cooking with charcoal vs. gas: the definitive answer - gas charcoal grills

The flame war between the charcoal grill purist and the gas grill is more intense than the debate between Mac and PC users.
You should read some rubbish on the barbecue message board.
Second idea, no.
Let me try to solve this problem for you with some inflammatory ideas.
Grill is mainly used for three kinds of cooking: 1)
When the food is placed directly on the heat source, like steak, the high temperature directly radiates cooking. 2)
When the heat source is biased, indirect heat convection baking is carried out for things like whole chicken and roast meat, and the food is cycled around by warm air. 3)
When the warm air is filled with delicious hardwood smoke, indirect hot smoke bake something like ribs.
Let's take a look at how each fuel performs under these tasks and all the other factors.
Charcoal is a little more smoke than gas, although when the light is sufficient, the smoke generated by good charcoal is very small, and it is unlikely to enter fast-cooked foods such as hamburgers, hot dogs, and even steaks.
The smoke you see during the barbecue mainly comes from food dripping on hot coal.
The gravy is mostly water, fat, and protein, plus anything you add, like sugar in a barbecue sauce.
When the feces hit the coal, they evaporate, some of which condense on the meat and some penetrate into the meat.
Most gas grills cover flame jets with metal plates, lava rocks, or ceramic rocks that absorb heat and radiate heat.
Water droplets hit these evaporated surfaces of radiation, producing smoke and steam, like charcoal.
The flavor of the combustion gas is also slightly different, the volatile by-product of burning charcoal or gas.
When propane burns, it produces more steam than charcoal, and it is said that keeping meat moist gives an advantage to the gas.
Others believe that steam is a disadvantage that prevents the skin from becoming brittle.
There is also a different taste.
If you use
Ignite charcoal or charcoal liquid to cause a charcoal fire, there may be a bad petrochemical smell during the ignition, it can enter the food. Yuk.
So you should use a charcoal chimney or an electric charcoal starter.
I prefer the chimney because it is faster and easier and does not need to be exported.
My favorite is Weber quick chimney launcher.
If you use a grill for flue-cured tobacco, the taste will be more obvious.
The burning gas of charcoal is mixed with the smoke of wood chips or blocks, forming a unique flavor of the traditional Southern barbecue.
On the propane grill, it tastes more like bacon-like.
Which is better?
Taste is a question of taste.
But when it comes to heating the barbecue directly, the fact is that if everything is equal, such as cooking temperature, most people don't see any difference in the taste of charcoal and gas BBQ food.
If you are using thick spices, marinade and sauces, you will never notice the difference in taste.
You may think you can, but blind tasting suggests you may not.
So, if there is no difference in taste, then the choice comes down to functionality.
Charcoal purists have a strong attitude towards snobbish.
They never had a gas grill.
They claim it is a taste, but for me a lot of it is the pleasure of playing with fire and ceremony.
The real reason to buy a charcoal grill is that charcoal is hotter than a standard gas grill, and the heat is that you need to get steak and lamb crispy outside and red or pink inside.
Charcoal grills can usually be cooked to 500F.
If you use a lot of coal, or if the coal is close to the cooking surface, they can cook as hot as 700 f.
When I get high quality lamb or beef, I use bricks to raise the charcoal grate on my Weber kettle to within 1 "of the meat, and the result looks and tastes as good as Morton's (
View the picture at the top of this page).
My favorite Charcoal Grill has a crank that will allow you to lift the charcoal bed.
Below: charcoal is dirty to handle;
It may be difficult to shine;
It takes about 15 minutes to reach the temperature;
There can be flash-
Ups that may burn out food can pose a risk to health;
It's hard to say what temperature you cook;
Can not reduce the temperature quickly;
It slowly loses heat during a long cooking process and you need to add more charcoal;
There are very few grills on the grill;
There is still a lot of ash to clean up after.
Most of these problems are easily overcome if you know how to deal with them: if you use gloves, shovels or pliers, you never need to deal with raw coal.
If you keep the charcoal dry, it's easy to get hot coal using the chimney.
