There’s nothing more the hearty American likes on a Sunday night. Can You Smoke Meat On A Gas Grill?.
It’s blazing up their grill and barbecuing up some juicy, red meat. As a result, a fine gas grill is a must have lawn / backyard buddy to make your weeknights even more fun with friends and family. Gas grills unlike charcoal grills make your grilling game a lot easier.
With no hassle of burning coal, little time to heat up and ignite and the ease of controlling the level of heat, gas grills are the real deal.
For those who don’t like their meat just grilled but smoked, gas grills do an amazing job for them too. Let’s read further to know how you can fantastically smoke delicious meat on your gas grill and bless your taste buds on weekends.
Smoking On A Gas Grill: Is It Possible?
If you thoroughly enjoy smoked meat, it must be enthralling to know that your gas grill can do a fine job of smoking red meat. Starting from ribs, shoulders, sirloins and briskets, gas grills can smoke a wide variety of cuts of meat to perfection.
In order to get the most beautifully flavorful smoked meat, the key ingredient you need to add to your grill is wood chips.
Yes, different flavors of wood chips are smoked inside the grill to infuse fancy tastes inside your meat. Wood chips come in various aromas such as mesquite, hickory or apple amongst which hickory is the most popular choice.
The reason why using wood chips to smoke meat is so desirable is because wood chips release an amazing set of tastes to the meat and totally change the game. Moreover, smoking the meat causes the collagen and fats to break down and melt compared to grilling, resulting in an even juicier and tender portionof meat.
Considering these mouth-watering smoky aromas, if you want to enjoy your meat beautifully smoked and charred, here’s a few ways you can do so using your gas grill:
- Use a smoker box: smoker boxes are usually rectangular steel boxes used to hold wood chips inside. They can either be bought from stores, or you can simply make one on your own with the help of some simple kitchen accessories. Some gas grills even come with a built-in smoker box where you can easily place wood chips, pull the hood down and smoke right away.
If you don’t have the built-in smoker box, you can build your own. It’s absolutely child’s play.
- Place a rectangular sheet of aluminum foil on a table top. Place your preferred flavored of wet wood chips on the foil
- Fold all the sides while keeping the wood chips inside to make a rectangular box like structure. Make sure the folds are secure and won’t let air escape from the box.
- The box should look like this in the end.
- Now, with a knife, make incisions on the foil smoker box. This will help the smoke come out of the wood chips once they are heated up on the gas grill.
- Once the incisions are made, the smoker boxes are now ready to be put on your grill. Raise the grills and place them underneath.
- If you want your meat to get really intensely smoked, place about four of the smoker packs beneath the grills. That way, your meat is going to scream with smoky deliciousness!
- Next turn the fire on and heat up the wood chips till they give off their aroma. Don’t forget to close the lid of the grill.
- You can even pop in a probe thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature from time to time. It’s far convenient than eye balling the temperature and reduces the chance of burning your food.
- Use the built-in smoker: using a built in smoker box is a piece of cake. It’s usually already set on the burner of the grill. All you have to do is put your wood chips in the box, close the lid of the grill and heat it to your desired smoking temperature. Once the wood chips starts to smolder, place your meat inside the grill and close the lid again for the aromas to infuse inside the meat and give your taste buds an amazing gastronomical experience.
Can You Smoke Meat On A Propane Grill?
Although grilling and smoking meat may seem like the same task, there is actually a good deal of differences between the two methods. Preparation, equipment, effort, time and flavor. It required for smoking doesn’t quite cut it for grilling.
Smoking on the grill requires slower cooking by keeping the grill door closed at all times. On the other side of the spectrum, grilling requires a higher amount of heat on a shorter period of time. Its bring the meat to perfectly grilled texture we all crave for.
To cook the meat, grills use either one of the method from using charcoal, gas or wood under the grill. If you use the process where the meat is immediately above the flame, the meat is cooked literally in no time at high temperatures between 400 to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.
On the other hand, indirect grilling uses lower temperatures between 190 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit for a longer while. After all, searing and creating the crispy crust on both sides requires a high amount of heat.
Undoubtedly, propane used by the gas grills are ideal for this purpose. That’s coz propane heats up fairly quickly. Setting the proper temperature and altering it depending on your needs is a really simple deal with propane grills too, thanks to the easy to use dials on them.
Coal grills on the other hand can be a long, arduous process as the coal requires a much longer period of time to firstly heat up and later grill the meat. So if you’re feeling famished, heating up your coal grill can literally feel like eons passing by!
Since you have no knobs or dials to deal with to set the temperature on coal grills, you’re also going to have a hard time controlling the temperature and constantly look after your meat like a baby.
However, smoking meat on a propane grill does require more precision and practice. So, for beginners, it’s better to start with grilling and later move on to smoking.
It must also be ensured that your wood chips are constantly burning. If the temperature gets too high, it could leave the exterior of the meat cooked but the insides may still be undercooked.
Another thing to keep in mind is that once you switch on your propane gas grill, after you have heated it up, it’s wise to clean the grills with the help of a brush before starting the smoking process.
Since most of the flavors from the wood chips are released around the area closest to the smoker box, it’s best if you place the meat nearest to the box so it can absorb the optimum flavors from the wood chips.
So the next time you’re craving some yummy mind blowing smoked goodness, you know your propane grill is the one to count on.
