Charcoal BBQ vs gas: which should you buy?

Flavour: charcoal's biggest advantage

This is where charcoal wins, and it is the main reason people choose it. When fat and juices drip onto hot charcoal they vaporise and create smoke and flavour compounds that settle back onto the food, giving that unmistakable barbecued taste. A gas flame produces far less of this effect, so food cooked on gas, while perfectly good, tends to taste more like it was grilled indoors. Charcoal also lets you add wood chunks or chips for extra smoke, opening the door to proper low-and-slow barbecue. In our own side-by-side cooking, food from the charcoal grills simply tasted more barbecued, with a depth that the gas equivalents did not match. If flavour is your priority, charcoal is the clear choice, and a good kettle such as the Weber Master-Touch makes the most of it.

Heat and searing

Charcoal also reaches a higher searing heat than most gas barbecues. A good charcoal grill over a full chimney of lit coals comfortably hits 280 to 340 C at the grate, hot enough to put a deep, crisp crust on a steak in a couple of minutes, and a cast-iron-grated kettle like the Napoleon NK22CK-C excels at exactly this. Many domestic gas barbecues struggle to get much past 250 C, which is fine for cooking through but less good for a proper sear. Charcoal is also better for high-heat, ceramic-grade cooking like pizza, where a kamado can reach 370 C. Gas, on the other hand, gives more even, controllable heat across the whole grate, which makes it easier to cook a mixed load of food consistently. For searing power, charcoal wins; for steady, even heat, gas is the easier tool.

Convenience: gas's biggest advantage

If charcoal wins on flavour, gas wins decisively on convenience. A gas barbecue lights at the press of an ignition button and is ready to cook in a few minutes, with precise temperature control from a knob and an instant shut-off when you are done. A charcoal BBQ takes 15 to 25 minutes to light properly with a chimney starter, and controlling the heat with the air vents takes a little practice, though far less than people fear. There is also more to do afterwards, since charcoal produces ash to clear. None of this is hard, but it is undeniably more involved. If you want to fire up the barbecue on a whim after work with no fuss, gas is the sensible choice; if you do not mind a little ritual for the reward of flavour, charcoal is worth the effort.

Running cost

Running costs between the two are closer than people assume, and depend mostly on how often you cook. A bag of lumpwood or briquettes costs a few pounds and lasts several cooks, while a refillable gas bottle costs more up front but also lasts a long time. Charcoal grills themselves are usually cheaper to buy than gas barbecues of similar quality, since they have no burners, valves or ignition systems, so a quality charcoal kettle like the Char-Broil Kettleman costs less than an equivalent gas grill. A ceramic kamado such as the Kamado Joe Classic II is unusually fuel-efficient, using about half the charcoal of a steel grill. Overall neither type is dramatically cheaper to run than the other, so cost should rarely be the deciding factor; the choice really comes down to flavour versus convenience.

Cleaning and care

Gas is the cleaner of the two to live with day to day. After a gas cook you brush the grate and you are done; there is no ash. A charcoal BBQ leaves ash that needs clearing, although good designs make this painless, the One-Touch system on the Weber Master-Touch sweeps ash into a sealed catcher in three turns of a handle, and most kettles have a lift-out ash pan. Charcoal grills are otherwise simpler machines with less to go wrong: no burners to corrode, no gas valves to fail, no regulator to replace. Gas barbecues need a little more maintenance over the years to keep the burners and ignition working. So gas is tidier after each cook, while charcoal is simpler and more durable over the long run.