Propane or Briquettes for grilling ?

[Megospidey]

charcoal (with hickory) only for burgers. propane for everything else.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

Charcoal with small hickory chips for that smoky flavor

I'm with you man, that's the best!


Cooking with propane is ok too, and as some have said, it makes it alot easier for more even cooking temperatures and such. I just enjoy cooking with charcoal because it's more of a "project" hehe

[Hector]

I have both.

I use the charcoal/mesquite one for heavy meats, whole chickens, pork, sausages, etc...

I use the propane one to heat breads, tortillas, veggies, eggs, soups, chili, etc...

Best of both worlds.

[Hector]

Amateur

Yeah, the fella doesn't realize you can control heat on charcoal by its placement (and also placement of the meats). You can also regulate the firebox by the closing or opening of the lid, and the various openings of the smoker holes.

Charcoal is not all about piling it up with loads of charcoal and just blindly throw the meat in there.

It is an art form indeed.

[megojim]

I go both ways . . . oops!!
I was a charcoal man for a long time but when it comes to convenience you just can't beat the propane. The whole charcoal thing isn't worth it for burgers or brats. Like many have mentioned I use wood chips on occasion. Now when it's time to cook a brisket, pork shoulder or ribs I break out the smoker and lots o' charcoal & hickory or applewood!
-jim

[Hector]

Also remember, the differences between cooking in direct and indirect heat.

[misterdroid]

Charcoal. It's an art.

[Hector]

Exactly.

[Donkey Hoatie]

Amateur? Nope, more like semi-pro. Among other occasions, for the past twelve years, I've been hired to grill out for a party of about 150 every 4th of July. I use charcoal then, but only because I can get a hold of a big *** grill for cooking for a group that large.


Yeah, the fella doesn't realize you can control heat on charcoal by its placement (and also placement of the meats). You can also regulate the firebox by the closing or opening of the lid, and the various openings of the smoker holes.

Really? I had no idea. You mean I don't have to just dump it all in a pile and watch it char? I've heard rumors of some chefs who use something called "indirect heat." Where can I find some? eBay?

Charcoal is not all about piling it up with loads of charcoal and just blindly throw the meat in there.

It is an art form indeed.

I've got tons of friends who say the same thing, that there's some sort of "art" to grilling with charcoal. And I've found that 99% of them say that because they have no earthly idea of what they're doing. Cooking can be an art, but cooking food correctly is a science. You know, hence the degree thing and all. Sure there's art involved, but without understanding the basic principles behind cooking, you're really just wishing your food finished.

Like I said before, it's all about the temperature control. That way, when someone wants a steak rare, well-done, or anywhere inbetween, I can get it to them exactly the way they want it. I'll save the "art" part of it for presentation and creating new recipes.

Oh, and someone was asking if it's possible to grill a whole chicken on the grill without boiling it first. Absolutely! You have a couple of choices. All of them involve indirect heat. The easiest way is to simply cook it over slow heat for a real long time. Or, you could do some sort of version of beer can chicken in which you shove a 3/4 full can of beer up the chicken's rectum (sounds inappropriate, but it tastes delicious). Look online and you'll find about a bazillion different recipes. If you want to speed up the process, you can flatten the chicken by crushing the spine and ribs with a mallet and put a foil-wrapped brick on top of it when it's on the grill. Then again, if you're going to do that, you might as well just cut up the chicken into four parts since you've pretty much ruined it for presentation purposes anyway. Keep some sort of basting material on hand since it can get a little dry if you're not careful.

You can do the ribs too without boiling them first. However, it takes a REAL long time to get them done right. And, you'd probably be better off using hardwood instead of charocal in your grill. I always do the boil first and just finish them on the grill. No one can tell the difference anyway. Then again, I like my ribs with a wet sauce. If you're one of those dry rub guys, boiling is kind of pointless.

Now, if you really want to shift someone's paradigm with your grill, throw some watermelon slices on there. Make sure you oil up your grate pretty well before starting, then cut the melon into about 3/4" round slices. 3-5 minutes on each side over high heat ought to do it for you, depending on the temperature of your charcoal (or, easily regulated by the temperature of your gas grill). It should have some nice crusty grill lines when it's done. Serve it on top of sponge cake with a healthy scoop of vanilla ice cream. For presentation purposes, you have more freedom by cubing the watermelon, but then you have to skewer it or spend loads of time flipping each cube individually. If you're going to skewer, use the two parallel skewer method so the chunks don't rotate all over the place on you.

