We?realize this may be a bit ‘taboo’ for some, but there are occasions where the convenience of smoking on a gas grill has its benefits and since we are here to teach you everything we know about smoking meats, we’d be remiss if we didn’t include a post about it for gas grill fanatics.

This post is for basic instruction on how to smoke, low and slow, on a Weber gas grill – specifically the Weber Genesis (but this would generally work on any gas grill in which you can control and monitor temperature).

The specific grill used for today’s instruction is pictured at the top of this post. It is a 2010 model of the Weber Genesis with the copper finish.

The first thing to do is to get everything setup for a nice low and slow smoke, prior to firing up the grill. We will be preparing this grill for indirect cooking by using the far left burner as the heat source and the far right side of the grill for the area where the meat will reside.

There are several to choose from, but you’ll want to get a smoke box similar to the one below and place it on the far left side, directly above the burner that will be running. These smoke boxes run from $9 all the way up to $50 depending on how fancy you’d like to get. This one was $9 at a local grocery store and works perfectly. Google or Bing the keywords “gas grill smoker box” and you’ll see all sorts of choices.   Like so:

Inside this box, you’ll want to put some wood chips.  This particular box lets so little oxygen in that it doesn’t require you to ‘soak’ the wood chips.? If you fill this box about 3/4 full of chips, you will get smoke for about 3 hours. They all run differently, so you’ll need to test it out to know how yours works for sure. Some will require you soak the wood chips in water for an hour or more. As with any cooker or cooking style, you need to practice and get the hands on experience of your own gear to ensure it runs just as you want it to.

Once you are all setup with the smoke box you are ready to fire up the grill.

Start by firing up ONLY the far left burner, on half power. Ensure your wood box is directly above this burner and shut the lid. Let the smoker run until you reach a temperature of 275 degrees, perfect for smoking chicken, ribs, brisket or pork on a gas grill. It will take?about 30 minutes to get up to this temperature, but it’s worth the wait. It’s easier to come up to the temp, rather than over shoot it and need to come down.

If you know you’ll need to run for more than 6 hours, ensure you have a full tank and a spare ready to go just in case A full tank should get you 10 hours or so, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

You can see the exact settings used here that got us to 275 in 30 minutes and stayed right there for a 2.5 hour cook for a whole 4.5lb chicken. We’ve tested these exact settings on this setup on a 75 degree day and it ran for 4 hours at 275, without any adjustment to the dials. Given these results, it can be expected you could run as long as the tank will last at this temperature, without an adjustment of the dials.

…and just the far left burner…

Now you are ready to cook using any of our, or your, meat smoking recipes – just as you wood on a WSM, Weber Kettle, custom rig or some other smoker.

A tip: If you are comfortable with it, try smoking your meat selection in a foil pan configured like it it below. Smoking meat can produce incredible juices and create a good mess if you aren’t careful. Cooking the meat in this pan will consolidate all the juices to it, reducing the mess in the gas grill – AND – giving you some juices to work with later as a mop, in your sauce, as a dredge or any other way you’d like to use them to finish off your product.

Best of luck and as always – let us know if you have any questions!

Bye for now – BBQ Revolution