Looking to make your home the go-to hang out destination for the summer and other get togethers throughout the year? Getting a top-tier grill and mastering the art of cooking up a delicious meal for your friends and family is an easy way to edge out the competition when it comes time to pick who hosts. Between charcoal, gas, and pellet grill options, the debate wages on as to whether pellet or gas grills are the superior option. Here at IWAE, we say both have a place; the question is which is right for your place.

Flavor Showdown: How Pellet and Gas Grills Stack Up on Taste

Offering vastly different flavor profiles, pellet grills and gas grills are both a great option for different kinds of taste preferences. When it comes to picking the right option for your home, a good place to start is what kind of taste you’re looking to serve up for your loved ones.

Gas Grill Flavor

Gas grills don’t impart their own unique taste onto your food, the fuel source burning off to produce heat without any wood or charcoal to permeate flavor into your food. If you’re someone who likes to let your ingredients shine or someone who does not enjoy the savory smoke provided by other grill options, a gas grill is the perfect choice for your preferences.

Pellet Grill Flavor

Pellet grills, on the other hand, are the perfect option to infuse that delicious smoky flavor some people know and love into their proteins and other foods. Different flavor of pellets can give you a range of options to complement the specific food you’re cooking up for unmatched flexibility. From sweet options like apple and cherry, the mild addition of oak or hickory, and heavy smoke seasoning from mesquite pellets, your flavor palette can start directly at the fuel source.

Maintenance & Fuel: The Real Cost of Grilling Over Time

When it comes down to the nitty gritty of finances, there’s a few factors to take into consideration when you’re looking between a gas and pellet grill. Gas grills work with both natural gas and LP, meaning you’ll have to factor in the cost of your preferred fuel into the expense calculations. While there are always safety concerns when it comes to using gas, grills that run on gas are easy to clean to help mitigate the need for frequent maintenance. 

Pellet grills overall are a more affordable option to operate, though finding pellets can be a hassle depending where you live and what resources you have available. That being said, there are plenty of online ordering options for bulk purchase to keep your setup stocked. Similar to gas grills, pellet grills are also easy to keep up over time. Since pellet grills run on electricity, they are less portable and require a licensed electrician for some problems they may encounter.

Ease of Use: Which Grill Fits Your Cooking Style?

Are you a fast and furious kind of person, or a low and slow? When it comes to cooking, the style in which you handle your meat should play a heavy role in what grill you choose. If you’re looking to have something up and finished quickly with high heat, a gas grill may be just your speed. For low heat roasting that leaves your meat succulent and juicy with a delicious bark, there’s no comparison: a pellet grill is exactly what you need.

Heat Control & Consistency: What to Expect from Each Option

With each option boasting a different set of skills when it comes to cooking temperature and time, gas and pellet grills are designed to each do one style of cooking exceptionally well. If you’re unsure what each type of grill excels at, the breakdown of their strengths is surprisingly straightforward.

Gas Grill Heat

If you’re wanting a hard sear with those deep grill marks you picture every steak having, a gas grill is the right choice. The high heat is able to give you a quick cook time, but lacks the heat control to effectively work as a smoker due to the ventilation requirements. When it comes to heat consistency, gas grills tend to only struggle at the start of the process to find the right temperature; this means you may find your food quality suffering initially until you get used to getting the right temperature at the start.

Pellet Grill Heat

The right choice for anyone looking to set it and forget it, pellet grills are a great option to give you the consistency you crave. After getting the grill set up and heated to the temperature of your choosing, you can leave your brisket, whole chicken, roast, or other meal still and enjoy the spoils at the end. While pellet grills can’t do the high heat conditions that give you a good, hard sear, the consistency and ease of use they bring to the table is top-notch.

Get the Right Grill for your Outdoor Space with IWAE

Whether you’ve already picked between fuel sources and simply need to compare models or you’re unsure of which would still work best for your space, there’s no reason to let yourself get overwhelmed with the options. Here at IWAE, our customer service experts are always available to talk through your needs to find the perfect grill that will elevate your outdoor space to give you the functionality that you’ve been looking for. Ingrams Water & Air is never more than a call or message away from helping you make the most of your space, inside and out.