To start with: this comparison has no definite winner as it all comes down to your preference – space, price, cooking style, durability, and many more. Plus, both grills – gas grill and pellet grill – are two entirely unique types of grills.
Back in the day, purchasing this product was an easy and effortless task. There were a few brands known to deliver top-notch products, and you don’t have to bother much about which brand offers the best quality within your budget constraints.
But now, the market is filled with a wide range of grills. However, if you’re looking for an easy to use and versatile grill without any challenges, then you should consider a pellet or gas grill.
Here in this article, we will be considering the difference in both types of grills to help make a better choice. Therefore, let’s check out the pros and cons of the pellet and gas grills.
Gas vs Pellet Grills – Comparison
While pellet and gas grills share many similarities, but they differ in several ways.
Without further ado, let’s take a closer comparison at several factors necessary for deciding what grill to purchase.
Impact on Flavor
Cooking on a pellet grill has to do with burning wood pellet, which is entirely made up of compressed sawdust. Simply put, you’re cooking with just wood. Without questions, this grill offers that distinct smoky flavour to make your food mouth-licking.
Sadly, the gas grill lacks in this aspect, as cooking on a gas grill will not offer that lovely smokey flavour. Instead, your meat will take nothing more than cooked meat. However, if you want any added flavour when cooking with gas, then you should consider adding applying seasons first.
Cost
In terms of price, gas grills come with affordable price tags and the top models can go luxurious prices. However, you can get a good deal buying a used unit in your neighbourhood.
On the other hand, pellet grills are much more expensive than gas grills. Even the model’s cheapest unit will still cost you about half a thousand dollar at your local big box store.
Operating Costs
Pellet grills basically need just electricity and wood pellet to function. The amount of pellet used depends on your cooking temperature and size if your model. The hotter your fire and the larger the pellet grill, the more pellets you burn.
Similarly, gas grills are designed to cook your food using propane or natural gas. The numbers of grilling you can do with your gas tank depends on the cooking temperature and the size of your gas grill model.
Ease of Use
Both grills have almost the same fire management and startup techniques. The pellet smoker makes use of a button to get started, while gas grills have to do with igniting the propane.
Further, increasing and decreasing the cooking temperature, pellet grill requires customising the settings, while the gas grill requires turning up or down the burners.
But here comes a different story. Cleaning up might come with a bit of challenge especially when cleaning between the cooking grates and the fire pot. Many users wrap the fire pot and cooking grates with aluminium foil to avoid the mess.
But for a gas grill, instead of wrapping aluminium this product comes with flavorizer bars which catch dripping food and fat. No matter how hard you try to cook without lots of carbon, you will have to do a deep cleaning at least once a year.
Versatility
To start with: both gas grill and pellet smoker are easier to grill or smoke on. With that said, most gas models are less challenging to set up; all you have to do is add wood chips and adjust temperature knobs. While the food might not taste as great as cooking on a smoker, it will work just fine.
More so, a wide range of pellet grills can attain a high temperature of 500 Fahrenheit, and even more; thanks to the help of products like GrillGrate.
Temperature Range
Pellet grills are programmed to cook your food at low and slow temperature for an extended time, but can also go as high as 500 Fahrenheit if you love to grill your meat directly.
Likewise, most gas models can easily manage low temperatures such as 225 Fahrenheit and as high as 600 Fahrenheit, which totally depend on the number of burners and their equivalent BTU.
Temperature Control
Although we’ve discussed a bit about how to control and manage their temperature. A pellet grill provides constant steady temperature because it’s controlled electronically, while a turning the knobs after lightning the gas burners controls the gas grill.
Run Time
Gas and Pellet grills have a different runtime based on a lot of variables. Using a pellet grill, your cooking temperature depends on the number of pellets burnt per hour.
A gas grill, on the other hand, the amount of gas (propane or natural gas) per hour as to do with the number of burners you are using, their respective BTU’s, and temperature at which you are cooking. However, in my experience, most gas grill with a 20-pound tank should cook for about 20 hours.
Sadly, with gas grills knowing if you’ve enough fuel to cook on can be confusing to some users. But here is a trick to know the amount of fuel you have left, just pour some warm water over the propane tank; the part of your tank that is filled with propane will feel cold when you touch.
Now, you can easily decide on whether you should get more gas before cooking or if whatever is left will be sufficient to cook your food.
Extras
The most manufacturer often includes aftermarket toys for their customers to purchase for improving their grilling experience with their products. A wide range of pellet grills come with an option that allows grill lover to cold smoke at 100 Fahrenheit to 150 Fahrenheit and includes smoke flavour to cheese and other foods.
Furthermore, some models have other extras such as shelve which is added to the cooking chamber to increase your cooking space for prepping your food.
Similarly, gas grills have some aftermarket toys you can purchase for better grilling experience. Examples include cleaning brushes, rib racks, pizza stones, and many more.
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