Broil King Imperial 490 Gas Grill Review

THIS MODEL IS DISCONTINUED.

The Broil King Imperial 490 is the smallest model in their top of the line Imperial Series. These premium category BBQ grills are packed with useful extras offering quality plus bells and whistles for a reasonable price. The grill head is 430 stainless steel with cast aluminum hood end caps. Four 12,500 BTU main burners, a 15,000 BTU stainless rear rotisserie tube burner and a 10,000 BTU side burner. Rotisserie kit is included.

 Reversable cooking grates are heavy cast stainless seel, (see left). Flav-R-Wave heat tents blanket the bottom of the deep firebox, mitigating flare ups, sizzling drippings and radiating searing heat. The cook box is deep, the hood is high. Many believe this design enhances roasting. Certainly the headroom in the hood is great for rotisserie and large items like roasts and turkeys.

Substantial side shelves feature heavy cast aluminum condiment trays and built-in tool hooks. The cart has one door and two drawers. The 490 may be ordered as LP or NG. LP models have a pull out propane tank drawer inside the single door. Built-in hood lights are a welcome feature. But why the single battery powered igniter for all four main burners? One could expect dedicated ignition at each control knob on a beautiful grill like this. Broil King explains that when dedicated control knob igniters fail, the entire mechanism must often be replaced, not just the one faulty igniter. So they chose to use a single igniter for simplicity.

Broil King claims their patented Dual Tube Burners produce more even heat and increase burner life.  Gas enters the burner first through a small, perforated tube within the large stainless steel burner tube.  The design is intended to create even gas pressure throughout the burner, resulting in even flame and evenly distributed heat stress on the burner.  After cooking extensively with dual tubes, we believe the heat is indeed even, but no more so than with similar quality grills.

Their Linear Flow control knobs, however, are a step above the competition. With very little play in the valve stems, movement is smooth and solid throughout the 180° arc from low to high, making minute adjustments easy.

Warranty on the dual tube burners is the same as Weber’s tube burners – ten years.