Payne County Rust Propane or Charcoal?

The age old question: “Should I cook over propane or charcoal?” This issue has been dealt with in magazines, blogs, and has even had entire Food Network programs focusing on it. Well, here’s my take…

When cooking an extremely tough piece of meat, such as a low quality chuck steak, shoulder roast, or ham, there are two ways to deal with it. You can either cook it a long, LONG time, in a low-heat, dry environment, or cook it for a shorter amount of time in a medium-heat, wet environment, such as a crockpot. On the other end of the spectrum there are those tender cuts that have a lot more latitude when it comes to cooking techniques. Some of these meats include hot dogs, ribeyes, hamburgers, bratwursts, etc. Since they are inherently tender to begin with, overcooking is about the only doomful demise to an otherwise delightful dinner. With all that latitude, we usually turn to the high-heat, dry, fast-cook king… the grill. Besides being fast, there are many other enjoyable benefits to grilling. Have you ever been able to sear a steak in a pot of boiling water? Have you ever charred the outside of a hamburger in a steam kettle? When we grill, what we are doing in its purist form, really, is cooking the meat via the convection energy from the heat source whilst burning the outside of the food conductively where it comes in contact with the grill rods. No one likes a burnt piece of meat, but when you burn SOME of the outside fats and caramelize SOME of the proteins in the meat, it adds a wonderful, full bodied char-grilled flavor to the cut.

Now I’ll attempt to come back to my main topic. With propane and charcoal grills, both add dry heat through convection, and HIGH heat through the surface area contact with the grill itself. Both allow extra juices to drip away from the cooking surface of the meat, therefore allowing the charring areas to burn drier, quicker and blacker. This, to me, says that both types of grills satisfy all criteria for char grilling food. BUT there are those charcoal nazis out there that claim there are huge taste differences due to the fact that the charcoal itself adds a certain smoky flavor that a gas grill could never emulate. To that, I say that if they are using charcoal briquettes, then they are simply lighting small, pressed conglomerates of half-burnt paper, sawdust, and some mysterious binder that makes them hold their form. If they are a step above this, then they are using actual charcoal--half burnt hardwood coals--and the resins, dried sap, and any other aromatic properties of that specific wood were long ago volatilized when the initial burning took place. The smoke they see barreling from their charcoal grill is from the fat dripping down onto the hot coals, causing copious amounts of combustion, ergo smoke clouds. Charcoal is an efficient, purist, fun way to grill. I use it continually, but would not attempt to say that in a blind taste test I could ever hope to pick out the burger that was cooked on a propane grill vs. one that was cooked over charcoal. My advice is to look at how often you grill and how often you’ll have to refill the propane tank. Weigh the costs associated, with the cost of charcoal, and pick. As long as you’re grilling we’re happy here.

Payne County Rust, LLC