Dammit, now I want to go grill something and it's almost 1:30 in the morning. I've been toying around with doing scallops marinated in Guiness, but I can't figure out what else I would use to accent the marinade. I'd serve it over a bed of cous cous with grilled asparagus tips.

I better stop thinking about this now, or I'll never get to bed.

[Hector]

Good post, and I agree...oh...and apologize...you do know your stuff.

BTW, cool username, Don Quixote.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

It's 4:30 a.m. here, and after reading the last several posts, maaaaaaaan am I hungry!!! No fair!

[Donkey Hoatie]

Think I might have figured it out

Hector,

No worries. It's just cooking. Different strokes for different folks. I just wanted to point out that the difference comes not from ignorance, but from preference.

I also think I know what I'm going to add to that Guinness-marinated scallops. I think if I dust them with some cinnamon before grilling, that will accentuate the near-coffee flavor in the beer. Not sure yet, but it seems like it would make sense and give it a nice, dark char at the end. Still mulling it over in my head. I might just give it a whirl this weekend.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I have long fought on the side of charcoal, but after almost losing my eyebrows in a flashover last Fourth of July, I'm thinking seriously about going the way of Hank Hill...

Chris

[Adam West]

I worked at a large BBQ catering place from the time I was 15 until I graduated from college and we cooked everything you can imagine with charcoal....I have headed up events of cooking chicken, ribs, corn, pies, bread and other items for 4,000 people at a time so I do have quite a bit of knowledge in this area.

From a taste perspective, I prefer charcoal but if I had a choice and the time, would go with a charcoal/wood smoker over indirect heat. Charcoal takes a long time. One bag of charcoal takes about 35-40 minutes to reach it's peak temperature. Although I prefer charcoal, it is messier and more time consuming than using a gas grill.

You never have to precook anything if you grill it right. I have cooked chicken, whole slabs of ribs, corn, vegetables, all kinds of things on my grill but you have to know what you are doing.

The two biggest mistakes I see people make when I am a guest at someone's home with a grill is to either attempt to cook the meat too fast, usually a lack of use of oil on some meats to retain juices, or the biggest no-no, which is layering BBQ sauce on at the beginning which is essentially sugar and will do nothing but burn the outside of the meat.

Over a charcoal grill, it would take us approximately 3 3/4 hours to cook a half chicken (breast/thigh leg portion) and 1 3/4 hours to cook a slab of ribs to give you an idea of the time it takes to accomplish this properly with charcoal....here is how we cooked the chicken. The chicken needs to be cooked over low heat....I can't remember the exact temperature but we used to cook over 50 gallon steel drums that were cut in half and it was one bag per three drums. After the charcoal spent 35-40 minutes heating, stirring the coals to ensure they were all hot, we would place the chicken direct heat and spray it with a mixture of 3 parts apple cider vinegar to 1 part vegetable oil (vinegar for flavor, oil for moisture retention). We then would start another bag of coals in a seperate container which would be added to the existing coals as they started to die. Every 15 minutes the racks were moved to half grill so that they were receiving indirect heat. Every 30 minutes they were turned re sprayed with the vinegar and oil mixture, half grill on the quarter hour. Twice during the process, we would salt and pepper all of the chicken. You can see this a pretty tedious process. Flames from oil drippings were immediatly put out with a spray of water (once the flame reaches the skin, it burns).

We used to check the chicken to ensure it was done a few ways. First, the outside should be a golden brown color (similar to a Thankgiving turkey...maybe slightly darker). The key part in being able to tell if the chicken was done was placing cooking gloves on your hands and twisting the leg bone of the chicken. If it twisted away easily, it was done....if not...it wasn't. There was no need to check internal temperatures or cut open the meat to see if it was pink or not. Whether or not you want to call the leg bone twisting thing an art form or science after having cooked thousands and thousands of chicken, I can tell you in 5 seconds whether or not your chicken is done by twisting the leg from years and years of doing this.

[wayne foundation 07]

it's propane,no waiting,you just hope the igniter works