Does it get much better than a beautiful summer evening with friends, gorging on a juicy hog you’ve just roasted on a spit? No, I don’t think so…

Whether you’re cooking over a small campfire, a BBQ in your garden, or preparing large game for a big party, you’re going to need an outdoor rotisserie grill to get the best results.

There’s a wide choice available depending on your needs. From high weight capacity hog roast spit and grills to small battery-powered devices.

To bring you the ultimate low down, we have pulled together some top-rated grills in each category. For our findings at a glance, just head to the table below. For a dedicated buyer’s guide, plus full in-depth reviews of each rotisserie grill, keep on reading.

Best Rotisserie Grills for 2021

Best Attachment Kit: OneGrill 4PS71 Universal Grill Kit

The OneGrill 4PS97 Universal Grill Kit is our top pick attachment kit for good reason.

It is a heavy-duty corded model that is well designed for horizontal rotisserie cooking. With its powerful 110-volt 13-watt electricity (that can generate up to 72 in/lb of torque) the kit is more than capable of handling good-sized meat for the grill.

It has 2 premium spit forks, a contoured handle, and a 37-inch long, 1/2-inch thick chrome-plated steel spit rod that can hold loads of up to 50 pounds.

The design, durability, and efficient horizontal rotisserie cooking of the OneGrill 4PS97 make (in our humble opinion) the best grill rotisserie attachment kit available in 2021.

Best grill for large game: Titan Outdoors 125 lb Capacity Rotisserie

The Titan Outdoors Kit is a heavy-duty corded model that gets our top pick for those looking to grill large game.

It comes with 2 tripod stands, a premium fork, a 51-inch long heavy-duty spit rod, anchors, and a fully-enclosed motor unit that houses a powerful 25watts AC-powered electric motor.

The spit rod-motor assembly can skewer up-to 125pounds of meat at a maximum rotational speed of 4 pm). This allows this kit to hold whole animals for horizontal rotisserie cooking.

This makes it the best outdoor rotisserie kit for large game. Furthermore, the height adjustment of the spit rod makes it one of the best kits overall for campfire grilling.

Best Portable kit: Grizzly GRIZSPIT Spit Rotisserie

The Grizzly GRIZSPIT Spit Rotisserie is a high-quality cordless rotisserie attachment kit that comes with two 26-inch tall vertical stands, a powerful battery-powered DC electric motor,2 premium spit forks, and a 36-inch long polished spit rod.

This kit is an excellent option for those looking for a small, lightweight, and portable rotisserie. It can hold loads of up to 25 pounds, with the DC motor providing the necessary torque for skewering the meat.

Best Premium Grill: Rotisserie Grill Roaster – 88lbs Capacity

The Titan Rotisserie Grill Roaster is a heavy-duty, high-quality standalone (complete) rotisserie grilling kit that comes with a powerful 13-watt AC motor, a 51-inch spit rod, and a built-in rotisserie charcoal burner.

It is designed for horizontal rotisserie cooking with each of its 2 stands featuring a pair of locking caster wheels for easy mobility. With a capacity up to 88lbs, this is our top choice premium rotisserie kit for 2021.

Outdoor Rotisserie Grill Reviews

As explained above, there’s a wide range of models, sizes, and brands of rotisserie kits.

However, they can all be fully graded based on their design, energy efficiency, durability, longevity, and most importantly, the efficiency of cooking.

Based on these rating criteria, 5 of the best rotisserie kits have been identified for review.

1. Best Attachment Kit: OneGrill 4PS71 Universal Grill Kit

The OneGrill 4PS71 is a heavy-duty corded rotisserie attachment kit that comes with a powerful 110-volt electric motor,2 premium spit forks, contoured handle, and 37-inch long chrome plated spit rod.

This kit is designed for horizontal rotisserie cooking and is built to be fitted in grills whose maximum width averages 31inches.

The heavy-duty and durable steel spit rod has a half-inch wide hexagonal cross-section, and it can hold loads of up to 50 pounds, with the 13-watt stainless steel rotisserie motor providing 72inches-per-pound(in/lb, equivalent to 8.136Newton-meters[N.m]) of torque for skewering the meat.

