Hello there my friends. I know I left you on a cliffhanger in the last grilling Q&A
video. I am sure you haven’t slept for a week tormented by life’s persistent question:
is charcoal really better than gas. Well, today’s the day to talk about all the devices
we call “grills” in the US. For all my international viewers that’s the stuff you
guys call BBQs. You know my approach to tools. Before you consider the tool, you should consider
the task. The task I’ll stick to in this video is grilling tender pieces of meat, fish,
poultry, veggies etc. Because that’s the kind of grilling I have a lot of experience
with. If you want to discuss the pros and cons of different grill types for very long
and slow projects like smoking a brisket or a pork shoulder, you’ll need to talk to
someone else.
First, let’s talk about the big one. Charcoal vs Gas. I don’t know what it’s like in
other countries, but in the US the rivalry between these two camps is as vicious as between
Capulets and Montagues. If Shakespear were alive today, he’d have to write a tragedy
called “Backyard Story” in which the girl whose family only grills on charcoal falls
in love with a boy whose family only grills on gas and then a lot of people die.
The charcoal people love to brag that their grills are the real deal. Without charcoal
you can’t get that smoky flavor and you can’t get the grill hot enough or so they
say. The gas people say, “sure, gas is not quite as good, but it’s so much faster,
turn on the nob and you are good to go.” They are both wrong.
First let’s deal with the charcoal fallacy. The smoky flavor in grilling comes from 2
places: the fat dripping into the flame and from the burning wood. The fat drips into
the flame for both gas and charcoal grills, that’s where most of the charred flavor
comes from for both gas and charcoal grills. Now about that subtle flavor or wood smoke.
Charcoal is not what gives you wood smoke. You need to add wood to your charcoal grill
if you want to get wood smoke. And guess what! You can add wood to your gas grill too. But
keep in mind that it’s not all that useful for the kind of grilling I am discussing in
this video. If you are doing the long and slow project like brisket or pulled pork and
keeping your meat on the grill for many hours, the wood smoke becomes more noticeable because
it has a chance to permeate the meat. If you are grilling fish, steaks, burgers, and veggies,
they cook too fast for the wood to make a big difference.
I can imagine everyone jumping out of their seats now to tell me that they can totally
smell that wood smoke immediately. Sure, the person grilling will inhale some wood smoke.
If you find that enjoyable, go for it. But how much of that aroma can the meat absorb
in 5 to 20 minutes -- not much. I find the same to be true with throwing herbs on the
grill. Smells great to the person who is grilling. Makes no difference to the finished product.
Again, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t add wood, herbs, etc. As Adam Ragusea says,
“You do you.” I am just telling you what I do and why.
A big advantage of charcoal is that it can get way hotter than gas. Of course, it depends
on how good you are at building a fire and which gas grill you have, but generally speaking.
A huge disadvantage of charcoal is that it’s extremely hard to control. Since perfect doneness
is 95% of what determines whether I’ll enjoy the meat or not, I hate grilling on charcoal.
And I am not alone. Guess what most expensive steak houses grill on? Gas.
Ok, now that I got all the charcoal people mad, let’s talk about all the gas misconceptions.
The biggest one is that you turn the grill on and 5 minutes later put the meat on the
grill. Right?
Absolutely not. You need to wait 15 to 20 minutes depending on how hot or cold it is
outside for your grill to preheat. And my dear gas grilling people, please stop apologizing
for grilling on gas. If you learn to do it correctly, your results will be just as good,
but more reliable than what comes off a “real” grill.
First of all you need a good grill and unfortunately, good gas grills are a lot more expensive than
good charcoal grills. In case you are wondering, mine is made by weber. No, they are not sponsoring
this video and they didn’t give me a discount on their grills. Once you have a good gas
grill, you need to wait at least 15 minutes for it to get hot. On some gas grills, it
helps to cover the area where you plan to place the food with a double layer of foil
or inverted disposable pie plate while preheating. This traps the heat and gets your grill hotter.
Just make sure that you don’t cover the entire grill grate with foil. For safety reasons
you need good air circulation. On my previous weber grill, the foil made the difference
between a 550F grate and a 700F grate.
