Charcoal tastes better IMO, but propane is infinitely more convenient
Charcoal represents a big time investment. Yields better results but the prep time and safety requirements are higher.
Vegetables taste way better grilled over charcoal, like holy shit. Broccoli especially, the fleurettes trap the smoke and taste amazing with some oil and salt.
both have their place, charcoal as others have said is a bigger time investment but I have found as long as I use a charcoal chimney and decent charcoal I can get the coals hot in and in the grill ready to go in like twenty minutes
Also smoking stuff is way easier with charcoal. I've smoked various things but possibly the best thing I ever did was a complete accident, I wanted to smoke some salsa ingredients as an experiment but I waaaay overdid it and the resulting salsa verde was overwhelmingly smokey. The revelation is that I put the incredibly smokey salsa verde into a silicon ice cube tray and froze it and kept a bag of turbo smokey salsa ice cubes. Making beans and want a smokey hit in them? Chili? Soup? Stew? Toss in a spicy salsa verde smoke cube and you're going to flavortown.
I do like hardwood lump charcoal but propane is much more convenient. I'd avoid briquettes because they can have nasty additives.
Also you can cook stuff directly on charcoal, it's not sooty like letting fat drip onto the coals from a grill suspended over it. I think soot has something to do with exposure to oxygen and incomplete combustion.
Charcoal is much better in my opinion.
I realize a big part of the experience of grilling is just cooking outside, but to me grilling on propane is basically the same as using the broiler on my oven.
I use charcoal because half the fun of grilling for me is making a fire.
Regrettably I’m echoing everyone else - propane is way more convenient but functionally adds nothing but grill marks to your food. Charcoal, or even worse a smoker, take longer but make a tremendous flavor difference. Also echoing @nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net that a chimney takes half of the time by superheating the coals in 20 min, so if you aren’t super committed to day-long smoking, it can be a couple hours
Chimney really is a game changer, and if you're cooking for one you can even get creative with just the chimney itself - I've done kebabs on mine for a quick(ish) work-from-home lunch with my work phone ringing off the hook
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