Weber Genesis SPX-435 Smart Gas Grill Review: All the Bells and Whistles You Could Ask for!

Weber is known for its high-quality gas grills and excellent warranty, and it’s keeping the tradition alive with its latest line of Genesis Smart Gas Grills. The Weber Genesis SPX-435 has four burners, a sear zone, Weber Connect technology, built-in LED lighting, and the Weber Crafted side burner and grill locker. Retailing for $2,099, we’ve nicknamed it Beauty and the Beast.

Aesthetically gorgeous in shimmering stainless steel, the Weber Genesis SPX-435 Smart Gas Grill has everything your family needs to host a banging barbecue in your backyard.

With four 12,000 BTU burners plus a fifth 12,000 BTU burner in the sear zone, you have a ton of flexibility to grill anything you want on the total provided cooking area of 994 square inches.

When you add the 12,000 BTU side burner to simmer sauces or sear your steak on a cast iron skillet, it’s a whole dang kitchen in one unit.

Weber doesn’t stop at cooking power, and the SPX-435 has a bevy of features that help it stand out from the competition. In my opinion, the biggest is the Weber CONNECT smart technology built into the grill, offering real-time food monitoring and notifications via their Weber CONNECT mobile phone app.

Using the app, you can select Weber-curated recipes, and the app will walk you through the recipe, step-by-step, using the ambient grill temperature and internal temperature of your food using the included meat probe as data points.

If you don’t want to use one of Weber’s recipes, you can still use the smart grilling technology by setting internal temperature notifications, so you know when you flip your food or take it off the heat. To power the Weber CONNECT unit, you’ll need to plug it into a power outlet, which should be a consideration.

Weber Genesis SPX-435 assembly gallery:

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Another game changer built into the Weber Genesis SPX-435 is the NIGHTVISION grill lighting that illuminates the entire grilling surface when you open the lid. Additionally, the grill knobs are backlit with LEDs, so you can actually see what you’re setting your grill at when it’s dark out.

I say that these are game changers because we grill a lot, even in the winter, and it gets dark so early these days that it can be hard to see what you’re doing.

The LED knob lights are really bright and extremely helpful; they can be turned on/off using a button on the front of the grill or in the Weber Connect app. To power them, you’ll need to plug the grill into an outdoor outlet, the same power cord you’ll use to power the Weber CONNECT unit.

The Weber Genesis SPX-435’s grill surface lighting, which is built into the lid/handle assembly, does a surprisingly good job of illuminating the grilling surface at night, allowing you to clearly see what you’re doing without the help of external illumination.

There is a battery compartment that screws off the left side of the handle that accepts D batteries for power, which is nice because you don’t need to plug the grill in for the surface lighting, only the knob lighting.

The LED lights are built into the lid handle, and when the lid is open, they point straight down on the grates. The lights can be turned on using a push button on the right side of the handle and automatically turn on/off when the lid is raised/closed.

The Weber Genesis SPX-435 also comes with the Weber CRAFTED frame kit and grill locker underneath the side burner on the left of the grill. The Weber CRAFTED frame kit allows you to swap out the standard grill grates with a specially designed frame kit that works with a collection of custom-fit grillware designed by Weber.

Weber has a ton of cool accessories to customize your cooking experience, like a dual-sided sear grate, pizza stone, grilling basket, rotisserie skewer set, griddle, rotisserie crisping basket, and wok and steamer.

The CRAFTED lineup is a nice touch, and I cannot wait to play with it in another review. Imagine being able to swap out your cooking grates above the sear zone for a griddle so you can make some insane smash burgers or cook eggs and bacon on your grill without needing to clean up the oil splatter in your kitchen.

I’m a huge fan of the Weber CRAFTED 7mm diameter stainless steel cooking grates that come with the SPX-435. Our old grill had the “standard” grates, and we ended up replacing them with upgraded grillgrates to get a good sear; however, the included grates gave our meat a great sear in our testing.

I was a bit shocked by the expandable top cooking grate at first, not having seen it in the past, but it’s a really cool design. It can fold away if you’re not using it to give you better access to the entirety of the main cooking surface, or it can fold up, providing with you about a 4″ deep upper cooking shelf, or fold out again, doubling that depth for larger items. It’s a really smart piece of engineering.

The burners built into the Weber Genesis SPX-435 are high-performance PureBlu burners, and my wife even commented on how different they sound than our old ones, pumping out the 12,000 BTU/hr.

While preheating our grill to do the initial burn-off with all burners on high, the interior temperature of the grill got to over 600 degrees, so you know these burners can pump out the heat, which is perfect for searing off burgers, steaks, and more.

The Weber Genesis SPX-435 wasn’t difficult to assemble, especially thanks to the Bilt app, which provides step-by-step instructions with three-dimensional models that can be moved around to ensure you’re doing it just right. My wife and I tag-teamed it, and the total assembly took about 3 hours or so.

