In this corner, Kid Weber. Charcoal is a renewable resource that utilizes otherwise scrap wood, is cheap to manufacture, and requires no fancy equipment to use. OTOH, it takes time to get hot, it’s a pain to re-fill in the middle of a cooking job, and it gets soot and dust and ash all over everything, including your food.
In the other corner, Propane Joe. Propane is clean, fast-lighting, infinitely adjustable and you can grill for weeks on a single tank of fuel. OTOH, is uses fossil fuels, needs a nozzle to utilize, has tanks that need to be cared for and refilled, and according to some, lacks a certain “something” when it comes to flavor.
Step right up and state your case.
They both have the good and bad points you stated, but propane is faster and more convenient. I would grill with charcoal maybe once or twice a year. Propane lets me do it every night if I want to, without much more trouble than it would be to cook with the stove or oven. Plus, I can make a packet of wood chips and put them inside the propane grill to create smokey deliciousness if I feel like getting fancy.
I will concede that charcoal usually tastes better. But then there’s the other stuff.
Propane, as said, lets me enjoy this flame-grilled goodness whenever in just a few minutes.
I used to thnk there was a huge difference between the taste, but for whatever reason, possibly back-to-back sessions, possibly my changing taste buds, I do now think the diff is not so great.
But charcoal still tastes better.
Versus if I just used charcoal, I’d grill maybe twice a year instead of every week. You just hafeta understand where your priorities lie, I guess…
You can also safely put a propane grill on a wooden deck. I kow a guy who almost set his house on fire with a Weber kettle grill. A hot piece of charcoal fell through the vent in the bottom and started his deck burning.
Since I’ve bought my Weber kettle several years ago, I’ve never used my propane grill. I also achieve a much better sear over charcoal than propane. The entire point for me grilling outside is for that woody flavor. It’s easy enough for me to get the coals started, and that extra 1/2 hour (at most) using a charcoal grill is worth the wait for me. I use lump hardwood charcoal (never briquettes) and will often burn down some cherry, apple, hickory, oak, or mesquite for flavor.
If you’re getting soot and ash all over your food, you must be doing something wrong.
We have a Kenmore propane grill and a Big Green Egg on our deck. We use each of them quite often- the grill if we’re doing something like burgers or hot dogs, the Egg if we’re doing steaks.
The grill is damn near instantaneous, the Egg takes about 20 minutes to get going and takes a longer time to cook. The grill heats stuff up, the Egg makes stuff taste much better.
They’re both so different there’s really not much point in comparing the two. It’s like comparing an oven to a microwave- they each have their strengths and weaknesses.
See, with me it’s been the exact opposite. The Weber sits gathering spiders because the propane grill is so much quicker and easier. Before, if the wife wanted me to grill, it took a little bit of planning. Now, it’s just a matter of “Open the door and fire up the grill. It’s your turn to cook!” Year-round, no hassles. The only thing still fired by charcoal around here is my smoker, and I only use that when I’m doing a big, honking brisket or ribs for a crowd. Propane all the way, baby!
Also, I find the whole ritual involved with charcoal much more satisfying. There’s a certain romance and “getting back to basics” involved with cooking over coals and wood. For me, grilling is a time out from the modern world, and a time to enjoy the flavors and cooking methods not readily available to us in the kitchen. Hell, if I had the ability to, I’d build an open pit in the back yard, as well as a hearth oven.
Few things in the world make me happier than grabbing a beer, firing up some coals in the chimney starter, and getting that half hour wait to enjoy my beer and whet my appetite.
There is no such thing as a propane “grill.” What you’ve got there is an outdoor stove. Might as well use it to heat up your tea-kettle and make Jell-O.
I think charcoal fans exaggerate the difference in taste because it would be disappointing to admit that they wasted all that time and effort for nothing.
Propane for me, unless I feel particularly inclined to waste 30-90 minutes of my life.
I always had a hard time getting the coals to stay hot enough to cook everything with the charcoal grill. I’m sure I was doing something wrong. I read up on what I was supposed to do, saw it done step-by-step on TV, but on several occasions I ended up having to pull the food and restock the coals, which sucked. And then the difference in taste wasn’t all that huge.
Nah. It’s night and day, especially with longer cooks, and especially if you mix in fresh hardwood with the coals. Hell, there’s enough of a difference in the taste between briquettes and hardwood lump that I don’t use the former.
I use a propane gas grill all year round. It’s the only way now that I’ll roast a chicken (the beer can method). I live in the city where houses are less than 20 feet apart, and my grill is only several feet from the house. I always have an eye on it when I’m cooking, and when it’s off, it’s off. I’d just be too nervous to have charcoal still burning when I walked away.
If you like cooking via steam, propane is the way to go. Look at the chemistry. C3H8 + 5 O2 → 3 CO2 + 4 H2O + heat. All that water becomes steam. Ummmmm steamed steak, my favorite. :rolleyes: On the other hand, charcoal is 85-98% pure carbon. C + O2 = CO2 No water.
I can be up and cooking on either my Weber or my Big Green Egg in 15 minutes or less. Frankly if you can’t plan 15 minutes ahead, you have some serious ADD issues IMHO.
As far as clean up goes, yes, I have to shovel out the unit. But by using lump charcoal the amount of ash is fairly small. With the Weber it is a breeze, as it has a pot that all the ash dumps into. The egg is harder, but not terribly so.
On the other hand, My units don’t rust out, burners never go bad, I don’t run out of fuel half way though a cook, and when it is time to eat, the food tastes better. A fair trade in my opinion.
I have to confess that I have been partially seduced by the dark side. I’ve always been a charcoal/hardwood devote, I’ve been downright militant about it at times too, sneering at gas grill users and their “upside-down broilers”, I’ve been known to take the piss out of the entire province of Alberta at times for their gas fixation.
Then last weekend I got one of these.
For free. (FREE!!! A thousand dollar grill!!!)
OH. MY. GOD.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got my smoker, I’ve still got my great big charcoal grill, and they will continue to be used for appropriate foods, but the ease of just firing up this Weber for burgers and dogs and the like…we’ve grilled every night since I got it, and it fucking ROCKS!!!
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Charcoal tastes better, and does not take all that much longer than propane. I can have a fire ready in 15 minutes; with propane, you need to take ten. Five minutes is worth the wait for better flavor.
Oh, and I never use lighter fluid. Newspaper and kindling always works just fine – if you know how.