Each of the heavy gauge spit forks has 4 prongs attached to it, which increases its versatility in terms of load holding and binding large chunks of meat to the spit rod.

This kit also features a unique counterbalance system that effectively balances loads exceeding 30pounds.

Expectedly, this kit can be used to skewer whole naturally-imbalanced animals such as pigs, turkeys, and lambs over any type of grill. This model is designed and manufactured by OneGrill, LLC.

The fully-assembled attachment kit has a load-free weight of about 6.68pounds, which makes it a lightweight kit that can be fitted into a single tripod stand, or a vertical post welded into the grill stand, and when heavy loads of meat need to be roasted, the kit is fitted on 2 tripod stands.

This model is shipped in as component parts alongside 2 instruction guides – the application guide and the installation manual – that instructs the user how to assemble the kit, and then how to fit it onto the grill.

It comes as a package that contains the following components:

• a OneGrill corrosion-resistant motor,
• a heavy-duty high-grade spit rod,
• a universal bracket set,
• a chrome-plated spit rod bushing,
• an 8-ounce chrome-coated counter-balance weight,
• a chrome-plated knurled locking washer,
• a premium contoured handle,
• 2 chrome-coated spit forks,

The motor housing unit is shipped as a motor mount, a motor shield, and a motor mount bracket.

One can also decide to purchase one or more of the following optional accessories; tumble baskets, additional forks, flat baskets, or the unique OneGrill Performer Multi-Use Basket.

The universal bracket sets consist of 3 chrome-plated steel brackets that can fit most grills. Still, one must measure the grill before purchasing this model to ensure that one chooses the model size that is most compatible with the grill.

The standard assembly process for fitting this model on a barbecue frame is described hereafter.

To begin with, the motor mount bracket is placed on the motor shield, and this unit is bolted to the motor mount using the 4 M4x6mm Phillips head screws.

The motor mount bracket has a frame mount, which allows it to be bolted to the frame of the barbecue grill using 2 1/4-20 half-inch long Phillips head screws.

On the opposite side of the barbecue, the frame is bolted the outboard support brackets, with the 2 remaining 1/4-20 half-inch long Phillips head screws securing it to the frame.

Next, the washer, counter-balance weight, and handle are fitted onto the spit rod. The shaft collar which is already on the spit rod is then slid towards the handle.

This allows one to slide in the prong forks that hold the meat across the spit rod to the desired position, whereby thumb screws are then used to securely hold the forks in position on the spit.

Next, this loaded spit rod assembly is placed on the shaft bracket – which is the top part of the outboard support bracket.

On the other end, the spit rod is pushed through an aligned hole in the motor mount, motor bracket, and motor shield so that it can be connected to the gear system of the electric motor.

The motor is then placed in the motor bracket assembly, which serves as the unenclosed motor housing.

The motor shield acts as a heat shield that prevents the heat from the grill from being conducted/transferred to the motor.

Likewise, the gear system that transfers torque from the whisper-quiet motor to the spit rod features an anti-backlash system that ensures the rod is smoothly rotated even when holding unbalanced or poorly balanced loads.

Even so, this kit suffers from one major demerit. Because the standard package comes without a drip pan, the drippings from the roasted meat fall directly onto the heat source where they are burnt to produce smoke.

Therefore, this kit can only be used indoors if a drip pan is provided.

This model is backed by a 1-year warranty provided by the manufacturer.

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2. Best grill for large game: Titan Outdoors Stainless Steel 125 lb Capacity Campfire Rotisserie System

The Titan Outdoors is another corded rotisserie attachment kit, however this time you can load up to 125 lb of hog onto the spit.

It comes with 2 tripod stands and a fully-enclosed motor unit that houses a powerful 25watts AC-powered electric motor.

The heavy-duty spit rod is 51inches long, and the spit rod-motor assembly can skewer up-to 125pounds of meat at a maximum rotational speed of 4 revolutions-per-minute(rpm).

