I grilled some buffalo T-Bones tonight. My old gas grill has to be replaced (burner is getting rotted out), but I figured what the heck, and loaded it up with charcoal briquettes and used the crappy propane burner just to light them.
My.Good.God.
If you’ve been cooking with Gods Gas[sup]TM[/sup] for the past while, you are missing out. You OWE it to yourself to cook with charcoal again just to get the flavor.
Mmmmm… I will not be cooking with propane again if I can help it. Now, off to build a true fire pit in my back yard with a cooking grill so I can cook over wood coals for the rest of the summer
Just got one of those new Char-Broil combo gas/charcoal grills. Haven’t tried it yet, and was curious as to what the outcome would be, but I look forward to it now as it works just as your post described
I always thought that people that used gas grills were either lazy or had no taste buds. Food cooked on a gas grill is like instant coffee or light beer, to be avoided at all cost. :eek:
Charcoal is better than gas, there’s no doubt. I never thought to try wood…I’ll have to do that next time I have something larger than a hibachi.
Warning for those of you who might want to barbecue over wood: Avoid using building supplies, a lot of it is treated with poisons to protect the wood from pests. Definitely a bad thing to grill your steak over.
Being from Alberta, we always had gas. My dad (who I didn’t live with) had a brick fire pit in his yard and would always use wood. Husband is partial to charcoal. I can’t say that I prefer one over the other in general, but one time Dad made the world’s best steaks on that fire. Mmmmm. Can’t wait to go home and try it again.
If you’re fortunate enough to have fruit trees, save the wood after pruning and put some in your fire after it dries out (apple, orange, etc). Adds a wonderful flavor!
You can get a new burner for your gas grill at Walmart for like $15. You shouldn’t put charcoal in it, because gas grills not designed for charcoal are typically made out of a pot metal that can shatter or crack if you’re burning coal. It can lead to a bad accident.
I’m big into grilling. A well-seasoned gas grill is just fine. I smoke food over charcoal because I need a 3-4 hour fire. When I grill, I through a couple of chunks of mesquite into the gas grill if I want smokey flavor.
I do as well Scylla. I’ve had my Webber for 5 years, and love it. I’ve replaced the Iron grill twice. And have a little nook on the left side of the grill that holds water and mesquite, or hickory, or maple chips for smok’in flavor.
I went to every dept and hardware store in my city yesterday. None of them had a replacement burner for my BBQ (even Wal-Mart). Its a big, single burner. Every burner even remote close to the right size was for double burners.
I am aware of that. And no, they won’t work. Trust me. It is difficult to bypass the fact that they all have two propane feeders and I only have one. The only single feeder burners available here feed from the side of the burner, not the middle. While it would physically fit in the BBQ, there is no way to run the propane into it. I’m a pretty handy guy and there is no way to do it short of drilling holes through my BBQ.
So, I figured what the hell. I put the old burner in, emptied the rest of the lava rock out and stacked a small pile of charcoal on the lavarock grates (I did not fill the BBQ up with coals by any means – probably only about 1/4 full).
Either way, I’ll be cooking over a firepit before much longer! Yay!
I switched from charcoal to gas a few years back. Can’t say I’ve noticed any difference in flavor, but then I’m not exactly a grill chef; I just grill burgers and the occasional flank steak.
But I don’t have to clean out and dump charcoal ashes between grillings, and that’s one hell of a plus.
