I’ve been looking at gas grills ~ presently don’t own one, but have lived with one and miss it. I have gravitated toward Weber and am caught between the Weber Q 300 and the Spirit E 200. Each runs about $300. The Q has cast removable iron grates, & the Spirit has porcelan ceramic grates, also removable, but has added advantage of raised warming rack. Cooking areas are about equal, each has stainless burners, each accommodates tanks. I’d appreciate feedback from any backyard grillers re: grills you are familiar with (pluses/minuses), especially if you have one or the other of above. Thanks ~
OK, I have a Weber
It’s an older version of the 310 with the cast grills. It works great!! It has very even heat, good control from low to high. All in all an excellent grill.
They all seem to cook food
Had a cheapo ($80) k-mart grill for about 7 years now and it’s incredibly cheap to maintain and replace the parts. Cooks everything the $500 grills cook: steak, chicken, burgers, hot dogs, corn. It’s big enough for what we do and it stays under a cover 95% of the time, so the cheaper look is not important to us.
If you do a lot of cooking at once, you might want a bigger surface, but other than that you are mostly paying for the prettiness (which is fine). The Webers do look nice.
Get something you like and start grilling.
jim
Spirit
I have the Q and had a Spirit. I recently upgraded from the Spirit to the Weber Genesis.
Between the Q and the Spirit, I’d say get the Spirit. Grill room alone is a good reason. The sloping sides on the Q’s lid cut down on usable space if you are grilling larger cuts, or beer can chicken and similar things.
The grate on the Q is also a real pain to clean. Finally I find that the Spirit’s surface heats more evenly. With the Q, food on on parts of the grill burn, others are still uncooked.
Forget it, cook with wood, much better
I’ve a gas grill, not my favorite. I’ve been reduced to putting chunks of wood in pans and doing it the old fashioned way to get any flavor in the meat.
I could control heat a lot better with my old charcoal/wood grill than with a gas grill. It is fast, I’ll give it that, but after 7 months, I’m ready to chunk it. Have to say, its great for lighting the wood.
I prefer wood
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I prefer wood (actually hard wood charcoal)and I use both. Wood when I have the time and gas the rest of the time.
The thing is that by the time I get the wood going and ready for food, I could be done cooking on the gas.
I can also add some pretty good flavor to the food on the gas grill by adding some woods chips in aluminum foil, poking holes in the top and setting it on a burner.
Wood is not a problem
It takes wood charcoal 20 - 30 minutes to be ready. So don’t you guys have any food prep to do?
I put the steak in a bowl with some Worstershire, salt and pepper.
Then I get the charcoal chimney going.
Next you prep the vegetables and potatoes.
Done with that - time for a beer before the grilling starts.
I really don’t see how a gas grill is faster.
How do you cook w/ wood on a gas grill?
I’m interested. One half of my HUGE apple tree just fell down (a longer story, but almost claimed my wife falling - she got out of the way seconds before it landed where she stood in the garden weeding). I have tons of twigs, sticks, branches and logs from that thing. I hate to waste good apple wood on decorative fires, but I’ve nearly given up on the smoker box I bought a few months ago (looks great, but can’t sustain a temp above 175F) so if I could cook w/ wood on my SS gas grill, that would be great double duty (I’ll never give up gas completely - too convenient).
How do you do it and how do you handle the ashes, ie., collection and cleaning them out?
YoS
For the first try, I bought a couple of
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disposable aluminum baking pans, put wood chunks, not big pieces, one of them after poking holes. I had a brisket that I wanted to have a smoke flavor. I cooked it over the wood chunks for about 2 hours, finished it in, believe it or not, in a crock pot...5 hours. Tender and smoked flavored.
Next time, I'm buying a couple of rectangular deep pans like you bake bread in, poking holes in them, and putting them on each side of the grill. Fill 'em with wood chunks, fire 'em up with the gas, turn the gas off, and let 'em smoke. My brisket did partially cook over the wood, maybe 1/3 before I took it off, all the way on the thinner ends. But, the pan was a bit too big to get the brisket away from the direct heat, or the brisket was too big. The bread pans are narrower and will allow me to cook with wood as I prefer, each side of the meat, not directly over it.