This allows this kit to hold whole animals for horizontal rotisserie cooking. It also has a premium spit fork that holds 2 prongs.

The tripod stands of this kit allow for height adjustment through 4 tiers/levels which are placed at 15inches, 19inches, 23inches, and 27inches above the tripod base.

Also, this model is designed to be fitted in grills whose maximum width is 36inches. Moreover, there are anchors for holding large and bulky chunks of meat.

Likewise, because the spit rod is held in place by the 2 tripod stands, there are no dedicated counter-balance weights that come with this model, and one can still comfortably skewer whole naturally-imbalanced animals such as pigs, turkeys, and lambs over any type of grill.

The fully-assembled attachment kit has a load-free weight of about 28pounds, which makes it a heavyweight model.

However, unlike the OneGrill 4PS97 Universal Grill Kit which needs to be bolted to the frame of the barbecue grill, the Titan Outdoors Kit only needs to have the grill slid underneath it and does not have to be bolted to any part of the grill assembly.

Even so, like the OneGrill 4PS97 Universal Grill Kit, the Titan Outdoors Kit can be used with any type of grill.

More-so, the Titan Outdoors Kit is specially designed for outdoor use with charcoal grilling being the most preferable method.

For this reason, its components are made from stainless steel which makes this model resistant to corrosion while the weather-resistant housing off the motor unit protects the motor assembly from dust, blown debris, and rainfall.

The Titan Outdoor kit is shipped in a semi-assembled state alongside its instruction manual that guides the user on how to assemble and use the kit over a grill.

In standard use, one needs to drive the spit rod through the meat and then hold the load in place using the fork, with the fork positioning determined by the size of the grill and the distance between the 2 tripod stands.

This model comes without a drip pan which means that drippings fall directly onto the flame which causes smoke to be produced. Therefore, this model is unsuitable for smokeless grilling outdoors.

3. Best Portable kit: Grizzly GRIZSPIT Spit Rotisserie

The Grizzly GrizSpit is a cordless rotisserie attachment kit that comes with two 26-inch tall vertical stands, a powerful battery-powered DC electric motor,2 premium spit forks, and a 36-inch long polished spit rod.

The battery-powered motor and compact size make the Grizzly our top pick for those looking for a handy small, portable grill kit.

This kit is designed for horizontal rotisserie cooking, and its vertical rods (or stands) can be fitted into grill frames.

Even so, it is specially designed for either campfire grilling or charcoal grilling. The durable steel spit rod can hold loads of up to 25 pounds, with the DC motor providing the necessary torque for skewering the meat.

This battery-powered motor can run continuously for 20hours on 2 size-D batteries.

Likewise, the gear reduction system in the motor unit improves the energy efficiency of the motor, while allowing the spit rod to easily skewer poorly-balanced meat loads.

This makes this model the most cost-effective electrically-powered kit for rotisserie cooking in this review.

Its heavy gauge spit forks have 4 prongs attached to it, which improves its versatility in binding bulky meat, as well as holding it in place.

The fully-assembled attachment kit has a load-free weight of about 4.33pounds, which makes it much lighter than the OneGrill 4PS97 Universal Grill Kit.

Moreover, it makes the GRIZPIT model a portable kit that one can carry around.

In fact, this kit comes with a durable storage bag made from canvas, which allows one to carry it around in a disassembled state.

However, unlike the OneGrill that can be screwed to the frame of the barbecue grill, the Grizzly GRIZSPIT can only be fitted onto a grill frame by attaching its vertical stands onto the frame.

The GRIZSPIT is shipped in a disassembled state as component parts alongside an instruction manual that instructs the user how to assemble and use the kit.

It comes as a package that contains the following components: a 36inches long polished steel spit rod, a fully-assembled gear reduction motor system unit, two 26inches tall vertical support poles, 2 high-quality spit forks, and the storage bag.

This gear reduction system not only transfers torque from the whisper-quiet motor to the spit rod, but it also features an anti-backlash system that ensures the spit rod is smoothly rotated even when holding poorly balanced loads.

