(Pocket-lint) – The art of the barbeque has jumped leaps and bounds beyond the simple task of making a fire and heating some charcoal under a grill.

Nowadays you can fire up a grill outside without needing to actually make a fire. You can even create a BBQ ready cooking station that goes from cold to hot in mere minutes.

• Best BBQ: Barbecue in the sunshine with gas or charcoal

But kit goes beyond the barbeque itself. Now there are ways of making even the most novice fire-starter and chef create a meal on the grill worthy of praise.

• The best smart cooking thermometers

We’ve found the best barbeques and the best BBQ gadgets to help make outdoor cooking easier, faster, more fun to end up with the best food possible.

The best BBQ gear to buy today

Lotus

Lotus Grill

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If you want to make your barbeque as quick, simple and safe as possible you can’t go far wrong with the Lotus Grill and Lotus MiniGrill.

The Lotus Grill is a battery-powered, fan-assisted unit that is ready to cook within 5-minutes of powering on. It’s also totally smokeless so you should be able to use it anywhere. Before you worry about losing that smoky taste, know that the grill uses natural hardwood charcoal that’s infused in the food via invisible gases. So you get the flavour without the carcinogens of flame-grilled food.

The newer Lotus MiniGrill goes from off to ready-to-cook in just 3-minutes. It’s half the size of the Louts Grill at just 2kg and has a grill that prevents sticking so there’s no oil needed, making it even more healthy.

Meater

Meater Smart Meat Thermometer

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There are other smart thermometers, but the Meater is interesting because it’s wireless and you put it in the meat before you cook. Charged in a neat wooden block (which is also magnetised to stick to your BBQ), it works over Bluetooth and uses an iOS and Android app to track progress.

You put the probe in the meat and ‘set up the cook’ in the app – choose what you’re cooking and adjust the displayed temperature if necessary. Naturally, you can see how the cook is going on your phone and also when the meat is done. There’s a four-probe version coming soon that also enables you to see when your meat is done without using your phone. 

Grill Bot

Grill Bot

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This has been described as the Roomba for your barbeque. It’s a robot that will take care of cleaning your barbeque so you can cook, eat and that’s it.

The Grill Bot is armed with brushes on three corners. These spin and drive the bot around your grill, brushing it clean. A simple button touch sets it to go for 10, 20 or 30 minutes. It’s rechargeable and the brushes can be replaced so you never need to clean your grill again.

Amazon

Looftlighter

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If you’ve already got a barbeque but want to speed up the lighting process the Looftlighter can help. It looks like a glorified curling tong. But it works far better than even the best stylist’s kit with a BBQ lit in around a minute. It’s an electric lighter that uses a jet of hot air – it doesn’t throw flames and because it doesn’t use fuel to ignite there will be no chemical taste to your food. 

Writing by Dan Grabham.