Charcoal or Propane - Choose Your Destiny ?

Hey cynical! If I'm going to a BBQ I want my food "BBQ'D"!!! That to me means "CHARCOAL GRILLIN"! I may be old fashioned, but if I wanted my food cooked with propane then I could just cook it in my apartment over my gas stove! I want that charcoal flavor, just not that burned flavor! You just can't call it a BBQ if you are cooking with propane! And I think propane gives it a weird taste anyway! So give me a good old charcoal grillin' BBQ any old day! I still haven't had one yet this year! I have to talk my neighbor across the street to take out her little tiny grill and fire it up!

CHARCOAL CHARCOAL CHARCOAL! We have had both, but I prefer charcoal. The best charcoal is Matchlight because you don't need any lighter fluid - there is already enough on the coals to light the fire and then it burns off quickly so that the food doesn't taste like chemicals. One of the best investments I have made was a grilling basket. We are able to put fish and veggies in the basket and GOOD LORD you can't have a better light summer meal! Or, another tip that I love is to marinate some cleaned shrimp still in their shell in some MojoCriollo. Best to marinate those babies over night. Then skewer them and throw them on the grill as well. Sorry...can you tell I didn't have breakfast! To get back on topic, I prefer charcoal grills.

I definitely prefer the taste of food that's cooked over charcoal, no question. It's far more flavoursome than meat grilled on a gas cooker by a long shot. Many Aussie barbecues combine the 2 actually and have gas jets providing flames that sit underneath a layer of charcoal. Best of both worlds!

Propane is more popular only because people don't have to wait. For flavor, I prefer charcoal. I have 2 charcoal grills, one small and one big. I wouldn't consider owning a propane grill. As far as the 4th being a 'family' holiday, it's also my birthday weekend. Growing up it was always 'family' day for that reason. The one advantage is that I got to pick the activity. Needless to say, we always ended up at an amusement park, so I have a lot of good memories. Now I live half way across the country, so I miss it.

Why choose one or the other when you can have BOTH? My hubs does all the grilling in our family. We have a propane grill but instead of those lava rocks, it's filled with charcoal! So we have the best of both worlds. LOL

I was wondering the same thing about it becoming a 'visit the family' holiday! When I was a kid, it was solely a nuclear family affair. We might have lunch or a picnic with extended family in the same town, but that was it. On the fourth I went with my boyfriend to his grandmother's house (a 90 minute drive each way) and there were people there who hadn't even come to the Christmas gathering! But, I digress... I really don't like propane grills myself, as you said it's like cooking it on the stove. I also can usually detect a slightly odd chemical flavor on things cooked over propane, particularly chicken and fish. There's nothing that tastes better in my opinion than food properly grilled over coals. I think a big reason for the apparent popularity of propane is simply that many apartments and housing developments only allow propane grills. As we had it explained to us once (after being ordered to get rid of our 'dangerous' charcoal grill), charcoal is more of a fire hazard and as such only propane was allowed. I find the entire idea of this to be bull hockey. You know what happens when a propane tank explodes? A runaway hot coal is nothing compared to the destruction. I know that an exploding tank would be a rare occurance involving negligent use, but then so would any damage caused by a charcoal grill.

Charcoal every time Cyn. For the very reasons that you state. If you are going to use propane you might as well stay inside and use the kitchen cooker. As for 4th of July (how refreshing to see someone write the date in English) then all that I can say is that we don't do that over here. In fact we don't make much of the 4th of July at all. Wonder why?!!!!!! LOL.

I will ALWAYS prefer charcoal. Propane is just a mixture of grilling and stove-top cooking. Propane is a lot cheap than charcoal, in my area at least, so I use propane.