Alpina Einweggrill mit Holzkohle

What you get for approx. €9

The Alpina disposable grill is a grill tray for exactly one use. Charcoal and grill rack are included from the factory, nothing is assembled, and after grilling the whole thing goes in the bin. On Amazon it is listed under the model number MEGVE4690/591 and costs approx. €9 there (Amazon page on 20.10.2026: €9.10).

We file it under our grill accessories category, although strictly speaking it is a complete charcoal grill, just a very small one with a short lifespan. What the seller promises is in the bullet points in the Amazon catalogue. As food, it recommends sausages, vegetables and fish. As places of use, it lists: on the go, picnic, camping, the spontaneous barbecue evening, festivals, hikes and the garden. We did not find a public manufacturer page with further data. Everything stated here about the product therefore comes from the Amazon catalogue and the product image, and where we go beyond that and put something in context, it is marked as our assessment.

Tray, rack and feet: what the product image shows

The photo shows a rectangular, silver tray with a rolled rim. On top sits a fine-meshed wire grid as the rack, and below it you can see the dark layer of charcoal. A row of round holes sits in the side walls, and the tray stands on thin wire feet that lift it a little above the ground.

The metal remains unspecified. In the picture, the tray looks like folded metal foil, of the kind you know from disposable baking tins. But a photo is not a material specification, so we do not write aluminium here, even though it seems likely.

The Amazon catalogue lists these dimensions: length 8.27 inches, width 9.45 inches, height 2.09 inches, converted approx. 21.0 by 24.0 by 5.3 cm. The weight is given in the catalogue as 1.65 pounds, so approx. 0.75 kg. The colour is entered as silver / black, which fits the picture: silver tray with a silver wire rack over a black surface. Each listing gets you one grill.

For planning, that means: the tray is about as wide as a sheet of A4 paper, just a good deal shorter, and so flat that it fits into a cool bag or sideways into a rucksack. How much of it is actually rack area cannot be read from these numbers. Catalogue dimensions are overall dimensions, they include the rim and the feet, and as a rule we do not calculate a grilling area from outer dimensions.

In detail: one charcoal load, one rack height, no control

With a kettle grill, you control the heat with vents, you push the charcoal to one side and grill indirectly next to it, and when the embers fade, you add more. A disposable tray can do none of that. The charcoal sits fixed in the tray as an even layer, the rack has a single height, and air reaches the embers only through the holes in the side walls. On disposable trays, such holes serve exactly this purpose: without side air supply, the charcoal would suffocate in the closed tray.

The temperature curve you have to expect follows from that. After lighting, the charcoal glows through, the heat rises, reaches a peak and then drops, because nothing follows. The seller states approx. 1.5 hours of burn time. Taken literally, that is the time the charcoal burns, so including the phase in which it first has to glow through, and including the last minutes in which it only smoulders weakly. The time in which you are actually grilling at good heat is shorter in our assessment. How much shorter, nobody can credibly tell you as long as the manufacturer gives neither heat-up time nor temperature.

For the food, this is the real limit. Sausages, vegetables and fish, so the seller’s list, cook in a short time over direct heat. A thick steak or meat on the bone, by contrast, needs a phase of even, rather moderate heat beside the embers, and this second zone does not exist on a flat tray with no room to move food aside. Added to that is the short distance between rack and charcoal: fat drips straight into the embers, and with fatty food flames can flare up that you can hardly dodge on such a small surface. Lean and thin food therefore suits better.

Are 600 grams enough for an evening?

For a small round with sausages and vegetables, yes; for a larger group, no. According to the seller, the 600 g is the load capacity, so in our reading what the rack is meant to carry at once. How much you grill over the whole burn time is a different calculation.

The wording in the catalogue is “Belastbar bis zu 600 g Grillgut” (load capacity up to 600 g of food). No total quantity per grill is stated there, and we therefore read the number as a load on the rack. That is also the reading that fits the construction: a thin wire grid on a tray with wire feet does not carry an unlimited amount. What happens if you put considerably more on, we do not know, and we would not experiment with it while the embers lie underneath.

If you grill in rounds, a second load follows the first, but then over embers that have already weakened. For sausages that is usually still enough; for fish, which likes even heat, it gets tighter. If you want to feed more people, you place two trays side by side and pay twice.

