We have a meeting each month where we take a break from our work and practice brainstorming about ways to improve everyday items. We thought an appropriate name for this meeting was "Build a better mousetrap," but as it invariably happens to long titles, we shortened it to "Mousetrap."

This Month's Challenging Topic: Build a Better Grill

Tribester Responses

A grill that had allowed you to set the way you like your food cooked (rare, medium, well done, etc.) and then monitored it and gave you a warning would be great...a grill that self cleaned when shut down would be awesome.
-- Tony Passero

I would have to say that the biggest improvement would be a self cleaning option. No matter how much you keep on cleaning the grill with a wire brush and what not the residue builds up over time and it becomes quite the job to at least get is somewhat clean.
-- Joe Kaput

I have yet to find a grill or grill attachment that can accurately let me know the amount of propane left in my tank. (Yes, I'm a griller of convenience. For the moment.) A great grill would provide me with some indication of how much gas is in the tank. It would be even better if it could give me a calculation of how much grilling time that quantity of gas equated to!
-- Andy Owens

I would rework the burners on the gas grills to run in both directions, parallel and perpendicular. I would add a valve system to switch between the two. This would allow the grill to be modified for left to right, or front to back heat adjustments. Then I would make the grates more modular than the typical two or three piece set-up. With all of that, when you add things like smoke or steam boxes you could maximize your cooking surfaces and heat application.
-- Mike Chorvat

I am not the griller in my family, that is my husband's job, so this is a difficult one to answer. However, I like the idea of having sensors that can tell the temperature of the meat cooking. That way my tuna steaks would always be perfectly rare in the middle.
-- Carrie Pendergast

How about one where the gas starters don't conk out after the first season? Seriously though, I'd love to have a meat thermometer attachment that can give me a reading on the meat temp while the cover is closed. It would also be great to have a grill where I can choose if I want to use charcoal or gas. Charcoal flavor just can't be beat, but sometimes, we don't have the time to wait for the briquettes to heat up.
-- Shannon Kemp