For a long time, most people have used charcoal in cooking. Charcoal is a great fuel – it is readily available and inexpensive. Charcoal is still a source of energy in many societies. If you ask anyone who loves grilling, charcoal grilled meat is great.
Over the past decade, the use of charcoal has been considered a threat to the environment – so many trees are felled to produce charcoal. Even worse, the production and use of charcoal leads the production of smoke. This realization led to the invention of electric smokers. Electric smokers came to correct the shortcomings of charcoal. While the initial cost of a good electric smoker is higher than that of a charcoal smoker, electricity is considered clean energy – less waste to the environment.
No Felling of Trees
Production of charcoal requires trees – trees have to be cut. Tree logging is illegal in most parts of the world. Even in areas where logging is allowed, cutting trees in large scale is harmful to the environment. By going charcoal-less, and instead adopting electric smokers, you will be promoting the environment by ensuring fewer trees are cut down.
It takes many years to grow a tree to maturity. Replacing a tree lost to charcoal production is a gruesome process. A tree saved means less carbon on our atmosphere.
No Dust Produced
The world is moving towards ecofriendly fuel. This has elicited the need for ecofriendly production of charcoal – various materials (and not just tress) are used to produce charcoal. But even then, charcoal still produces a lot of dust. With electric smokers, there is no dust produced. Even better, you can have a large capacity electric smoker to meet the needs of a large crowd or a busy restaurant.
Unlike charcoal, where you have to wait until it gets red hot, electric smokers get hot almost instantly. With a charcoal smoker, you keep adding charcoal to your smoker. At the end of the grilling process, you will have used relatively more fuel that you would with an electric smoker.
Less Smoke and No Residue
Before charcoal becomes red hot, it produces a lot of smoke. When this smoke goes to the atmosphere, it adds to the carbon footprint. Good charcoal, especially charcoal made of other materials other than trees, produces less smoke. Even then, the little smoke produced still affects the environment. Electric smokers, the other hand, produce less or no smoke. Even the little smoke produced in these smokers comes from the food and not the smoker.
Electric smokers have no residue. Unlike charcoal which produces a lot ash, electric smokers are clean with no residue to deal with. If you grill meat a lot, the ash from charcoal can pile up. Piles of ash in your home can be challenging to deal with and can make your home unsightly.
When lighting charcoal, you might have to use gasoline. The use of gasoline is also not so friendly to the environment as it means natural resources are exploited. If you decide to not use gasoline and instead use pieces of wood or papers to light up charcoal, you will still be using more natural resources that can lead to deforestation. With the Amazon having been set to flames and its size reducing each day, any fuel that saves trees and nature is preferred.
An electric smoker only needs a switch and it is good to go – no other resources needed.
Use Relatively Less Fuel
How easy is it to control temperature when using charcoal? It is challenging but people still do it. You end up more charcoal – because you cannot control temperature – where you would have used less fuel. Electric smokers are easy to use and they allow you to regulate temperature to use as much or as little fuel as needed.
When you can use less fuel, you save the environment. After you are done using an electric cooker, you just switch it off. With charcoal, you are left with red hot charcoal that has no use.
Conclusion
Electric smokers are gaining popularity, and for a good reason – they are not only convenient but also eco-friendly. These smokers are easy to use, just a switch and they are good to use. You do not have a lot to clean up after barbecuing and the smokers are easy to control. The use of charcoal is reducing.
