Lava Rocks in a Weber grill


 

Bruce

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
Is putting lava rocks a "thing" with Weber grills? I have heard of people converting them to charcoal, but I haven't heard of or seen one used with lava rocks. I had a guy come to buy a grill from me today and said he was probably going to put lava rocks in it. ??????

There would clearly have to be some kind of wire shelf for the lava rocks, no?
 
What grill you refering to ? People come up with crazy stuff. Probably had a grill with rocks and thinks they all need rocks.
 
Kinda what I thought. No wonder he needed a new grill. I asked him why he put lava rocks in it. I thought he would say for even heating but he said it was for flavor. I have never tasted a Lava Rock. Are they good? :)
 
Yep, I remember my wife (then girlfriend so many years ago) had a gas grill with lava rocks. That was before Weber invented the Flavorizer bar and put the lava rock cartel out of business. Lava rocks were nothing more than grease catchers resulting in flare-ups galore!
 
My kitchen's, built-in, Thermador 30" grill uses a bed of lava rocks as the burners underneath are open and unprotected.
 
My father had a NG grill on our back deck when I was growing up. I don't remember what brand it was, but it was permanently mounted on a pedestal. I remember him trying every latest and greatest gimick in that grill and especially the "Lava Rocks". I also remember the thing being a complete mess with uneven heating and flare ups were a given. Never the less, we grilled a whole lot of hamburgers on that thing. The only real problem was that you never knew if you were getting well done, rare, raw, medium or burnt on the outside, raw on the inside. It kind of made dinner interesting. And, I know the lava rocks didn't improve the results at all and probably made it worse.
 
Yep, I remember my wife (then girlfriend so many years ago) had a gas grill with lava rocks. That was before Weber invented the Flavorizer bar and put the lava rock cartel out of business. Lava rocks were nothing more than grease catchers resulting in flare-ups galore!

Chris, have you ever seen Weber's first gas grill that was styled to look like a kettle? Yep, it came with lava rocks..... and they did collect grease, and had some grease fires from the rocks.
 
I had several of those lava rock junkers, the last being a Coleman grill I bought because the side tables were on 45 degree angles (actually not a bad idea) and the grill fit perfectly in the corner of my deck at the time. Later, I “upgraded” to those ceramic pyramids. Another joke. I used to look whistfully at Weber grills back then, but they were out of my price range and that was before Craigslist, etc.

I eventually got my first Weber for free here in Florida after our two hurricanes in 2004. It was put out by the road after apparently having been smashed by something falling on it and also probably for just being pretty old. It was my very first lame attempt at restoring a Weber (redhead :redgenesis1:), but after hours working on the cast iron grates with hand tools, some paint and some new parts I finally had a REAL grill;)!

Why would I or anyone ever want to go back to LAVA ROCKS:confused:
 
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Chris, have you ever seen Weber's first gas grill that was styled to look like a kettle? Yep, it came with lava rocks..... and they did collect grease, and had some grease fires from the rocks.

That thing was the worst. My parents bought one and what a piece of caca.
 
Many very high end grills (Viking to name one) uses a combo of those ceramic "briquettes" and tents (flavorizer bars) and actually that combination works quite well. My BroilMaster had 2 different type things available and I tried them both. Briquettes and ceramic tiles. They each had different cooking results. The tiles were perforated plates and actually would act very similar to an Infrared (a REAL IR grill) not the CharBroil version. It would get small jets of flame and the tiles would glow red hot. Putting something down on that grill would sear in a flash. WAY WAY faster and better than anything Weber could do.
 

 

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