and sizzled until we repositioned it slightly.
So for a couple, a small family, or portable use, the size is workable. Just don’t expect much flexibility once you’re cooking larger cuts.
Build Quality
For a fairly budget portable charcoal cooker, the overall quality is decent.
The body looks tidy, the cooker feels stable enough to use, and the grate has held up well. The porcelain-coated grate is durable and fairly easy to clean, and the grease tent underneath has also held up fine.
But there are a couple of wear points worth mentioning.
The paint on the lid hinges has bubbled from the heat. It doesn’t affect how the smoker works, and you can’t really see it from the front, but it’s there. The firebox has also buckled slightly out of shape over time. Again, not a deal-breaker, but worth knowing.
The other small annoyance is the hopper lid. It’s fully metal, so it gets hot. Since you do need to refill the hopper during cooks, you’ll want tongs or something similar handy unless you like burning your fingers.
Our hopper also buckled a bit over the time we used it for testing.
Ease of Use
Assembly is simple enough.
If you bought the barbecue-only version like we did, there’s not much to put together. You attach the handles, slot in the grease tent, firebox, and grate, and screw on the temperature gauge. It’s a quick setup.
Using it is where the learning curve starts.
Lighting it is easy enough with firestarters and charcoal, but running it well takes a bit more effort than the marketing suggests. Between the unmarked dial, the fairly frequent hopper refills, and the way the temperature can move around, this isn’t really a beginner-proof charcoal smoker.
It’s usable, but it takes some attention.
Power Options
This smoker needs power for the fan to work properly.
You can run it from the included power cord or from 4 AA batteries. In our experience, mains power is definitely the better option if it’s available. We haven’t had great battery life, and if you’re relying on batteries, I’d definitely take spare sets with you.
You also can’t really just ignore the power requirement and hope it works like a normal charcoal cooker. We tried that. The charcoal burns, but without the fan the airflow isn’t right and the fire dies down too quickly.
So if you want a fully off-grid charcoal cooker with no electrical dependence, this is not it.
Portability
This part it does well.
It’s compact, reasonably light, and easy enough to move around with the side handles. The locking lid is a nice detail too, especially if you’re transporting it with ash still inside. It keeps everything shut and makes it feel more secure in the car.
If you buy it with the cart, that’s even more convenient. But even without the cart, it still works as a portable barbecue.
Cleaning
Cleaning is pretty straightforward.
The grate is easy enough to scrape down or wash, and because the cooker is small, it doesn’t take long. The ash should really be emptied after each cook to keep airflow working properly. Once it’s cool, you just lift the firebox out and tip the ash out.
There’s also a rear drip tray for grease, and that needs emptying as well. Every now and then, you’ll also want to remove the grate and scrape out any extra fat buildup inside.
Nothing here is unusually difficult, but because airflow matters so much on this cooker, staying on top of ash cleanup is more important than on some other grills.
Using a Meat Thermometer
I’d strongly recommend using a meat thermometer with this barbecue.
The built-in thermometer is useful, but because the cooker can swing around a bit and the hopper needs checking, a wireless thermometer makes life much easier. On longer cooks especially, being able to set a low-temp alarm saves a lot of unnecessary checking.
If you want one, have a look at our guide to the best wireless meat thermometers.
What to Expect
If you buy the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal, this is what I think you should realistically expect:
- It will need more attention than a pellet smoker
- It is not a true set-and-forget smoker
- You will likely need to refill the hopper every 1–2 hours on longer cooks
- It works better for roasting than for classic low-and-slow smoking
- It gives decent charcoal flavor without being too heavy
- It struggles more with high-heat grilling than a regular charcoal grill
- The small cooking space limits what you can do with larger cuts
- A wireless thermometer makes it much easier to manage
- It suits smaller households and portable use better than big backyard cooks
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Real charcoal flavor
- Compact and genuinely portable
- Can smoke and grill
- Works well for smaller roasts
- Lid lock is handy for transport
- Decent build for the money
- Easy enough to assemble
Cons
- Not really set and forget
- Minimum temperature is 250°F
- Hopper needs frequent refilling
- Temperature dial has no markings
- Heat can fluctuate during cooks
- Struggles to get truly hot for grilling
- Cooking space is limited
- Needs power for the fan to work properly
Who This Is For (and Not For)
Who the masterbuilt portable charcoal is Best for:
- People who want a portable charcoal barbecue
- Couples or small families
- Buyers who like charcoal flavor but do not want a large cooker
- People happy to do some hands-on fuel management
- Roasting smaller cuts, burgers, and general casual cooks
Who should skip the Masterbuilt Protable Charcoal:
- Anyone wanting true set-and-forget smoking
- People who specifically want to cook at 225°F
- Buyers wanting steakhouse-style high-heat grilling
- People cooking for larger groups
- Anyone wanting a charcoal cooker with no power requirement
Also available at: Walmart
Alternatives to Consider
If the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal isn’t right for you, here are two solid alternatives:
Z Grills Cruiser 200A
Choose the Z Grills Cruiser 200A if you liked the Masterbuilt for easier portable smoking.
Similar small-cook size, steadier temps, more set-and-forget. Less charcoal flavor, but simpler to run.
Best if: you want portable smoking with less babysitting.
Read our full review of the Z Grills Cruiser 200A →
Char-Griller Akorn Jr
Choose the Char-Griller Akorn Jr if you want a small charcoal cooker without relying on electricity or a fan.
Simple, compact, and easy to run. Less automated, but good for camping, burgers, chicken, or smaller roasts.
Best if: you want a portable charcoal cooker with minimal fuss.
FAQs
Is the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal a set-and-forget smoker?
Not really. The fan helps, but in our experience you still need to keep an eye on the temperature and top up the charcoal fairly often.
Can the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal smoke at 225°F?
No. Its minimum temperature is 250°F, so it runs hotter than a classic low-and-slow smoker.
How long does the charcoal last in the hopper?
In our experience, about 1–2 hours before it really needs topping up. We’ve never got close to the advertised 4 hours with lump charcoal.
Is it good for grilling steaks?
It can cook steak, but we didn’t find it especially good for high-heat grilling. It struggled to get as hot as we wanted, so it’s not the best pick if steak searing is a big priority.
Do you need electricity to use it?
Yes. You can use the power cord or 4 AA batteries, but the fan needs power to keep the cooker working properly.
If you’re planning on using this smoker on the go, our portable power guide gives the details of 3 practical setups.
Will a brisket fit in the Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal?
Not a full brisket. It’s too small for that unless you cut it down first. If brisket is a main goal, you’re better off with a larger smoker. Have a look at other options in our best charcoal smokers round up.
Final Verdict
The Masterbuilt Portable Charcoal Grill and Smoker is a clever little cooker with a genuinely useful portable design and good charcoal flavor.
But for us, it never really delivered on the easy, set-and-forget idea. It works best as a small charcoal oven for roasting and casual cooks rather than as a serious smoker or proper high-heat grill.
If you like the size, portability, and charcoal flavor and you don’t mind checking on it, there is still plenty to like here.
If you want easier smoking, steadier temperatures, or a better grilling experience, you’ll probably outgrow it pretty quickly.
Also available at: Walmart
Jared Brown is a barbecue enthusiast with hands-on experience across a wide range of grills, smokers, and outdoor cooking setups. He enjoys testing different styles of barbecue and helping readers choose equipment that suits the way they actually want to cook, rather than chasing a one-size-fits-all answer. His practical, open-minded approach makes him a trusted voice for backyard cooks looking for honest guidance and better results.
