Breville BGR820XL Smart Grill Review

Why the Breville Smart Grill?

Every Breville product begins with a simple moment of brilliance. The Breville Smart Grill began with the simple fact that searing meat requires continuous high heat. What kind of machine cooks as well as a barbecue, but cleans fast like a frypan? The answer is the Breville Smart Grill, which allows you to sear meat indoors at a high consistent temperature without making a mess. It uses Element IQ technology and an 1800W heating system to electronically detect heat loss and provide rapid heat recovery.

Maintaining High Heat for Better Cooking

Countertop grills experience a drop in temperature when the cold meat or ingredients are introduced to the pre-heated surface. Even if they start off at the right temperature, most countertop grills can’t recover from this heat loss, heating up again slowly. This means less efficient cooking and tougher meat. The BGR820XL uses a smart technology called Element IQ to detect the drop in temperature and inject more heat for a rapid recovery back to the desired cooking temperatures.

Also, embedded elements in its grill plates help the grill maintain intense heat and recover from heat loss. The elements are cast into the plates themselves, which means that most of the heat generated by the elements is transferred to the plates instead of being lost (see below). That means less time to pre-heat and also rapid temperature recovery.

Other Features: Easy cleaning and Versatility

In addition to Element IQ and embedded plates, the Breville BGR820XL Smart Grill has numerous features: the top plate has six different adjustable heights that can be used for large sandwiches, small sliders, open-faced melts, or anything inbetween; the plates are removable for easier cleaning and can be interchanged depending on your needs (so the ribbed plate is either on the bottom or the top). The plates are nonstick plates made from cast aluminum coated with titanium infused Quantanium, for oil-free cooking and easy clean up. The housing is stainless steel, with die-cast arms.

The base can be tilted at an angle to drain, or lay perfectly flat for eggs, pancakes, and paninis. You can use it closed and use it to grill like a Panini press, or open it 180 degrees into barbecue mode, in which fat is drained from both plates into the drip tray. There are three different temperature settings (low, Panini, and sear, ranging from 320F to 450F), temperature and time control dials, and a countdown timer and sound alert.

Exposed Heating Elements vs. the BGR820XL’s Embedded Heating Elements

Exposed Heating Elements, typical of many grills

Embedded Heating Elements, like on the BGR820XL Smart Grill

Exposed Heating Elements: Heat loss

Many plates have exposed heating elements, where the grill plate sits directly on top of the heating element. Exposed elements lose much of the heat that they generate, instead of transferring the heat to the plate. This means the grill requires more time to heat up and more time to recover from heat loss, which extends cooking time and yields tougher meats.

Embedded Heating Elements: Heat transfer

The BGR820XL has grill plates with integrated heating elements, where the elements are embedded in the plates themselves. Rather than losing much of the heat that they generate, the heat is transferred directly to the plate. This means the grill requires less time to heat up and less time to recover from heat loss, which decreases cooking time, increases searing temperatures, and yields tenderer meats.

Two modes for two different cooking styles

Panini Mode

Barbecue Mode

Panini Mode

In Panini mode, use the top and bottom plates to press Paninis or grill ingredients on two sides at once. The height of the top plate from the bottom is adjustable, allowing you to press both large sandwiches and small sliders. There is a ribbed plate and a flat plate, and both plates are removable and interchangeable so you can choose the plate that suits your cooking style and clean the plates more easily.

Barbecue Mode

In barbecue mode, open the grill plates 180 degrees so the Smart Grill lies flat, and use it to grill and sear meats and vegetables. This doubles your cooking area, and also presents the option of grilling on both the flat plate and the ribbed plate. Additional ribbed plates and flat plates are available for purchase on Amazon if you’d prefer to have a uniform cooking surface in barbecue mode.

Temperature Control and Timing

The backlit LCD screen is blue when the grill is not hot

The backlit LCD screen is orange when the grill is pre-heating or cooking

Timer Control Dial

(Located on the left side of the Smart Grill front) You can set the timer for your preferred cooking time, and the Smart Grill will alert you when time is up.

Temperature Control Dial

(Located on the right side of the Smart Grill front) You can set the Breville Smart Grill in three different temperature settings: low, Panini, and sear, which range from temperatures of 320F to 450F. If you’d prefer to view the temperature in Celsius, flip the temperature conversion button.

Element IQ auto-adjustment

Element IQ detects the drop in temperature when you introduce cold ingredients to the pre-heated surface and automatically injects more heat to bring the Smart Grill back up to temperature and compensate for heat-loss.