To Briquette or not to Briquette - That is the Question

[Brian Lieder]

A few years ago I used briquettes in my weber gasser. Then i cleaned out the inside of the grill, and threw them out, and never put more in. I think it robs the grill of heat, and potentially causes uneven temps at the grates. But last night i was thinking about how LP puts out a "wet" heat, and how briquettes might help that, sort of drying out the grill. What's everyone's opinion?

 

[LMichaels]

Don't bother. Really. There is a mod I did on my very old Genesis III. It has the deep fire box. I took out the top row of flavorizer bars and left on 3 bars from the lower portion (the ones over the burner tubes). From there I found a generic briquette/lava rock grate large enough to cover the entire area above the remaining bars. On this I placed ceramic flare buster ceramic plates. What this does is literally make the whole grill mimic a giant ceramic infrared burner. A side benefit is far less grease cleanup in the lower portion of the grill.

 

[Rich Dahl]

I think there's a reason briquette/lava rocks went away flare-ups being one of them and a few others. I really can't see any advantage to using them anymore.