How to Get Smoky Flavor with a Gas Grill? [FIND OUT HERE]

The difference between charcoal and gas grills is that the latter does not give your food an intense smoky flavor. Mark you, the main reason people smoke food in grills is to get the smoky flavor imparted on their food. So, how can you get a smoky flavor with a gas grill?

One can use several ways to get the smoky flavor with a gas grill. First, you can smoke the food out with charcoal on the gas grill or try cranking, which mimics smoke heat on the gas. Also, building up the heat on the gas grill will help you quickly achieve the flavor of your food. 

Here you will learn the various ways of achieving a smoky flavor with a gas grill. Keep reading to learn more and know the tricks to help you get an intense deep smoky flavor.

Flavor of Charcoal When You’re Grilling with Gas

As mentioned earlier, grilling on a gas grill rarely gives a smoky flavor to your food. Therefore, people tend to come up with different tricks to attain this. The following ways will help you get through the process successfully.

Mimic the Heat

Charcoal is most people’s favorite because it quickly gives temperature zones. How does charcoal work? It directly produces high heat over coals and gives medium heat away from charcoal. Therefore, it is easy to mimic such heat using your gas grill. Put your grill on high heat and part of the grill on very low heat. With this, there will be a high browning reaction on proteins in the food, thus translating it to a smoky-like flavor.

Use a smoker box

Get a smoker box that uses wood chips to smoke out some heat and produce smoke. The best thing about this is that you can use any wood chips flavor you love and have it all imparted to the food you are smoking. Put wood chips in a smoker box and place it on your gas grill. Put your meat or veggies on the grill, cover it with its lid, leave the wood chips smoke out, and impart enough smoke in your food.

Create the heat

Build up extra heat using a baking sheet. This is exclusively for charring the food you are smoking and imparting it with a smoky flavor. Before you start searing, slip an old baking sheet through gas grill grates and quickly let it char the meat or veggies for about thirty seconds before you remove it.

Step-by-step guide

The smoker box method is among the most common ways of getting the smoky flavor on your food. However, as said before, many other cheaper methods save time. Here is a step-by-step guide on quickly adding a smoky flavor to your food.

Also Read:

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This is a guide on how you can make a Just-so smoking packet:

1. Weigh an adequate amount of chips to use – Wood chips come in various sizes and chips based on the type of wood. Therefore, weighing them rather than measuring them with your eyes is essential. For instance, when you want to smoke for 40 to 60 minutes, get around 5 ounces of wood chips.
2. Soak a portion of your chips in water – This is essential because it delays when they start producing heat and smoke. Further, wood never catches fire while wet, so soaking ensures that the wood chips have intense smoke for the food. Also, soaking ensures that the produced smoke lasts longer as the wood will burn slowly, giving it more time. So ensure you have two sets of wood chips, the soaked and dry ones. The latter ones smoke immediately, and by the time they are out, the soaked ones will have started smoking, giving a continuous smoking process.
3. Cut your foil packet – There are various types of foil packets in the market. Remember that the kind of foil packet you use directly affects the amount of smoke absorbed in your food. Therefore, ensure you use and measure the right size for the purpose. Cut the foil packet to 8 by 4.5 inches. This is perfect for the purpose and fits well in a significant percentage of gas grills without blocking a lot of heat from the burner.
4. Only use enough foil – Ensure that you only use the required, which can only be folded once because folding it more than once. When you heat your chips in many layers of foil, they tend to prevent enough heat from reaching the woods, thus burning slowly or less hot. When the chips do not get hot, they will not produce enough smoke.
5. Spread the foil on a flat surface and pour the wood chips on the foil. Find a flat surface and spread out the foil to create a surface for pouring the wood chips. Carefully cover the chips with the foil with a single layer.
6. Make slits on the foil – Remember, you do not want your chips to light. You only need them to smolder so that they can produce smoke. Make precise slights 2 inches apart that are long enough to allow oxygen to enter and smoke the chips but not for them to light up. Use a knife to make these slits.
7. Put your chips on the gas grill and close the lid – Allow them to smolder and produce smoke imparting your food with the best smoky flavor.

Should you use lava rocks?

Yes, it would help to use lava rocks. However, it depends on your preference. Lava rocks can save you a lot of time, especially when grilling using a gas grill, the main advantage of these rocks is their ability to maintain a high temperature for a long time and evenly distribute heat. Here is why you should use lava rocks when grilling using gas grills.

Retains Heat for Long

Lava rocks ensure that your grill retains heat for a long time. It is natural and highly porous, enabling them to absorb heat quickly and remain with the same heat for a long time. Therefore, they produce heat that is absorbed into your food evenly.

Also read>> What Is The Best Grilling Apron? (Hygiene And Safety Guaranteed?)

You can Reuse them

The best thing about lava rocks is that you can reuse them repeatedly. Since these rocks do not burn, they absorb heat and heat the place. You can store them and use them in your next grilling session. All you need to do is cool them with water when you are done grilling until the next time you do.

Lava rocks Last Longer

Lava rocks are a product of hard basalt rock that is durable and lasts for an extended period. When using a gas grill, use these rocks for two years before replacing them. Why should you replace them? When lava rocks are used for an extended period, they start building up grease oils which have two effects on the smoked food: one, it tampers with the flavor of the food, and two, it causes food poisoning.

Final Thoughts

Most people love grilling because they want a smoky flavor in their food. However, some grills take time to impart these flavors, especially gas ones. Thus it is essential to understand the tricks that can quickly help you attain this. The Just-So method is more straightforward and cheaper but gives your food the best deep smoky flavor.