Yes
No comparison on flavor. Period
Im about to send 3.26 lbs of extra meaty baby backs to the charcoal Gods.. I hope they send it back nice and tender.. A mild Kinder sauce will be applied along the way as the ribs head to the gastric chamber of hell.. No bones about it. ;-)
Mary Ann, Bailey Quarters and Charcoal
For ribs? Low and slow. Charcoal. For a quick dinner, gas is OK. But there is nothing like the taste of meat cooked over hardwood coals.
Lazy or no time. Gas.
But charcoal (with smoke chips) always beats it, hands down!
Why is this even a discussion?;)
You just can’t beat real wood. I’ve used nothing but oak, pecan or mesquite for over thirty years now. All of the wood has been harvested from my property.
I used to use gas, but now only a Weber charcoal grill. I mainly grill steaks or smoke salmon on it.
I have my cake and eat it, too.
Nuff said...
I use a propane BBQ and put a chunk of wood on the grill to provide the smoke flavor. Some people use wood chips, and I have used them too. Wood chunks from available trees is free and I don’t have a wood chipper (yet). I have used apple, cherry, hickory and alder. I like apple and alder the best.
For all of my cooking, I keep the cover closed. For steaks, I open the cover to check the sear, after 3 minutes. I also check for flames and turn the temperature down to reduce flare ups. If the browness is not quite right, I let the first side go for a minute more. Then I flip and let the steak finish with the cover closed for two more minutes before checking with a temperature probe. This is when I leave to cover off, turn up the heat and continuously check with the temperature probe. You do not want to miss that magic time when the steak is perfectly cooked at medium rare.
For roasts, I use a wireless meat probe, which alerts me when the target temperature is reached. Since roasts can take longer, I make sure the wood has not burned up and add fresh wood if it has.
Charcoal.
Lump.
That is all.
Reds from Napa are the best reds in the world. French wines suck.
Chevy trucks are way better than Ram or Ford and Toyota sucks.
Texas cab secede from the Union anytime it wants! No it can't.
Oh wait, am I on the right thread?
I have tried gas, charcoal and charcoal fired smokers. A couple years ago I switched to a Char-Broil TRU-Infrared from Home Depot (better than the Lowe’s version, in my opinion). This version has a trough in the firebox that separates the food on the grill from the flame. I converted mine to natural gas. Mine is a two-burner grill installed on the deck on the main level of our home. Lower level is walk-out to a swimming pool and I have gas available there for a grill on that level.
This grill gives me restaurant quality grilling. For smoking I put cracked hickory nuts on the trough. I smoke ribs, pork roasts etc perfectly. I have found that the hickory nuts work better and provide better smoked flavor than hickory wood, and I do not have to soak them first. I gather hickory nuts whenever I get the opportunity in the fall. They have a long shelf life. I remove the outer shell and store them that way. When I want to smoke anything I put some nuts in a plastic zip-lock and crack them with a hammer. My method with the hickory nuts adds smoke flavor to burgers too, even though cooking time is relatively short.
I have a charcoal fired smoker that is put away, and for now see no reason now to get it out again.
I hve a propane grill and it works great.
Charcoal hands down. We have never had a gas grill and you cold not give us the best or biggest one out there, we would pass. Started with a weber kettle, when that wore out we got a weber performer pro. Loved it. It has a cooking table attached and propane ignition on the charcoal so no nasty lighter fluid. When that performer pro went through about 15 years we got a new one a couple of years ago.
Wood fired smoker!
I can make a darn good steak on my infrared gas grill - cooks quickly and evenly, doesn’t flare up, and I can sprinkle wood chips on the infrared grating to get the smoke taste. I agree that charcoal is best, but I usually don’t have time to wait for it to warm up. The infrared gas grill is a good compromise.
Just nuke them and save time.