Best grill plates

The easiest way to make your barbecued food taste better, and your grill less messy, is by choosing the best grill plates possible. Also called flavorizer bars, they work by shielding your grill's gas jets. Any drippings will hit the grill plates and immediately sublimate into smoky, charry goodness. Our best overall grill plates are made by Unicook, and they come in a four-pack to accommodate most gas grills. These plates have drainage holes at each end and act as a roof-like deflector for your gas jets. I also included adjustable flavorizer bars that fit a range of grill brands, sizes, and styles, along with an extra-perforated set explicitly made for Viking grills. Check out the plate collection below, and never worry about grease management again.

Our best overall grill plates are from Unicook, and they earned their spot on the list. They come in a four-pack, won't break the bank, and include a porcelain coating for better heat redistribution. Installation is simple; you essentially drop each plate in place after removing the originals. Better yet, at a 1.2-millimeter thickness, the grill plates are actually sturdier than the set that came with your grill. A caveat—you'll need to match Unicook's universally compatible plates to the size of your grill's original heat plates; checking measurements before buying is vital.

Flavorizer bars is another name for grill plates, and to be fair, the phrase evokes vivid visions of Guy Fieri. That's precisely what grill plates do, though—not only do they regulate heat release at the gas jets, but they vaporize falling fat or juice droplets. As a result, even temperature leads to vastly superior taste when it's time to serve your meal. Cleverly, this listing for Hisencn's grill plates offers a new feature: a dropdown menu where you can input your particular grill model and brand. This way, you can check if the bars will fit before purchasing. You can extend them from roughly 11 inches to 21 inches and lock the right length in place with included wingnuts and M5 bolts. 

Allowing the free flow of excess fatty liquids is a valuable feature to have—BBQration's porcelain steel grill plates achieve this through carefully positioned drainage grates. In addition, proper grease management leads to fewer flare-ups and less over-carbonized steaks. It's worth noting that maintaining BBQration's grill plates is crucial; due to their vented nature, you can't just install them and forget about them. If you want the plates to work optimally and last longer, be sure to keep them clean and dry between uses and season them by brushing on a thin coat of neutral, high-smoke-point oil.

These grill plates from Uniflasy are designed to fit multiple grill brands, including Char-Broil, Jenn-Air, Nexgrill, Perfect Flame, Member's Mark, Uniflam, and Brinkmann. This is achievable because the bar trio is like our best value pick—extendable from 11 to 21 inches and secured by wing nuts and M5 bolts. Don't worry about tools, either. Finger-tightening is sufficient to lock the plates into place. Yes, these flavorizer bars are essentially identical to Hisencn's. However, Uniflasy's 3-pack is better suited to smaller grills and less expensive, so I felt they deserved a spot on our list.

Viking grill devotees will like my final entry; Damile's replacement grill plates are engineered to fit that brand and that brand only. If that's a dealbreaker for those of us without a Viking grill, just stick to any of the other options we covered above. These plates are extremely easy to clean—just wipe with a wet towel. Damile's plates are extra-long, measuring 23 inches in length. These bars are also fully perforated, producing exceptionally smoky, savory grilled food as the drippings vaporize during cooking. 

Bottom line

By now, you can see that there's a lot of similarity among the best grill plates you can buy. Some are enameled with heat-resistant ceramic and others are bare stainless steel. Our staff pick from Unicook is a four-pack of porcelain-coated steel bars, and they're designed with a straightforward installation process. All you do is drop the grill plates in place after measuring to make sure they fit—and that's it.

If you'd rather play it safe and get an adjustable grill plate set, consider Uniflasy's universal ones or their twin, our best value pick from Hisencn. Wondering about what size flavorizer bars to buy in the hardware store is a thing of the past, thanks to two stainless steel plates that slide over each other. You can extend both pairs from 11 inches to 23 inches and 21 inches, respectively, and lock the length in place with a couple of wingnuts. 

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