Building an Outdoor Kitchen - Part 3 The Napolean Built In Natural Gas Grill

If anyone had told me a year ago that I would spend over $1,000 on a grill....I would have said.....you're crazy! Now, what do I say? Worth every penny! When we started building our house we knew that we wanted a large back porch and outdoor kitchen. What I didn't realize was that when the house was built, the outdoor kitchen was the very last thing that was done. Then, there was a issue with the weather. The tile could not be placed on the back porch until there was no danger of freezing temperatures, so we had to wait for that. Needless to say, the first thing we started shopping for in regard to outdoor appliances was a natural gas grill. We had a nice stainless steel gas grill already, but we wanted something nicer and one that was built in. Well, I had no idea of the price range for these grills. It didn't take long to figure out that you either had to shop for a "cheap" gas grill or spend a bunch more money for even a "entry level" gas grill. From Entry Level they go on to Mid Level, Premium and Luxury. A luxury grill can cost upwards of $10,000! I mean...who knew! The grill we chose was an entry level style, but we looked at the Mid Level and Premium grill features and felt our needs would best be served by the Napolean LEX 605. It had all the features we were interested in. Now mind, you, our backporch and outdoor kitchen will mainly be used by two people, occasionally family and friends but no more than 10-15 people at a time usually. We thought the 36" grill would be perfect for us and so far it has. Not sure exactly what we paid for our grill, but the list price today is $1,599. The image above is a brand new grill at BBQGuys where our grill came from. By the way, ShoppersChoice and BBQGuys is one and the same. Here's our grill after it was built into the outdoor kitchen counter. The grill is resting in an opening cut out of the granite counter top. There is nothing combustible underneath it, beside or behind it. When positioning the grill, be sure to allow for opening of the lid. Don't build your countertop until you have purchased your grill. It does matter! We ordered our grill way before the house was finished and kept the grill in it's box until the brick mason came to build the counter. I had no idea it would take so much precision to get the grill to fit. The brick mason did his measuring and then the granite guy, and then they got together to finalize and well...it was technical. The electrician/plumber did the hook up to the natural gas. Having the grill hooked up to natural gas is just great! How many times have you been in the middle of your cookout and run out of gas from one of those refillable propane tanks. I know....such a pain. The Napolean Lex 605 has a searing burner which is great for searing steaks and also an Infrared Back Burner for an optional rotisserie. Yes, we got the rotisserie too! Our prior experience with a rotisserie made us skeptical, but we figured if we wanted to use a rotisserie in the future, it would be best to buy it now so we would know it would fit the grill perfect. The rotisserie kit was $199 but it will hold two whole chickens or a very large ham, roast, etc. It's super quiet and turns every easily. The forks that hold the meat are very sharp but they are easy enough to manipulate. When building your outdoor kitchen, keep your electrical outlets in mind. Ours just happened to work out that we did have an outlet on each end of the counter and the gas grill was on the far end. We got lucky. When using the rotisserie you have to remove that upper rack in the grill. The rotisserie does chickens beautifully. And ham. The grill has a temperature gauge on the front and there are lights around the knobs you want to turn them on. The lights are a great safety feature especially when cooking at night. Turn the lights on and leave them on until you finish cooking. It's a great reminder that your grill is still on. The grill lights easily and heats up quickly. We've used it to grill steaks, chops, chicken, kabobs, veggies, turkey breast, whole turkey, whole chickens, pork roast and even for warming foods. We have no complaints. I can't imagine how one of the luxury grills must work. Maybe it gets the meat out and ready for you))) BBQGuys have been great to work with. Once we settled on our Napolean Lex 605 grill, we started the search for other components. They were very helpful in helping us figure out placement of the components of our outdoor kitchen. They will even do a mockup of your plan if you just send them info on the components you're using. Our grill arrived in pristine condition. It was well packed and tolerated shipping very well. We opened the box on arrival to check and gosh....had to look at it for about 9 months before we got to install it! Its so easy now to prepare dinner. By the time I've gotten the salad made, the hubby can almost have the steaks done! If you want to read more about our outdoor kitchen, check out these post. Next we'll talk about the counter top burner we found - at a steal! Building an Outdoor Kitchen - Part 1 The Dimensions Building an Outdoor Kitchen – Part 2 The Primo Kamado Ceramic Grill Building an Outdoor Kitchen - Part 4 Bull Natural Gas Burners Here's a little video too: