There are 2 types of Gas Barbecue. The first type uses LAVA ROCKS, and the second type uses FLAVOURISERS. With lava rocks, the fat from the food drips onto the rocks and often catches fire meaning you have to constantly move the food away from the flames to stop the food from burning. With flavourisers, the fat drops onto the flavourisers which protect the burners ensuring there are no flare ups meaning the food is cooked more gently. There is no difference in taste of the food from either method, other than the food from the lava rock barbecues is more burnt – which has led to the sad fact in the UK that people think that the barbecue flavour is a burnt flavour–which it most certainly is not!
Many people use smoke boxes with their gas barbecues – as the box heats up then they emit flavoured smoke – again these work well with the Gas BarbeSkew BBQ due to the fact that the meat stays very moist due to the rotation (think about the rotisserie chickens from the supermarket and how moist and tender the meat is), and the moisture then absorbs the flavoured smoke. We recommend the smoke boxes from Planet Barbecue http://www.planetbarbecue.co.uk/shopwoodchips.html
In fact nowadays, most barbecue manufacturers have ceased producing lava rock gas barbecues as their use is viewed as being Philistine. All the mainstream barbecue manufacturers only produce barbecues with flavourisers. At BarbeSkew, we are committed to putting forward the view that barbecuing is not about burning the food but about producing moist tender food with the moisture absorbing the smoke which gives the food the “real” smokey barbecue flavour as opposed to the burnt flavour.