Fire & Flavor Hero Portable Grill

That backyard pit master smoker/grill combo might be the champion of every barbeque, but it’s not coming with you to the river. For portability in outdoor adventures, you need something a little smaller. The Hero Portable Grill from Fire & Flavor weighs in under ten pounds and packs down small. In what amounts to a two-part system, the ceramic-coated aluminum grill has fold out legs that support a single-use cardboard tray (called a pod) filled with fire-breathing charcoal. 

Yes. A cardboard tray full of fire. The reason it works is thanks to the lava stone liner inside. Made from a silica-containing rock called perlite, the liner acts as an insulating barrier, keeping the charcoal discs from igniting the cardboard (and the picnic bench you set the grill on). Once you set up the grill grate and open up the charcoal pod, all that’s left to do is light the four corner charcoal discs and slide the pod into position. Ten minutes later, you’re ready to grill. 

You’ll get a minimum of an hour of grill time at 400 plus degrees and another hour at 300 and there’s enough space for six burgers or six kabobs at a time. With charcoal made from bamboo and no petroleum additives, the Hero Grill puts out up to 75 percent fewer emissions than traditional charcoal and once the grilling is over, the charcoal can be composted, the perlite lining can be broken up and added to gardens, and the cardboard tray can be recycled.

You can reuse the grill component endlessly and the charcoal pod/tray can be refilled with more of Fire & Flavor’s charcoal discs, which means you’ve got a grill that’s camp, picnic, and tailgate-ready while not taking up any more space than a board game.

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