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Notes -
Purely in terms of results, just the smoke flavor from charcoal. I know you said that you can replicate it with a brine or sauce, but I don't think it's possible. Other than the smoke aspect, there's nothing. When you get down to it, the grill is basically an oven, and anything you can do on the grill you ought to be able to do in an oven.
But honestly? I grill because it's fun. I love cooking outside, I love the big "FWOOSH" of fire that I get when using lighter fluid, I love playing with fire even when I'm not using lighter fluid. I also like developing the skill of working with my grill and getting consistent results. Yeah, I could cook burgers that are great in my skillet. But I would have a lot less fun doing it.
Burgers are pure grill beasts. The juices extruding in a pan are far too voluminous and I just end up boiling the thing. I have had surprising success with a wok smoker to infuse, but my best smoke result was liquid smoke soaked salt crystals torched onto a steak after the sear for full crustification.
My normal pattern is cold sear with flips every 20 seconds and resting every 4 minutes to let the temp even out or oven a big batch and then mass broil. The specific advantage is the exuded juices dripping out instead of staying in the pan and grey banding my meat.
Will bear in mind the specific utility of smoke, but southeast asian humidity does a number on briquettes and wood chips give an acrid burn unless I control it in a foil tray within a smoker. Ultimately seems a weber is looking less attractive save for satiating an animal male instinct.
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