Chef Tom walks us through the amazing features on our best-selling gas grill. From the infrared side sear and rear burner to the optional drop-in charcoal and wood smoking tray, the Napoleon Prestige P500RSIB is loaded with features that make creating amazing meals a breeze.
Video transcript
Hey everyone, I’m Chef Tom with ATBBQ.com and today we’re cooking up a full meal on the Napoleon P500RSIB, which is a staff, and customer favorite, here at All Things Barbecue. And while everything finishes cooking, let’s take a look at the features that make this grill so enjoyable to cook on.
The Napoleon P500RSIB set the standard in both cook and build quality for free standing gas grills when it was first released, and has continued to make small improvements that have culminated in the latest grill in this series, the P500RSIB-3.
Visually the grill is stunning, with clean lines, backlit soft touch knobs, and a control panel that is offset from the grill body allowing for air to flow behind the controls keeping them cool even during those high-heat searing sessions.
These backlit knobs also feature Napoleon’s aptly named “safety glow.” When the burner is on the light will change from blue to red, making it easy to see which burner is on at a glance which keeps you from accidentally leaving a burner on after you are done cooking.
This grill features integrated storage on the side shelves, utensil hooks, and a fold down shelf that allows for you to store the grill in smaller spaces when not in use.
Inside the cabinet you will find a propane ring that is inset in the base, keeping it steady while rolling it around which as you can see is easy with large casters that can handle everything from concrete or stone patios to wood decks.
Finally, we have the lined stainless steel hood which helps retain heat while the cast aluminum sides give you a rigid lid that won’t wobble as you open it. The lid also hinges in the center of the grill head giving you near zero clearance in the rear of the grill, making the lid lightweight enough for anyone to open. Finally, we have a double walled cook tub that helps retain heat allowing for higher cooking temps and less fuel consumption.
Now onto the cooking system itself.
The P500RSIB features six burners altogether. Four main burners underneath the cook grids, the rear infrared burner which can act as a broiler and makes rotisserie foods a breeze, and the infrared side burner which can act as both a standard burner for cooking a side dish in a pan, or get super hot for searing large cuts of meat.
Now let’s travel back in time to before we put this food on so I can break down the main burners, sear plates and cooking grids.
As I mentioned before, there are four main burners, each one can produce up to 12,000 BTU’s a piece and feature Napoleon’s JetFire™ ignition. All of this makes for a solid cooking system that ignites, and cooks, consistently.
On top of the burners we have Napoleon’s patented Sear Plate system which raises every other stainless plate which gives you even temperatures across the cooking grates.
The grates are manufactured from 7 millimeter thick, 304 stainless steel rod, and features Napoleon’s classic wavy grid which gives you more solid surface to allow for more food contact
for even cooking and browning. The full cooking area measures 28” wide by 18” deep, giving you just over 500 square inches of space, enough for cooking 20 4” hamburgers at once with enough space to cook them evenly.
On the rear the grill has an 18,000 BTU rear infrared burner which is 15” wide allowing you space for two good sized chickens at once, a large prime rib, or for using any of Napoleon’s rotisserie attachments like the chicken wing or vegetable basket.
On the side you’ll notice the star of this grill, the infrared side burner. At 14,000 BTU’s it is capable of producing 1,800º temps to sear large cuts, but the controls also allow you to dial the burner back for use as a standard side burner. The grate has two positions, a high position for searing steaks and other large cuts of meat, and a low position that we use around here to cook everything from sauces and stews to deep frying chicken, potatoes and more.
Finally, the last part of the cooking system, and the one makes this grill so versatile, is the optional cast iron charcoal and smoker tray. This tray fits in one side of the grill, replacing the stainless sear plates, allowing you to grill with charcoal and use the built in smoker tray to add smoke flavor to your grilled meats and vegetables or for smoking ribs, pork butts and more on the weekend… all on the gas grill you use for quick and easy weeknight meals.
Okay, so we’ve got our full grill here, and as you can see we’ve got this grill loaded up, with chicken pork chops cooking over charcoal, vegetables roasting over the main gas burners, and a nice sauce simmering in our cast iron pan on the side burner. This meal will feed between 6 and 8 adults, and you didn’t have to continually shift food around, allowing you to cook your meal and pull it off the grill at the same time, hot and ready to serve.
In the end we believe that this is simply one of the best gas grills on the market today, which features that you typically cannot get unless you spend twice as much, and a warranty that backs up Napoleon’s commitment to building grills that you can enjoy for years, and even decades, to come.
If you have any questions about this grill please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team.