Still, this kit suffers from one main demerit. Because it comes without a drip pan, the drippings from the roasted meat are bound to fall directly onto the flame which causes smoke to be produced hence making this model is ill-suited for smokeless grilling outdoors.

This model is backed by a 2-year warranty provided by Grizzly Spit, LLC.

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4. Best Premium Grill: Rotisserie Grill Roaster – 88LBS capacity (by Titan Attachments)

The Titan Attachments, Rotesserie Grill  Roaster is a heavy-duty, high-quality standalone (complete) rotisserie grilling kit that comes with a powerful 13-watt AC motor, a 51-inch spit rod, and a built-in rotisserie charcoal burner.

This model is designed for horizontal rotisserie cooking with each of its 2 stands featuring a pair of locking caster wheels that can be used to move it around.

The motor-spit rod unit can hold a maximum load of 88pounds, which makes this model well-suited for whole animal grilling, with its design making it most suitable for roasting pigs.

The gridiron placed over the charcoal-burner makes it well-suited for outdoor grilling.

Likewise, this is a corded model because the motor unit features an electric cable that terminates into a top plug. This model is designed and manufactured by Titan Attachments.

This heavy-duty corded model weighs about 71pounds and is 52inches long, 10inches wide, and 23inches tall.

The charcoal-burning unit is fixed to the stands. Each stand features a vertical top and a high-arched bottom section with each end of the arch terminating into a caster mount that holds a locking caster.

Therefore, each stand is held in place by 2 locking casters, which also give this model its mobility.

Also, its motor unit is fully-enclosed, and the rod-motor assembly can skewer 88pounds of meat at a maximum rotational speed of 4rpm.

Likewise, its spit rod features anchors and a premium spit fork that has 2 prongs. The height of this rod can be adjusted along with the 3 adjustment tiers/levels in the vertical stands.

Moreover, because the spit rod is held in place by 2 vertical stands, there are no dedicated counter-balance weights that come with this model as it can comfortably skewer whole naturally-imbalanced animals such as pigs, turkeys, and lambs without the need for a load counter-balancing system.

Its construction design closely resembles that of the Titan Outdoors Kit, with the 3 main differences being that in the Rotisserie Grill Roaster.

The tripod stands are replaced by 2 wheeled stands, with the height adjustment feature being reduced to only 3 tiers (as opposed to 4 in the Outdoors kit), and most importantly, the Rotisserie Grill Roaster comes with a charcoal burning unit which the Outdoors kit lacked.

Even so, the Rotisserie Grill Roaster, just like the Titans Outdoors kit is specially designed for outdoor grilling with using a charcoal burner.

For this reason, the components in Titan Rotisserie Grill Roaster are made from stainless steel which makes this model resistant to corrosion, while the weather-resistant housing of the motor unit protects the motor assembly from dust, blown debris, and rainfall.

Titan Rotisserie Grill Roaster is shipped in a partially-assembled state alongside its instruction manual that guides the user on how to assemble and use the grill kit.

Still, one needs to drive the spit rod through the meat and then hold the load in place using the fork.

However, this model comes without a drip pan which means that drippings fall directly onto the charcoal flame which causes smoke to be produced thereby rendering this unit unsuitable for smokeless grilling outdoors.

Another disadvantage is that it lacks a windscreen and hence dust and debris can be blown by the wind onto the roasted meat.

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5. Texsport TX15119 Rotisserie Kit

The Texsport is a high-quality manually-operated portable integrated kit that features a rotisserie attachment kit with a built-in gridiron.

It has 2 vertical stands with each stand being rigidly welded to a ground rod for stability.

The frame of the gridiron is welded to 2 hollow cuffs. Each vertical stand can slide in and out of the cuff, but in its assembly, these cuffs allow the gridiron to slide up and down the vertical stands.

On the outer aspect of each cuff is a thumbscrew that is designed to be screwed into one of 4 bolt-holes along with the height of the vertical stands.

This allows the user to raise the gridiron into any of the 4 available height positions so as a achieve the desired slow-roasting effect.

The gridiron cuffs must be screwed on both stands for it to hold steady. The gridiron provides a grilling surface that measures 24inches by 16inches, which is enough for grilling bulky meat chunks.

