Fire Sense Notebook Charcoal Grill Review

Overview

If you are looking for something to grill up some tasty meals on the go, camping or tailgating and space is an issue then you may want to take a closer look at the Fire Sense Notebook Grill. This competitively priced little grill may just be your answer.

The first thing you will notice about the Fire Sense Notebook grill is it’s innovative and space saving design. When stowed this grill packs completely flat with dimensions similar to a family sized pizza. This makes it ideal to store in tight, confined spaces or even in a drawer.

When packed, the top of the grill has a handle that can be carried much like a briefcase, and weighing just under 8lb this grill is one of the most portable and easy grills we’ve seen. But does it live up to its promise? Let’s dive in and look closer.

Specifications

When fully assembled the grill measures 17.58 x 11.82 x 14.8 inches. When folded down it can be stored as a flat packed unit that is just 1 inch thick, making it extremely easy to stow away in a car or an RV. The whole unit weighs just 8lb.

The main body of the grill is constructed from heat resistant painted steel. The cooking and charcoal grates are chrome plated steel.

Assembly

The Fire Sense Notebook grill arrives as one compact, flat unit that is easy to transport. It opens up to reveal three main pieces. The grill housing, a charcoal grate and a cooking grate. Simply open the grill like a book and the legs and cooking chamber are instantly ready and you can remove the two grates. Two side panels can then be extended to hold the outer structure in place.

The charcoal grate sits nearly towards the bottom of the cooking chamber. The food grate is a compact folded design that unfolds into three and sits on top of the grill to provide 228 square inches of cooking space, quite substantial for the size of this unit.

Overall the assembly is quick and simple, and within a minute or two you are ready to start grilling. Once you are done cooking and allow the grill to cool down, it’s pretty easy to store the grills back inside the unit and fold it up back to its flat pack for easy storage.

Lighting

The Fire Sense Notebook can cook perfectly fine on either lumpwood or charcoal briquettes. We did find however that with lumpwood charcoal, smaller pieces of charcoal easily fell through the grate and created a bit of a mess in the BBQ pit. We would recommend using charcoal briquettes which sit neatly on top of the charcoal grate and provide a much better experience. With a little charcoal starter, we found the airflow was sufficient to light the coals quickly and efficiently.

The fold out cooking grate is easy to attach, but presents problems if you try and attach the grate after lighting the coals. The fold out design of the grate makes it tricky to fit onto the grill when it’s burning hot. You’ll likely need two pairs of tongs or firegloves to place the grill on correctly. One option would be to put the grate on as soon as you light the grill, but that makes adjusting the coals later tricky.

Cooking

The first thing to note is that the airflow is not adjustable. This is probably fine if you’re cooking steaks or burgers, but not ideal if you want to finely control the temperature to cook medium heat dishes like chicken. But we found the airflow decent enough that the cooking temperatures did not get too hot to burn our food.

The FIre Sense Notebook is an open grill design, meaning it does not have a lid. This makes it ideal for direct grilling above the coals, it’s not designed for indirect cooking or low and slow dishes.

It performs pretty well when grilling, our only observation is that the grate bars are fairly wide apart which means smaller items of food risk falling down to the coals below. But for larger cuts of meat such as steaks, or burgers, we were impressed.

The cooking area is good, with enough space to easily cook 6-8 burgers and the grate stays in place when manipulating food.

It doesn’t feel quite as sturdy as some of the other more expensive grills we’ve tested, but didn’t give us any problems when cooking. The build quality is perfectly good for a grill that costs less than $30*. When heated to medium to high heat we did notice a very small amount of buckling of the main panels, but so far this hasn’t prevented us from using the grill or storing it away correctly.

Conclusion

The Fire Sense Notebook is a great concept. The flat pack design will be a game changer for situations where space is a major concern such as car camping, tailgating or picnics. If you are looking for something to leave out on your patio then there are probably better options, since the main selling point of this grill is portability.

If you are prepared to forgive a little more space and spend a little more to get more features, such as a portable charcoal grill with a lid for indirect cooking then we would recommend the Weber Go Anywhere which offers a lot more features in terms of airflow control and cooking options.

However if you are looking for something lightweight and very portable to cook up basic outdoor dishes and don’t need to do anything too elaborate then this grill is a perfect choice at this price point. At the time of writing this grill is available for just $27 on Amazon, so this is perfect if you are looking for an entry level grill at a great price that solves a big problem.

Pros