The gas grill is great if I want it fast. My grown boys love it. But, I prefer the flavor of wood or even good charcoal. the pans will keep the ashes from getting all over the grill, though you will get some, hard not to. The pans will be uncoated, not the no stick.
Anyway, this is still experimental. If it doesn't work like I believe it will, I'll either get me another wood/charcoal grill or try cast iron for the wood to sit on. What I didn't like about the disposable aluminum pans is the burn through at the bottom, creates more mess.
The chips burn too fast and don’t impart
much smoke flavor. But, then, I’m a native Texan and we, along with our Louisiana brothers and sisters, like a good smoky flavor.
Well, one thing that gave me a really
good result, was a combination of the smoker box and gas grill. First time I used it, I had Cowboy Charcoal (all hardwood charcoal) and small chunks and twigs of apple wood. The recipe I was following for Citrus Smoked Chicken called for 2 hours at 225F. I never could keep the temp in that box over 175F consistently. Well, after 2 hours, guests arriving, chicken still pretty raw, I gave up, threw them on the gas grill for about 10 minutes to finish them off, and MAN!!! They were awesome. Just enough smokey flavor, but not overpowering. Very nice.
I tried ribs once. 6 hours at 150-175F. They were tough, tasted way too strong and nasty, despite being barely done. I’m going back to my oven/steaming process for ribs. Why mess with what I and my family like anyway, right?
YoS
Craiglist
I pick up all my grills there. Weber Performer $50. Weber Baby Q 100 $15 including propane tank adaptor and a full size propane tank (full) plus Q 100 stand/
Ribs and brisket need a long, slow
cooking time. The time before when I cooked a brisket, did it first on my old charcoal grill with wood, then 20 hours in the oven at 200 degrees, very good. But, the crockpot also did a good job. It was an experiment. Nice thing about the crockpot, it didn’t heat the kitchen up like the oven, not that the oven, a new one, does either.
Metal smoker boxes
do work a little, but the key is to keep the wood from flaming up and burning. You want it to smolder and you have to limit the oxygen to get good results. And it seems to work best off to the side of the main grilling surface.
Don’t set the hot metal box on a wood surface afterwards. 
Enjoy.
jim
Great Smokey Mountains.
Has a LP smoker that wallyworld sells for around $100. That was the best money I’ve spent for a smoker, you set it and forget it. Temp goes all over the scale and is easy to set at 225. Big box and front door uses a water pan also, Great food has come out of it.
You can’t go wrong with Weber,
we bought a Spirit 310 last year on sale and it is fantastic. The quality of build is so much better than the others we looked at. Here is a good article:
http://bbq.about.com/od/gasgrills/tp/aatp042403.htm
DON’T BUY JENN AIR
I BOUGHT A JENN AIR STAINLESS BARB-Q AT LOWES FOR $700. IT HAS A LIFE TIME WARRANTY.THE BURNERS ROTTED OUT IN TWO YEARS, WHICH I ONLY USED 5- 20LB PROPANE TANKS.NOT VERY HEAVY USE. THE SCAM IS THEY CHARGE YOU AN INSANE SHIPPING CHARGE OF $60 WHICH IS THE SAME PRICE AS IF I BOUGHT THEM. SO BEWARE OF SO CALLED LIFE TIME WARRANTIES.
Waterbuffy found a little gas grill
at Walgreen’s , of all places. It is perfect for taking on paddling trips if you have a canoe.
gas grills
Well, today was a winner, although paddling didn’t enter into the day (that was yesterday!) Today was spent enjoying a local house and garden tour, and then, just under the wire, purchasing a new gas grill at the close of a tax-free weekend!
I appreciate the input from those who had some experience with the grills I was looking at, and also the fun exchanges of others. As well, smoking food piqued my interest. Oh, the smaller Spirit won out 