On top of each vertical pole/stand is fitted a sliding bracket that holds a swinging sidearm.

One sidearm is short, and the other one is long, but both function to hold potted food over the grill so that it can be gently heated via radiation (for the long arm) or radiation and convection (for the short arm).

All the immobile parts of this model feature a tough welded construction. This rotisserie kit is designed and manufactured by Texsport.

The fully-assembled ready-to-use grilling kit weighs about 16.5pounds. The assembly process is quite easy and it requires no tools.

Each vertical stand is 34inches tall, while the spit rod that has a side prong welded to it is about 34inches long.

This spit rod is held in place by the shaft collar that is fitted to the bracket of the long swing arm, and on the other end, it rests on a shaft bracket that is a side extension of the bracket holding the short swing arm.

Because the prong is welded to the spit rod, both the prong and spit rod rotate as a unit when the user turns the spit using its handle.

As expected, the efficiency of rotisserie cooking is primarily determined by how fast one turns the spit rod, and how raised is the roasted meat from the heat source (usually charcoal flame).

However, the disadvantage of this labor-intensive mode of operation is obviated by the low cost of purchasing and maintaining this kit.

This portable integrated kit is made from durable steel that has been coated by a tough black polish for protection against corrosive chemicals. This kit can be fitted onto the frame of any barbecue grill, especially the frame of the charcoal-burner.

Nevertheless, because this model comes without a drip pan, drippings from the roasted meat are bound to fall directly onto the heat source which causes smoke to be produced thereby rendering this unit unsuitable for smokeless grilling.

Bottom-line

The Texsport TX15119 is a high-quality manually-operated portable integrated kit that features a rotisserie attachment kit with a built-in gridiron that makes it well-suited for horizontal rotisserie cooking.

It has 2 vertical stands with each stand being rigidly welded to a ground rod for stability, while the frame of the gridiron is welded to 2 hollow cuffs that slide onto the vertical stands which allow for height adjustment.

This cheap, low-maintenance, and easy to use model is the best budget(-friendly) manual rotisserie kit in this review.

Outdoor Rotisserie Grill kit Buyer’s Guide

The Rotisserie kit is a special cooking equipment designed for roasting meat by skewering it over fire or inside an oven.

The skewering and heating processes are the mainstay of rotisserie cooking. In this kit, the meat is rotated over the heat source.

Components of the Rotisserie Grill kit

The Spit

Before heating, a long rod called a spit is impaled into the bony meat and then forcibly driven through it, and this allows the spit to hold the meat in place during roasting.

Prongs

Prongs fitted onto the spit rod can be used to bind large joints in the meat into a fixed position, which prevents unbound joints from causing hanging limb meat from interfering with the roasting process.

Supporting Brackets

This fully-fed spit rod is then fitted into a bracket that allows it to rotate over the heat source, which ensures that the meat rotates during roasting thus ensuring that even indirect heating takes place.

Rotation mechanism

This form of even heating allows the meat to cook evenly with constant rotation allowing its (meat) juices to provide continuous and even self-basting. Modern spit rods are driven by electric motors.

Advantages of the Rotisserie Grill kit

The key advantage of rotisserie cooking is that the meat is slow-roasted and self-basted which results in juicier roasted meat.

It can also be used to prepare any kind of meat. Depending on the quality, length, and type of spit, one can skewer entire fowls such as chicken, roosters, and turkey; and even roast whole medium-sized animals such as pigs.

Different types of Rotisserie kit

The rotisserie kit comes in 3 types;

• as a rotisserie attachment that is fitted onto a grill,
• the second type is the portable integrated kit which combines a grill with a built-in rotisserie attachment,
• while the third type adds a special in-built rotisserie burner to the integrated grill-rotisserie attachment which makes it a complete rotisserie grilling set.

In all these types, the spit rod has a sharpened point at one end, where it impales the meat, while the blunt end goes into the bracket.

The sharpened end must be capped by a spit handle after the meat has been driven past it so as to protect the user from unintentional cuts, pricks, or stabbing injuries.

