I have cooked on all three and the TEK IR is the only gas grill that cooks as well as charcoal. It's advantages over charcoal are that it is quick to set up, easy to clean up and does an excellent job of creating the charcoal taste. As many here know, the flavor is created by the smoke from the fat striking the hot surface be it charcoal or something else. The higher the IR energy (from gas or charcoal) and the less the flame, the more smoke generated rather than being turned into additional flame. The TEK creates a great deal of smoke because the IR glass sits between the flame and the dripping grease. On older style IR burners there is still an open flame to ignite the grease drippings reducing the amount of smoke to add flavor. With charcoal, once the embers are glowing red, it is emitting a lot of IR and much less to no flame and hence produces a lot of smoke and flavor. I have owned the FireMagic and I would not purchase another. The burners are cast SS but they still do rust over time and the flavor grills wear out too. They are very hard to clean and the heat was not anywhere near as good as the advertisements. If you are the type that never clean a grill and don't mind a gritty looking grill it may not matter. I am the type that wants it to look clean and inviting each time and the self cleaning feature along with the dishwasher removal panels makes the TEK a breeze to clean and keep looking nice. For me that was worth a lot. The more conventional grills like the Firemagic, even with their ceramic infrared burner are not even a close match.

>>"Their YouTube videos are great" You're kidding, right? They struck me as rather stilted and amateurish infomercial fare. I think they could use Vince the Sham-Wow guy to spice them up. Billy Mays is rolling over ... Do you want to replace your home grill with one of these things? One would probably be pretty cool so long as you have electrical power available outside where you grill. Being able to set the thermostat and walk away for 5 hours while your ribs cook at 190º is pretty awesome, but having to keep bags of wood pellets around is not. I am not sure that there is enough advantage to that to induce me to give up on my gas grill. Plus, I am not a fan of overly smoked meats; there is enough flavor in the smoking a haunch gets over the course of a few hours in the grill to suit me. What I wonder is what is the quality control of wood pellet ingredients? Aren't they designed for use as heating fuel? Do they use bizarre chemicals in the manufacturing process that could get into the food? Selenium Burgers!

We went to a couple of barbeque places today and ending up buying the extra large Big Green Egg, and I think we will be very happy with it. Kevin thinks it will be great for parties, and now it will be even easier for us to cook for a crowd. Since we now have three charcoal grills, we can use separate grills for separate dishes which will make it easier for us to make multiple dishes at once, even if they require different temperatures. We also have the electric smoker, and I have to say that we get a more intense smoke flavor from that than we do from the charcoal - or at least it permeates the meat more. For smoking chilies, only the charcoal will do the job the way I want it. The BGE that we bought also has a pizza stone and can be used for grilling pizza - something that I've been wanting to do since first visiting the pizza making forum. We bought some outdoor lights for our pergola, and I think they will provide way more light than we required, but at least we can lower the wattage when we want to. I haven't bought anything for lighting the fountain yet because I want to have that installed by an electrician on an exterior wall of the house. I'm hoping to light much of the back yard that way and have it on a dimmer. I don't really want underwater lights in my fountain at this point but will talk with the electrician about that. I'm thinking that I will get my yard lit in stages and start off with getting some outdoor outlets installed at strategic points so that lights could be hooked up later. We went out for dinner this evening because I wanted sushi! We haven't assembled the Big Green Egg yet. Lars

Hi, We got old grills left by previous owners. We thought we would replace the grates but seems grates themselft are super expensive. We have kingsford charcoal grill and char boiler (smoker). Now I am completely new to grill owning, just ate and may be cooked a little on grills but never owned before. So do you think it is economic to throw these 2 and get a new one? My spouse wants newer one may be less cheaper but I feel dumping itself is a pain and this is probably good quality grill. Any suggestions.