Yes, an extra 150 degrees because of that foil trick. On my current weber grill, the
grate gets to 700F all by itself and using foil doesn’t make it much hotter. So you
really need to play with it because every grill is different and grates are different
too, but if you feel that your grill isn’t browning quickly enough, it’s good to have
that foil trick up your sleeve. By the way, the temperatures I am giving you have nothing
to do with that useless thermometer on the lid. To measure the temperature of the grate,
you need to point an infrared gun thermometer at it. Using the foil, doesn’t make your
lid any hotter, so you won’t see any difference on the lid thermometer.
Another thing I see gas grilling people mess up a lot is cleaning their grill. Charcoal
people know that they need to empty their grill each time. But gas people often let
their grills get absolutely disgusting. Once a year or even more often if you grill a lot,
you need to disassemble everything and clean it out and every time you turn on your grill
you need to wait for all the smoke to stop before cooking anything. If you still see
smoke, that means your previous meal is still burning off and you need to give it a chance
to finish unless you want your food to taste like it came out of a coal mine.
Although you can’t just slap your meat on a grill that you turned on 5 minutes ago,
the convenience of a gas grill is huge. It’s a lot faster and easier to set up and clean
up. You don’t have to worry that 5 minutes before your food is done, your heat source
will start to die. You can turn the heat up or down whenever you want. And contrary to
what the charcoal fanatics will tell you, you do get plenty of smoky flavor and charred
exterior.
In case you are wondering, I have grilled on charcoal before. I have something to compare
to, so it’s not that I haven’t worked with “the real grill” before. I know I
have a lot of things working against me. I am not American and I am not male. Since most
of my subscribers happen to be older American men -- don’t ask me why, YouTube works in
mysterious ways -- I expect that a lot of them hit the unsubscribe button 1 minute into
this video. The funny thing is that the most American and male grilling guru of them all,
"Meathead" Goldwyn agrees with everything I said so far. I’ll link to his fabulous
article comparing gas and charcoal grilling in the description below.
Ok, so if a gas grill is so wonderful, what about electric grill? Is that like gas and
electric stove? One adjusts quicker than the other, but both can produce identical results?
Unfortunately not. Without the flame, the food will taste somewhat different. Not bad,
just different. Keep in mind that I haven’t tried an electric grill myself. So everything
I am saying about them is based on web research, but not on personal experience. I found an
electric outdoor Weber that gets excellent reviews. I’ll link to it below. It accomplishes
3 things that a gas grill does well: it allows you to cook outside, it provides a larger
cooking surface than most skillets making it great for entertaining, and it gets hotter
than a skillet. No, you can’t use it indoors because the smoke will be crazy. If you are
in a small apartment with a bad exhaust over your stove, but you have a balcony, an electric
grill might not be a bad idea even if it doesn’t give you the charred flavor of a gas grill.
I mean if you could get a gas grill, I’d go with gas, but if your apartment building
doesn’t allow that, an electric grill could be a good option.
Though I have another idea for you if you don’t need a huge cooking surface. It might
be cheaper to get a good portable induction burner and use a 12 inch skillet. This way
you can still cook outside and an extra burner is not a bad thing to have indoors too.
When it comes to indoor grilling devices like George Foreman Grill or grilling skillets,
the only benefit (if you can even call it that) is the grill mark lines. If that brings
you some sentimental value, go for it, but keep in mind that lines on food don’t taste
any better than a normal sear. If anything, they taste worse because instead of browning
all of your meat, you only browned half of it. Skillet browning is somewhat different
than grilling over a flame. To achieve a good sear in the skillet, you need a layer of fat.
It’s really the fat that’s cooking your food, not the flame. In an indoor grill or
grilling skillet, the fat is pulled away from the food because it drips into the little
crevices between those raised bars, so you are not doing your food any favors. I also
find grilling pans hard to wash. So I don’t see any benefits only downsides.
That’s all I have for you about grill types. Hope you have a wonderful grilling season,
no matter what you are grilling on.
Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.