Rapid fire v grate and charcoal baskets

[vvVFANGVvv]

I have a few Webers now and there seems to be a bit of variety when it comes to the charcoal grate and baskets. Most of my older ones have a flat charcoal grate and the wire basket holder things. A few of my newer ones have the rapid fire v grates and charcoal baskets. Do the two go hand in hand?
From what I can understand the v grate and baskets were options at some stage but later both became standard equipment.... Was that from a certain year I wonder?
A big reason I'm asking is a O code kettle I recently received has a v grate plus the wire baskets which don't work so well together! I'm not sure if there might if been a mix up somewhere along the line.

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[TD]

Try some of the newer baskets. Only 15 bucks. Protects your kettle better from the high heat. Use those wire things for propping stuff up. Unless you are really into starting fire on the grate or use the V's in some way, I think I would prefer the standard grate. I use a chimney to start charcoal. I think the  V grate was introduced later than the wire baskets or O code kettles. Don't know if they were ever sold together.

[TheDude]

I've never seen a charcoal grate like that. I think 2001ish is my youngest kettle though.

[vwengguy]

I have a new v grate that comes from the new Kettle Plus 18" that is being sold here in Europe.
I use it in my JJ with the GBS grate that comes from the same grill.
I also use the Weber chimney every time so it serves no real purpose but it did have 1.5-2x the steel rods and they are also way thicker steel. In total I think almost 2x as heavy as the standard 18" charcoal grate.
More than likely it will be the last charcoal grate I will ever need. Yeah it's THAT heavy!




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[vvVFANGVvv]

I had a mate collect this for me and a week later he got an older J... Not sure if there was a "mix up" when it was packed up. I'm thinking v grates go with baskets and the flat grill goes with the wire baskets....  I think the v grates were an invention by the old Australian rep so might have been out in Oz before the states and maybe more popular here

[TheDude]

Might be a Europe thing?

[hawgheaven]

I've never seen on of those. Interesting...