What the seller does not state

These points are missing from all the details we found, and you should not assume them when buying:

• the material of tray and rack
• the grilling area, there are only the outer dimensions from the catalogue
• the amount of charcoal in grams, the type of charcoal and whether firelighter paper or a firelighter block is included
• the heat-up time until it is ready to grill and the achievable temperature
• a number of people
• whether the wire feet in the photo are part of the delivery and how much clearance from the ground they create
• the disposal route, so general waste or recyclables
• how long the charcoal stays dry and combustible in storage
• the country of origin
• instructions with safety notes on positioning, surface, distances and extinguishing

Two points need one more sentence. In the Amazon catalogue there is a warranty field whose terms are missing there; we do not derive any warranty statement from it. And a Dutch retailer listing under the name Alpina gives different dimensions and a different weight for a disposable grill than the Amazon catalogue. Whether that is the same product, we could not clarify, so we also treat the catalogue dimensions above with reservation.

These three alternatives are worth a look

The prices come from our price box and change constantly on Amazon. The rating is our editorial assessment based on the manufacturer data; nobody has measured it.

When the disposable grill fits and when a folding grill does

The first question is frequency. The Dripex folding grill costs approx. €19.99, an Alpina tray approx. €9. But the folding grill lasts for many uses as long as you look after it. For that you need charcoal and something to light it with every time, and after grilling you carry a sooty device home. For a single festival a year, that speaks for the disposable tray; with every further outing, it tips towards the folding grill.

The second question is grilling time. With one charcoal load and no topping up, the evening is limited, and anyone who likes to sit by the fire for two or three hours and put something on now and then needs a grill into which charcoal can be added. The Charmline folding grill costs approx. €40, the Alpina approx. €9. In our comparison, the Charmline is the choice for exactly this case.

Then the luggage. At approx. 0.75 kg according to the catalogue, the Alpina tray weighs little, and after grilling the weight disappears entirely because you dispose of it. A folding grill stays in the rucksack, warm or cold, clean or not. For a bike tour with light luggage, that is a real point for the disposable tray.

The location sometimes decides everything else. Where embers are banned, every charcoal grill is out, whether usable once or a hundred times. What applies at the campsite, at the bathing spot or when there is wildfire danger, and which types of grill are still allowed then, we have collected in the camping grill guide.

The Petromax Feuertopf is in the table only for completeness. It is not a grill but a pot that you place in the embers. Anyone who actually had a stew at the campfire in mind is in the wrong place with the disposable tray.

Setting up, cooling down, disposing

We could not find manufacturer operating instructions. The seller’s two sentences on use and end of use are in the Amazon catalogue and read verbatim: “Direkt verwendbar, perfekt für den einmaligen Einsatz im Freien.” (Ready to use directly, perfect for single use outdoors.) And: “Nach Gebrauch einfach abkühlen lassen und entsorgen. Keine Reinigung nötig.” (After use, simply let it cool down and dispose of it. No cleaning needed.) There is no more manufacturer wording on safety.

Everything else is general rules for charcoal, not statements from Alpina. As a rule: charcoal burns only outdoors, never in a tent, an awning, a garage or a caravan, because it produces carbon monoxide, which you cannot smell and which is dangerous even in small amounts. That still applies when the flames are gone and the charcoal only smoulders. Anyone who takes the warm tray into the tent after grilling to keep warm puts their life at risk.

The surface has to withstand the heat. A wooden table, a plastic board or dry grass are wrong; paving slabs, gravel or a bare patch of sand are right. On lawn, disposable grills leave a burnt patch even if nothing catches fire, and the wire feet in the product image change little about that. Keep your distance from tents, blankets and bags, and have water ready before lighting.

The seller gives no cooling time. The tray is cold only when no embers are visible any more and no warmth rises from the ash. For the balcony, there are separate rules from the tenancy agreement and house rules, which we explain in the guide grilling on a balcony.

Who is it suitable for?

For people who want to grill once or twice a year without equipment: on a festival site with a designated grilling area, at a lake with a fire pit, or in your own garden when the proper grill is missing.

The Alpina is the wrong choice for two groups. Anyone who wants to grill thick steaks, spare ribs or chicken legs needs an indirect zone and more time than a single charcoal load provides. And anyone buying for a youth group or a club who has to present written safety notes from the manufacturer will find none here. If you are still undecided which type of grill suits you at all, the Grill Finder narrows it down in a few questions.