Pellet Grills
vs. Charcoal Vs. Gas
vs. Charcoal Vs. Gas
The Rundown
Finding the outdoor grill that’s right for you is always an important choice for your home, your food, and your family - and friends if they ask nicely! Let’s look at 4 key factors when contrasting wood pellet grilling, gas grilling, and charcoal grilling, so you can see why pellet grilling is always the right choice.
Effort
The amount of work required to use your grill
Do you want to be sweating over your grill while everyone else is enjoying their time?
Experience
What to expect when you fire up your grill
From hot spots to fuel, there are some key issues you need to factor in when firing up your grill.
Flavor
How much added flavor you get from your grill
No one wants to be let down with dry, over-grilled, underflavored food at your neighborhood bbq.
Versatility
What cooking can be done on each grill
Grilling burgers is great, but can you also smoke ribs, bake a cake or even braise chicken on the same grill?
Effort
Pellet Grill
Fueling up simply requires adding naturally sweet-scented wood pellets.
The power source is an easy plug-in.
And effortless, touch-of-a-button electric ignition paired with wireless connectivity means there’s little difficulty when turning it on or off.
Enjoy the short learning curve for a grill that is notoriously easy to use.
Gas Grill
The grill has to be hooked up to propane tanks which eventually run out, sometimes mid-cook. Those tanks also have to be inevitably replaced or disposed of.
For start-up, gas grilling can offer instant ignition, but often these can fail. This leads to you handling a lighter around active gas, trying to not burn your hairs off when the grill sparks.
Gas grill heat monitoring is far from seamless. Most gas grills offer arbitrary scales that are prone to swing temperatures with only a bump. The guesswork can get tedious.
Charcoal Grill
Charcoal grilling is without doubt the most labor-intensive and messy of the three, from start to finish.
First, you need to gather the briquettes in an optimal pile, determine the best way to burn them down (fire starter, lighter fluid, separate chimney, etc.), light it and nurse it, and then wait however long it takes to get it hot enough.
In addition to a tedious start-up process, there’s a lot of ash to clean up. Let’s also say you need to add more briquettes mid-cook. That’s a mess, too.
Experience
Pellet Grill
Pellet grills offer reliable, even heat with “one and done” versatility.
Grillers enjoy success with multiple types of cooks. Temperature range is wide. Some grills go low and slow, while others burn high and hot, but at recteq, you’ll find grills that do both.
Accessorize with add-ons like sear kits or features like interior lighting, and you can make it possible to tackle any type of cooking you want.
Gas Grill
Typically, gas grills do not burn as hot as charcoal. Most fall short of pellet grills, too. The temperature control aspect inconsistently varies from grill to grill.
When cooking, gas heat releases steam. This might make your burger juicy, but leave it with no added flavor. Then you’ve got the possibility of significant flare-ups. That burger's juices will be long gone before it hits a bun.
Charcoal Grill
Charcoal uses direct heat as well as indirect heat.
You can get high heat if you burn the briquettes well or douse it in lighter fluid, but it means absolutely no temperature control.
Additionally, there aren’t many add-ons for charcoal grilling that improve versatility or reduce effort.
flavor
pellet grill
Wood pellet grills gives you all the balance of flavor you need to produce juicy, delicious wood-fire cooked food.
By constantly burning hardwood pellets, it creates the right amount of flavor and stable temperature for consistent results.
You can throw wind, rain, and cold weather at it, but its circulating smoke and heat will always evenly cook your foods to a well-rounded flavor and perfect texture.
gas grill
Gas grilling gives you less taste and virtually no added flavor when compared with wood pellets. Here, any flavor you get is from the food, not the grill.
If you want to inject flavor, you’ll need to invest in additions and add-ons, like side burners and smoke boxes. Of course, these cost extra.
charcoal grill
We get it. Some people like the taste of burnt carbon. Oops, we meant "charcoal flavor."
Die hard charcoal fans will say it’s the only way to get char-grilled flavors that come from wood fires.
However, the charred flavors can easily overpower the food or distract from any smokiness that might’ve been added. Then, there’s the problem with ash. Once cooked, you’ll need to scrape that off your food, unless you like a sharp, bitter seasoning on your chicken.
Versatility
pellet grill
With a wood pellet grill, you’ll be an expert at grilling chicken, beef, pork, seafood, and more.
But given the range of temperature, you can also add roasting, smoking, broiling, braising, baking, and searing to your repertoire. With even and controlled heat, it's as easy as an oven. When all is said and done, you’ll marvel at how simple it is.
Family and friends will rave about the smoky, wood fired flavors of your cooks.
gas grill
Sure, you can throw burgers and maybe wings on a gas grill, but uneven heat is not your friend when it comes to good food.
With only one grilling option, versatility with a gas grill is limited without additional accessories. No matter the length of the cook, you can forget about consistent results and wood-fired flavor. Also, the longer the cook, the more likely the gas goes empty, and the food isn't going to wait until you get back from the store (nor are your friends).
Even under the best circumstances, the flavor simply isn’t there.
charcoal grill
Charcoal grills can burn hot, and that works for maybe a good sear, but not so much for grilling or cooking foods evenly all the way through.
Unless you have a magic touch, any charcoal griller will tell you that it’s possible to have char on the outside of food and still be undone in the middle.
With charcoal grilling, it’s hard - if not impossible - to achieve “low and slow,” so you can throw that out the window.
Though wood flavors are touted by charcoal manufacturers, the strong aftertaste can often be overwhelming on the food. Char is one thing; wood-fired smoke flavor is another.
Can your grill do that?
The Win-Win Proposition of recteq
In the end, wood pellet grilling and smoking is the cooking method which offers the most flavorful, versatile cooks today. Your investment in a quality recteq wood pellet grill and hardwood pellets will pay dividends in low-stress, convenient, delicious cooking every single time you fire up to cook.
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