What to expect when you purchase a Rotisserie Grill kit

The basic rotisserie attachment kit has the following components which must be assembled together before the kit can be used for cooking.

To begin with, are the spit rod and the accompanying rotisserie bracket. In the spit are usually fitted 2 prongs; a short prong and a long prong.

The bracket is connected to a motor that powers the skewering process by rotating the spit rod at a pre-determined speed.

Different types of motor

There are 2 types of motors; direct current (DC) and AC (Alternating Current) motors, with the DC motors being powered by DC batteries that can be fitted in a battery compartment inside the motor housing, while the AC motors come with electric cords that terminate into an external top plug that is used to connect it to an AC power outlet.

The motor is encased in a motor housing, and depending on the type of motor, 2 types of attachment kits can be identified; the cordless kit that uses a battery-powered DC motor, and the corded kit that uses an AC-powered motor.

The motor housing and brackets are attached to a vertical rod (the upright post) that serves as the stand for the kit.

These components make up a basic attachment kit. This kit is then fitted onto a grill or open broiler with the spit rod being directly above the grill, griddle, or grill pan.

For use with different grill systems

The main advantage of using this attachment kit is that it can be fitted onto different types of grills hence allowing for either charcoal grilling, electric grilling(over electrically-heated grill plates), gas grilling (in gas-fueled grills), and infrared grilling (using infrared grills).

The portable integrated kit is basically an attachment kit with a built-in griddle, grill pan, or gridiron (grill plate with an open wire grid).

Unlike the basic attachment kit, the integrated kit comes with a stronger and more durable attachment kit that can be used to roast whole animals.

It can also come with a wire basket and a drip pan.

The wire basket (also called rotisserie basket) is placed directly underneath the skewered meat so that the dripping juice can fall through, while detached (falling) pieces of meat are retained and dried over the basket.

This wire basket can be used with, or without the drip pan.

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Importance of the drip pan

If there is no drip pan, the juices fall directly onto the heating source hence generating smoke which can inconvenience indoor grilling, especially when an electric, infrared or gas grill is used.

For this reason, a drip pan allows for smokeless grilling as the dripping juices are collected.

This kit can also feature rotisserie forks.

The main advantage of the portable kit

An advantage of this portable kit is that be fitted onto different types of grills.

However, unlike the attachment that can be fitted onto any grill, this portable kit must be fitted to a grill that is compatible with its roasting tray hence models that come with a gridiron can be fitted onto charcoal grills, while those that come with a griddle can be fitted onto gas grills or electric grills, and those that have grill pans can be fitted onto electric grills or infrared grills.

The complete all-in-one Rotisserie kit with grill

The complete rotisserie grilling kit has all the components of the integrated kit plus a built-in rotisserie burner (the heat source).

This kit can come with an open stainless steel stand that rests on a set of rigid or swivel casters that allow the kit to be moved around.

Likewise, some models allow for salamander grilling or two-sided grilling.

In salamander grilling, the heat source is placed above the meat hence allowing for toasting and browning of the top section of the meat.

In two-sided grilling, the heat source is placed above and below the meat.

In oven grills, the steam that evaporates from the juices is used to moisturize the skin of the roasted meat, while the high moisture concentration inside the oven inhibits further vaporization of the juices which allows the drippings and juices in the meat to stay on hence retaining the meat flavor.

Different methods of rotisserie cooking

There are two methods of rotisserie cooking, horizontal rotisserie, and vertical rotisserie.

In horizontal rotisserie, the spit rod is mounted horizontally over the heat source. This mounting requires the load on the spit to be balanced as its (spit) drive mechanism bears the load, and an unbalanced load (if the meat is placed out of balance) can cause the drive mechanism to rotate poorly, or even fail to turn.

For this reason, some models of rotisserie kits come with counterbalance weights that allow for load balancing on the spit rod and its drive mechanism.

On the other hand, vertical rotisserie requires the spit rod to be mounted vertically with the heat source placed on the side of the meat, and in some rare cases, the heat source is below the meat.