Propane smokers can grill food, but can't smoke food

How can you have propane smokers when propane burns without smoke? It is a clean fuel and produces red hot, dry heat. So how do you smoke the meat? You can't, if you are using the regular cooking methods.

However, there are several barbeque restaurants that add moist wood chips to the propane flame to produce smoke. This may bring in a "smoking" effect, but it is unlikely to satisfy the true barbeque connoisseurs. To them a smoker is one that uses charcoal or wood, and which cooks food slowly over ten to 12 hours at temperatures that are around 180 to 250 degrees..

The grill dealers may sell propane gas grills as propane 'smokers'. But you should not accept them as smokers unless you are satisfied with a hybrid form of barbequing as practiced by these fast food restaurants.

You should look at propane grills as a great way to broil or grill food. They can roast meat at temperatures of 700 degrees, and produce as great a cooking experience as any other grill. In fact, broiling requires meat to be cooked at temperatures close to 700 degrees. This can be done best with propane or electric grills.

Similarly a propane 'smoker' can be used to grill a whole chicken. Normally, this needs a little over an hour. But if the same chicken was to be grilled over a charcoal smoker it would take much more time. Also, the taste of the finished chicken will be quite different since it will have that unique "wood smoke flavor".

You must remember that barbequing has traditionally been done on wood fires. Propane gas can't duplicate the chemical reactions that occur in food when it is exposed to hot smoke for hours.