If you push the coal to one side of the grill and set a 2-
In a regional cooking environment, fat meats like chicken skins do not drop on the coal and burn, and jet guns can hold them even if there is burning.
It's easier to clean up with some ash --
Grill or grill with removable ashtray.
58% gas 40% charcoal 2% electrician 16,682,400 the most important part of indoor or outdoor cooking is to adjust the heat.
To do this, you need a reliable oven thermometer and it will take a little bit of time to get it.
Alas, I have never seen a charcoal grill with a very good thermometer, and the thermometer has never been installed where needed, close to the meat.
The temperature at the top of the dome may vary greatly at the level of the meat.
Since the charcoal grill does not have a temperature dial to increase or decrease the temperature, learn how to set 2-
Area Fire, help you adjust heat by moving meat from the hot area to the medium area, and learn how to control the energy of the fire by turning off the oxygen inlet vents.
They are your temperature dial.
In short, cooking with charcoal can produce good results if you practice.
The heat is perfect for red meat, and if you learn your instrument, it will give you a generous reward.
It's not intuitive and brainless, but when you reach mastery, there's almost nothing you can't do, Grasshopper.
The gas grill is sold much more than the charcoal grill for easy reasons to understand.
They provide convenience and control.
Only these two words can solve the problem.
They are easy to start at 10-
15 minutes, stable temperature, easy to clean, can be configured as indirect and multizone cooking.
If it's Tuesday now and you need to have dinner ready in an hour, the gassers can do it. Low to mid-
Price Gas Grill usually has a top of 400-600F.
The more expensive grill can reach up to 700 floor.
Alas, they are not perfect.
The dial setting on May 1 is equal to 275F for 70F days, but can be 225F in cool, windy or rainy days.
Or 300F on hot days.
But once you get to know your instrument it's easy to manage and if it has two or more burners it's easy to have two or more heat zones.
On the three burner grill, you may use the hot area of the meat, the central area of the vegetables and the low area of the finished food.
You still need to know what temperature you cook at, the thermometers on most gas grills are not accurate, so I highly recommend you to buy a good digital oven thermometer and a good digital meat thermometer.
Most gas grills use metal plates, lava and ceramics to dissipate heat, so there is no open fire, no burning, and it is easier to clean up because water droplets are usually evaporated.
There is little or no ash, so gas containers are easier to clean, but they are affected by the build-up of carbon and grease and need to be scraped every few months or pressure cleaned.
It is also possible to plug the gas jet and venturi.
I even had to dig a yellow honeycomb from one of the tubes.
Some people discard lava or ceramics every year.
Others believe that building up grease in porous materials creates an ideal taste. My brother-in-
The law makes the world's best swordfish on a crappy old gas grill with lava that has been used since the last ice age harvest.
Some of his lava has begun to disintegrate and there are gaps where bare flames will slide over and lick the meat.
I have never approached his swordfish on all my fancy toys.
The gas grill can be equipped with various accessories.
Most of them are set up like this so you can easily connect the barbecue shop accessories and many of them come with a side burner so you can keep the sauce warm or cook the side dish.
You can get night lights, side tables, spice rack, storage drawer, side burner and even one with DVD player.
The biggest problem with the gas grill is that only the high-end model of the roast steak is hot enough to be crispy on the outside without overcooking the interior.
The gas grill is perfect for you if you like steak.
But if you like crispy meat outside, which is rare to medium rare, the most tender and juicy temperature, then most gas grills are not able to do the job.
The words in italics are "the most ".
Many of the more expensive gas grills are now fitted with an "infrared" burner on one side.
This is a bit of a misnomer as all the grills are cooked by infrared or heat radiation.
The infrared burner uses a gas flame to overheat the ceramic or metal plate, which emits more heat than the standard burner.
Twice the heat.
Within the range of 700 f plus.
This is the kind of casual worker that steak house does.
They can give you dark hard shell steaks with red or pink inside.
Alas, most infrared burners only have one or two steaks at a time.
Infrared burners may be perfect for steaks, but they are too hot for direct heating cooking of most fish and vegetables.
Even with steak, you need to pay attention to the food through direct red.
They can burn in a hurry.
