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.

We love our wood pellet grill. Its a brinkman and purchased on line (don't know where). It was about $500 or more. We are able to buy wood pellets locally and have tried apple and hickory. You must ONLY USE wood pellets for grills NOT the kind for wood pellet stoves. I can take plain hamburgers add a little salt and pepper (sometimes not even that), cook on the grill and the flavor is amazing!!! My picky children and their friends love them. We have also done a turkey twice. The turkey cooks faster than we thought but flavor is great. It is very easy to operate. I never used our gas grill (that was DH's job) but now I use our wood pellet grill myself. We will never go back to a gas grill. Here is the first turkey we did and the grill. This post was edited by debrak2008 on Tue, Oct 8, 13 at 20:02

Deb, I always do a turkey breast only. I get them cut in half. Put garlic slices and sage leaves under the skin. Oil the skin slightly and put it skin side down on the grill for about 30 min. at medium temperature. Then, if the gas tubes run front to back, turn off the tubes on one side. Flip the breast over, move it to the cooler side and let it cook for about 1.5-2 hr. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't get over cooked. Looks like the weather isn't going to cooperate down here in Florida--predicted low 60's with 25 mph winds. I'll probably roast the turkey, but if it isn't nasty out there, I'll use the grill. Good luck! Grilled turkey breast is delicious!

Lazy G, I have to tell you a little tale about my experience with soil analyses. For decades I've been gardening without the benefit of soil tests, and have done pretty well just observing my plants and following my own intuition. Then last year I decided to get my soil tested. I sent in samples from some blueberry plants that I have growing in half wine barrels, as well as samples from my three raised beds. They came back saying that I had way too much of everything in my raised beds, and not to add any amendments for a while. I followed their advice and had the absolute worst gardening season of my life. My tomatoes never grew beyond my kneecaps, where past seasons have seen monstrous 10-foot plants laden with tomatoes from these same beds. My eggplants never grew much beyond the day I planted them. My onions were the size of golf balls. My raised beds were a complete bust. I yanked everything out of the beds, amended the soil with compost, manure, blood and bone meal, and started over with a late-season planting of corn, summer squash and sunflowers. The results are amazing. My raised beds are bountiful once again. On to my blueberries. The evaluation came back saying I had way too low a PH for anything to survive, and to remove the blueberry plants immediately and repot them in fresh soil. I never did find the time to repot them and I wound up having the very best blueberry harvest I've ever had. I'm not saying soil tests are nonsense, I'm just saying that following my own intuition in the garden has usually worked pretty well for me, while, in my experience, the soil tests I received weren't worth the paper they were written on. Your milage may vary. The reason I'm asking about ash in the garden is I've been using urine as a fertilizer and have seen amazing results. But the Organic Living article I read suggested that urine is low in potassium and that adding some wood ash would boost the number and quality of fruits and vegetables, so I thought it'd be worth a shot.