The fireplace equipment flame heats up the dispersers and the heat produced then cook the food. The juices and grease that drip on to the heat dispersers vaporize and the smoke generated flavors the food.
Gas barbecues have changed over the years. The first generation of gas grill used lava rock as their heat disperser. This Wilshire Fireplace Shop worked great, but lava rock is very porous so a lot of the grease was trapped in the rock rather than burning off. This caused a lot of flare-up which could burn your food if you weren't careful.
After lava rock came what is known as ceramic briquettes. Shaped like your typical charcoal briquette these stones were made of compressed pumice or ceramic material. Being less porous than the lava rock the result was fewer flare-ups when cooking. However, they still produce some flare-up.
Some people like flare-up so this isn't a problem for everyone.
You can even find different sizes and shapes of the briquettes. They don't have to look like a charcoal briquette to do their job. You'll find rods, squares, pyramids and even ceramic plates that look like dominos. They all do the same job. They just look different. I'll call them all briquettes to make it simpler.
Over years of use briquettes break down from the heat and start to crumble. This is where the difference lies. While you can buy a bag or box of some briquettes for about $20 some of the fancy shapes cost quite a bit more. Some are even sold individually. When you have 60 or more of these fancy briquettes in a grill it could become expensive to replace them when priced individually.
Enter Weber as a manufacturer of gas grills. Weber made charcoal barbeques for years when they entered the gas grill market.
Webers don't use any type of porous material for heat dispersers in their grills. Weber uses metal plates or Flavor Bars as they call them. They do the exact same job as the lava rock or ceramic briquettes. Because they are not porous there is virtually no flare-up at all.
Because of the success of the Weber some of the other manufacturers moved to the metal heat dispersers. You can find them in your entry level gas grill or in your professional, restaurant quality gas grill.
These metal plates also deteriorate over the years. The metal loses tempering from the flames and become brittle. It doesn't matter if they are made of steel or stainless steel. Eventually a hole will develop and these, too will need replacing.
If all manufacturers used the same materials in creating their barbecues you'd have nothing to compare to make your choice of grill purchase easier. Difference is needed so you can pick the right one for you.
