Cooking over real wood is great. It works well when I'm at a campsite. Propane is about $3 per gallon. I suppose you'd have to figure out how many BTUs you were using on the gas grill and go from there. Then again, I also buy chunks of wood for the smoker box. For steaks, I use an infrared grill. It produces extremely high heat. You just sear each side for a couple of minutes. The char marks on the steak taste like it was grilled over an open fire. I don't think this uses much propane because it's on for such a short period of time. There's some warm up time and some burn off time. That's probably the cheapest way to go. I think I paid about $800 with the stand for that grill.

I have a Brinkman Pro series 2600 gas grill and have a question. It has a porcelin heat sheild over the main burners. Do I need to use any lava rocks or ceramic briguettes on this to keep juices/fats from dripping onto the burners. Is there a product that you can recommend for this that you have found to be best? Thanks

How old is your grill? To the best of my knowledge, the newer grills no longer can accomodate lava rocks or ceramic briquets. I had an older Sunbeam that did, and when it died, I looked around and couldn't find any grills except for some made by Great Outdoors that could accomodate lava rocks. The new Sunbeams have a porcelain coated bar covering the burners that mimics the "flavor bars" of the Weber. I think they stopped using lava rocks to avoid flare-ups. I personally liked them -- it may have been psychological, but I think it gave it more of a barbequed taste. In either case, I just got a new Sunbeam, and there's no place for lava rocks : ( susan

Take a look at the Members Mark $599 model as well if you have a Sam's in your area (same manufacturer as the Kenmore). Since you indicated you would spend up to $1000 I would strongly recommend the Virco for $799 that you see in other discussion here. 32" grilling surface with 3 heat zones and a 4th side burner and 5th ceramic burner for rotiserrie. Comes with heating rack, and nice cover as well. All stainless thick stainless steel welded construction and pullout grease tray (easy to clean, but all SS if you want to do it later ;-) This is not rocket science and since the parts are fairly simple/straightforward components, name brand is not nearly as important as seeing how well it is constructed. If you don't have a Sams or Costco, then take a look at the JennAire at Lowes. A cut above the Weber grills that I could look at first hand. Stainless steel in alot of places there it needs to be there.