Editor’s Note: This product has been removed from our side-by-side comparison because it has been discontinued. You can still read our original review below, but Top Ten Reviews is no longer updating this product’s information.
The West Bend 6111 indoor electric grill is great for a small family or a single-person home since this small but versatile grill lets you to get creative with the meals you prepare on it. The grill plate includes both a grill and a griddle surface, providing a simultaneous cooking surface for bacon and pancakes, or meat and vegetables. You get a glass lid with this indoor grill, which lets you steam food as well as grilling it. The glass lid gives it something of a slow cooker effect and will keep food tender and juicy. The grill's removable parts make it somewhat harder to assemble than many of the products we evaluated, but it is easier to clean after each use. The base disconnects from the drip pan and the grill, so you can clean all the parts individually, and the parts also are dishwasher safe.
When it came to our grilling tests, this unit preformed impressively. The meat we grilled on this device tasted more like an outdoor grill than the majority of grills we tried. When cooking vegetables on the griddle portion of the grill, you get the benefit of the steam from the meat, which enhances the flavor of vegetables. However, it did cook more slowly than many of the grills we tested, taking more than 10 minutes to cook a frozen hamburger patty to the USDA-recommended internal temperature of 165 degrees. Some of the indoor grills in our comparison cooked the frozen burger to that temperature in less than five minutes.
This electric grill has four different temperature levels – low, medium, high and warm – and can cook from 180 degrees Fahrenheit on the warm setting to 375 degrees Fahrenheit on the high setting.
The 6111 passed the grease spatter test with flying colors. Its grease spatter range was only 5 inches, so cleaning the countertop was a snap. Yet another strength of this grill was that it collected the most oil of any grill we tested, at 1.9 ounces.
Theoretically the more oil your grill collects from the meat's drippings, the less you consume. All of the strengths of this grill contributed to what was some of the best-tasting meat we experienced during testing, and it tasted very similar to meat cooked at an outdoor barbecue.
The cooking surface on this indoor electric grill is 15 inches long and 11 inches wide, which allows you to cook food for only about two people at once. The space will accommodate about two pieces of meat on the grill surface along with a handful of vegetables. If you need more capacity than this, take a look at the Cuisinart Griddler.
This kitchen grill has a one-year limited warranty, which is standard for this industry. If you have questions when assembling or using the grill, you can contact customer service via email or phone. The website has links to user networks through Twitter and Facebook that can help you resolve issues and get recipes.
