Barbecue enthusiasts know that choosing the right type of cooking first comes down to choosing the right fuel. How to choose between a gas barbecue and a wood barbecue? Each has advantages and disadvantages: a short guide to help you find your way around and choose … especially since both exist in a multitude of styles and they fit into all types of exteriors.
The advantages and disadvantages of a gas barbecue
Who has never fought to start a fire or to renew his stock of wood ignores how much a gas barbecue facilitates the installation and the lighting. The first advantage of a gas barbecue is that its lighting is very easy and quick, just like cooking food which takes less time than a wood barbecue.
Second significant advantage (especially for barbecue novices): the gas allows really good control of the intensity of the heat and therefore the uniformity of cooking. Finally, cooking on a gas barbecue would be healthier than that of its wood-burning colleague.
However, the gas barbecue should be sheltered as soon as it rains or it gets too cold. In addition, the cost of energy remains higher, especially if you are in the countryside and can store wood rather than having to invest in gas reserves. Care must also be taken to close the gas supply securely each time you use it, to avoid leaks and the dangers of gas.
In terms of taste, lovers of meat and vegetables grilled over a wood fire will not budge: the taste of cooking on a gas barbecue is more “neutral”, less fragrant.
The advantages and disadvantages of a wood barbecue.
The first advantage of a wood barbecue is the special and unmatched flavor of the meat or fish grilling on it. Of course, the cooking is often less uniform than on a gas barbecue, but it remains incomparable in the mouth.
In terms of conviviality, the wood-burning barbecue remains the most striking synonym of a good lunch or dinner with friends, with the flames, the battle to light the barbecue and the regular monitoring of the grills. A very convivial moment in prospect, which one does not find so much with other types of barbecue!
Financially speaking, the wood barbecue saves energy and therefore at the level of the wallet, especially if you live in the countryside or have a garden or land from which dead branches must be regularly removed. … That is to say to recover free fuel, or to have access to a stock of wood for the winter.
However, starting a fire easily is not for everyone, and many people prefer the ease of lighting other types of barbecues. Cooking can be longer and less controlled (with parts more or less cooked than others, for example).
But then, a wood barbecue or a gas barbecue?
It all depends on the environment of your garden, your taste preferences and your patience! If you are uncompromising with the authentic and convivial character of the barbecue, the wood-burning models are for you.
If you barbecues only occasionally, a gas model will suit you because of its ease of use and speed of heating.
