Pack one of these in your car (or adventure-mobile) and you can cook over a live fire anywhere you can build one. Grill grates come in all shapes and sizes (we like big, square ones), but you want to look for heavy-duty construction and rust-resistant steel, both of which can be found in the Sunnydaze line.
Buy online: Sunnydaze
Those fabric mittens hanging on your fridge aren’t going to keep your hands safe when handling burning logs and red-hot steel. These Ozero cowhide welding gloves, a favorite from the trusted grilling experts at Amazingribs.com, will protect your hands and forearms from intense heat up to 923°F, while being dexterous enough to handle tools and knives.
Buy online: Ozero cowhide welding gloves
Cheap linens have their place indoors, but when you’re working with hot grease and gristle, you want a serious towel that will double as a high-heat potholder. The Whup-Ass Dish Towels from Raw Materials Design are hand-sewn in Seattle and made from heavy textured cotton that only works better the more you use it.
Buy online: Raw Materials Whup-Ass Dish Towels
There are many reasons why the 8-inch Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife is everyone’s favorite budget blade, from its high-carbon blade to the comfy slip-resistant handle and can’t-be-beat price tag (which makes buying them in bulk a real consideration). But when we’re cooking in our own backyard, we also love the classic beauty and edge retention of a 10-inch carbon-steel Sabatier blade.
Buy online: Victorinox
Buy online: Sabatier
Epicurean produces some of our favorite utilitarian cutting boards, which are made from a non-porous wood composite used to make skatepark ramps. This results in a durable-yet-lightweight board that feels great under the knife. For live-fire cooking, we prefer a two-sided board that has grooves for catching dripping and holding meats sturdy while carving.
Buy online: Epicurean
Tongs are an extension of a cook’s arms, they say, and when you’re cooking over a superhot fire, you want long arms. Outset’s rosewood-handled tongs are 21 inches long, which lets your grab and turn food while preventing singed hands and arms.
Buy online: Outset
We’ve tested a bunch of spatulas (aka “turners”), but keep coming back to Lamson’s slotted turner. It has a razor-sharp leading edge, which makes it easy to slide under fish, chicken skin and other delicate grilled foods, and its full-length, high-carbon tang makes it extra sturdy when flipping burgers and steaks.
Buy online: Lamson
These contraptions are handy when grilling small or skinny vegetables, seafood and other mixed grills. We’re still on the hunt for the perfect grill basket (maybe we should make one?), but in the meantime this model from Extreme Salmon has some of the features we’re looking for: a flat bottom, rounded sides and handle (for grill-top sautéing), and a sturdy wire mesh structure that lets lots of heat and smoke reach the food.
Buy online: Extreme Salmon
Have you ever tried using your phone as a worklight while cooking over a bed of smoky coals? We hope you never have to—and you won’t if you pack a headlamp in your live-fire toolkit. We’re loyal Black Diamond customers, and their waterproof Spot Headlamp has a bright, tight beam for close-up cooking tasks.
Buy online: Black Diamond
ThermoWorks rules the marketplace when it comes to fast, reliable instant-read digital thermometers. And their super-affordable ThermoPop line proves that top-of-the-line tech doesn’t need to be expensive. We use ours for dialing in the doneness of grilled meats, as well as monitoring the temperature of grills and smokers.
Buy online: ThermoWorks ThermoPop
We use these for ingredient prep, as impromptu firetop griddles, and for serving finished food. You can find decent and cheap half sheet pans at restaurant supply stores, but if you spend a few more bucks, you can get Nordic Ware’s baker’s half-sheet pans, which are made in America from rust-proof, eco-friendly aluminum.
Buy online: Nordic Ware
Not only does it feed that rustic, homesteady vibe on the table, but high-quality enamelware—like Best Made’s Seamless & Steadfast line—is also campfire, stovetop and oven safe. Made from heavy steel and double-dipped for durability, this is the last enamelware you’ll ever need to buy.
Buy online: Best Made