Due to the cold weather, we assembled the grill in our garage and wheeled it out around the side of the house to the back patio. Thanks to the large casters, the grill was extremely easy to transport; even the soft grass couldn’t stop us.

One item to note: for the natural gas version of this grill, you’ll need a 1/2″ gas line to connect your grill. This is an upgrade from our previous 3/8″ gas line that was needed for our old 3 burner Genesis, though I was able to get the parts from Home Depot and install them easily.

During our time with the Weber Genesis SPX-435, we really put it to the test with a number of different foods. We grilled chicken breast, Porterhouse steak, grilled vegetables, burgers and hot dogs for ourselves and guests, salmon, and eggplant.

We tried to test a wide variety of food and were impressed at how versatile the SPX-435 is.
The marinated grilled chicken breast was beautifully cooked on high heat, so we got a nice sear on the outside. I used the Weber CONNECT probe to keep track of the internal temperature so I could pull them off the heat just in time for them to still be juicy inside and not overcooked.

You can see those beautiful grill marks and the lovely gyros I made out of them. As you can see in the pictures, it was dark out, so the illuminated knobs and grill surface were extremely helpful.

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As a red-blooded American, I had to text a fat steak, so I grabbed a 1.5″ thick Porterhouse from the butcher and dry-brined it in the fridge for a couple of days before throwing it on the Weber Genesis SPX-435 over the sear zone with the CONNECT probe tucked in the middle.

I followed the Weber app to the tee to grill the steak to see if it could really tell you exactly how to do it, and while I found my steak was slightly, and I mean slightly overcooked, it was still really excellent.

I finished the steak by resting it on the cutting board with seasoned butter, and it was banging! Check out the excellent sear on the outside with a slightly above-medium rare on the inside. I like how you can track the internal temperature on the app throughout the cook, even showing you a chart.

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We grilled up some chopped vegetables on a grilling basket while cooking the steak, and having 4 burners really helps you create different zones in the grill. We had the 2 right burners plus the sear zone on high for the steak while having the left 2 burners on lower, and it helped me cook the vegetables more slowly, and the steak was getting seared on high.

We grilled burgers and hot dogs when we had friends over and took advantage of the Weber Genesis SPX-435’s multiple zones. We wanted a nice char on the burgers but didn’t want to overcook the hot dogs because our kids didn’t want them to be too dark, so we were able to make everyone happy using the different cooking zones on the grill. The burgers came out really well; I was very happy with the outcome.

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For the salmon, I tried following the Weber CONNECT app precisely; however, I wonder if the probe didn’t read properly because the piece of fish was so small. I ended up taking the salmon off the grill way too early, and it was undercooked, so I tossed it back on the grill.

Ultimately, it came out really well, but if you’re a beginner, you may want to take the Weber CONNECT app functionality with a grain of salt. You can see, though, that I got great color on the salmon. It is also cool that the Weber app showed me how to set up the grill to use indirect heat to cook it.

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Here are some screenshots from the Weber CONNECT app:

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I have to say that while I came into this review with high expectations, Weber smashed them out of the park. The Weber Genesis SPX-435 looks amazing but backs it up with excellent performance. The included grates heat up really well and create beautiful grill marks, and the burners perform well and pump out a ton of heat.

The Weber CONNECT module, while not perfect and may take some getting used to, is a really nice touch. The ambient temperature sensor gives you a good idea of how hot your grill surface is, while the included meat probe tracks the internal temperature of your food, giving novices an easy way to get into grilling.

The moment I learned the magic of the instant-read thermometer, I understood how to grill, and I think the built-in Weber CONNECT module will do that for a lot of people.

The built-in NIGHTVISION grill lighting and illuminated knob lights not only look sick, but they also help out tremendously when you’re grilling in the winter or late at night.

The Weber Genesis SPX-435’s extra storage is a nice touch, and the side burner is key if you’re a multitasker; the fact that it comes with the Weber CRAFTED starter kit allows you to use a multitude of accessories, sold separately, to further increase the versatility of your grill.

If you’re in the market for a high-end grill and have the budget for it, I highly recommend the Weber SPX-435 Smart Gas Grill. It has all the bells and whistles that I would look for in a natural gas or propane grill, and nothing is unnecessary. It’s powerful, beautiful, and smart; what more can you want from a grill?

The Weber Genesis SPX-435 Smart Gas Grill sells for $2,099; it is available directly from the manufacturer and other retailers, including Amazon.

Source: Manufacturer Supplied review sample

What I Like: Gorgeous grill adds to your patio’s aesthetics; Smart features built-in; Four burners + a sear zone; Side burner; Tons of storage space; Illuminated knobs and interior lighting

What Needs Improvement: I would love to see higher-end meat probes included, considering the price of this grill