Family Chow Hall

Propane vs. Charcoal

June 20th, 2006

Anyone who reads this blog very often or knows me and my cooking habits at all, probably understands how much I use my grill. Grilling is my preferred method of cooking most meats. I use my grill at least a couple of times each week, and since we live in a warm climate, I use it all year ’round.

So, the breaking of an outdoor grill is a sad thing indeed for this family. It’s comparable to the breaking of a hammer to a carpenter. My grill is a tool, one I use often and with joy.

Almost five years ago, I bought a propane grill. Prior to that, my husband was in charge of grilling food, buying charcoal, starting the fire, etc. We didn’t eat a lot of grilled meat back then. He gets home from work right about dinnertime on a good day, so unless I wanted to wait another hour for him to prepare dinner, we didn’t cook on the grill.

Since I bought the propane grill, however, he has relinquished these duties to me and I have taken them over happily. Hubby is convinced that the flavor of meat cooked over charcoal is superior and he has my son believing the same thing. It might be true. After a little research, I learned that in taste tests, most people cannot discern any difference between the two. What I know is that meat cooked over propane is better than meat cooked in the skillet or oven, which were my options when we owned a charcoal grill.

Now, I’m sure I can learn to use the charcoal. I just don’t really want to. I don’t want to drag large dirty bags of charcoal home from the grocery. I don’t want to light it, wait for it to get hot, and then dispose of the ashes afterward. Propane is so much simpler, quicker, and cleaner.

Back to my broken grill — Of course, propane grills have a burner down in them, the propane comes up from the tank, enters the burner, and the flames come out of the top of the burner and cook your meat. The burners can wear out. If your propane grill has a “spot” where the flames are too high (consistently), your burner is wearing out. But don’t panic! My dad informed me that you can replace the burner and you don’t have to buy a new grill at all.

We live in a society that is used to disposing of things. Instead of repairing, we prefer to toss the old and get the new and improved, bigger and better item. Admittedly, that’s very tempting.

We seriously looked at bigger grills. We thought about going back to charcoal. Charcoal grills are much less expensive than propane. We thought about spending $300 on a nicer propane grill. Guess what? We decided to hang on to our old one.

I bought a new stainless steel burner for $20, and I’m going to repair it with my 13-year old son. It will teach him to conserve rather than dispose. When it wears out, maybe I will be more inclined to spend the big bucks on a whole new grill.

So, no new recipe today. I am going to throw some fajita meat (purchased, not prepared by myself) on my old faithful friend, and have Mexican night.

Happy Grilling!

Entry Filed under: Mixed bag, Philosophy, Table talk