Infrared burners can sometimes be used for cooking in a barbecue shop or even for indirect heating cooking.
Some high-end gas grills also have cigarette boxes for wood chips, but for most gas grills, you need to make foil packs or drop the pan under the cooking grate near the flame.
Although it is not recommended to do so, I often throw aromatic wood near the burner.
Alas, most gas grill covers are not well sealed, so much more wood is needed than on a tighter grill, and a lot of smoke will go away.
Because the mechanism is more complicated, the gas grill is often more expensive than the charcoal grill, so the assembly of the new gas grill is more complicated than the charcoal grill, and there are more parts to be replaced.
The 20-pound steel tank is filled with liquefied petroleum gas.
If you have an LP grill, you should have a full spare tank on hand.
There is nothing more annoying than putting a chicken on the grill, starting the mower, returning 30 minutes later to find the tank running out, and the bird is raw.
Propane gas is ideal for the grill, as it compresses and becomes liquid when pressurized, making it easy to store in storage tanks.
It also contains more cooking energy than natural gas measured in British thermal units (BTU).
BTU is the energy needed to increase the 1F temperature of a pound of water.
There are about 2,500 BTU in a cubic foot of propane, and only about 1,000 BTU in a cubic foot of natural gas.
The gas grill is usually 15,000 to 60,000 BTU per hour.
Manufacturers tell them how much BTU the grill can produce, but the figure could be misleading.
The number of BTU does not mean it produces heat.
Every square inch must be calculated with BTU, which they will never tell you.
The higher BTU grill usually has more cooking surfaces and the BTU is distributed on it.
The small grill can have a small grill of 5,000 BTU and a large grill of up to 60,000.
If you use all the burners, the higher BTU Grill will use more fuel. 55-
The typical range is 75 BTU/square inches.
The burner usually runs 10,00015,000 BTU.
Natural gas is mainly methane.
It must be delivered to the grill through your pipe, so a certified contractor is required for installation and the grill must be parked in a permanent location.
The propane grille cannot be connected to natural gas without the adapter kit, and the regulator may need to be adjusted.
Natural gas is cheaper than liquefied petroleum gas and you never have to worry about running out unless you don't pay for gas. Wood.
I often make steak with vines and fruit sticks in my Weber kettle.
For months, I dried up a few stacks of thick pencils and put as much as I could into the grill.
The top grate is above.
I light them from below and I have 8 flames in 10 minutes.
After about 10 minutes they will die in white hot coal and I have about 15 minutes of 1000F temperature to cook before they die.
Good taste. Wood Pellets.
There are several nice grills that can burn wood particles made of compressed sawdust.
They can heat up the barbecue directly, but most owners tell me that while they are perfect for smoking, they are not a great barbecue tool. Electricity.
There is a new type of electric grill that is ideal for an apartment with a small balcony.
Some models will be very hot.
A lot of grease to clean up, but a lot of it is not
Apply the stick and some parts can go into the dishwasher. Which to buy?
I have one each.
Almost all my birds, fish, vegetables, pizza and bread are on my LP gas grill and almost all my red meat is on my charcoal grill.
If you don't want to make a fuss at the beginning, come on.
Buy an infrared burner and a side burner if you can afford it.
If you are willing to invest more time in mastering your tools, then go to charcoal and find a tool that will raise and lower your coal.
Or you can buy this. Griller Duo (right)
There are both.
The grill is not very good but I bet we will see more duos in the future.
I'm waiting for the trio.
Charcoal, gas and infrared!
In any case, read my article on how to buy a grill or brazier before you buy it.
There is nothing to replace a dedicated independent smoker for killer ribs and real Southern BBQ.
Read my article on how to buy smoke cooking, which is a balance of time and temperature.
A good oven thermometer and meat thermometer are needed for each outdoor chef.
Read my article on how to buy a thermometer.
For more information on charcoal, please read my article Zen of charcoal. Copyright (c)
2009 by Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn, AmazingRibs.
Com, and all rights reserved.
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This story appears in our weekly summer special issue of iPad magazine Huffington, which will be released on Friday, May 24 at the iTunes App Store.