When you guys are ready to move up to real flavor lose the pre-formed bricquets that are held together with creosote or whatever and build a fire using oak and pecan wood in your cooker. Start the fire with twigs and wood slivers instead of petroleum-based lighter fluid.
Needless to say, this doesn't work well in gas grills but the best tasting steaks come from real wood fires not gas grills.
Have a few beers or martinis or whatever turns you on and enjoy the fire and let it burn itself down to the coals and cook your meat over the real wood coals and you will never again want to go back to bricquets. Don't be in any big hurry, good flavor takes a little more time over a little lower heat.
The only flavoring I use is to generously coat the steaks in whatever kind of garlic I am in the mood for - there are many kinds and they all taste different and they all bring out the best flavors of the meat as well as kill any bacteria that may be on the meat - what's not to like?
I live on a ranch and we have all the mesquite wood we want but we prefer the taste of oak and pecan wood as the mesquite has a petroleum-like smell as it burns and it burns fast and hot whereas the oak and pecan burn slower and impart a more woody flavor in the meat than the petroleum-like flavor the mesquite leaves. Most people confuse that with the flavor of charcoal bricquets which impart a similar taste and consider it to be a good taste but when you remove the petroleum element and get a woodsmoke flavor, the difference is amazing.
The other main thing is we raise our own grass-fed, grass-finished beef and that is far healthier to eat than feedlot grain-fed cows that are laced with antibiotics because of the intensely unhealthy crowded conditions. We don't have any need to use antibiotics and we don't use endocrine-disrupting pesticides on our cattle, either. Grass-fattened cattle have high levels of friendly HDL cholesterol producing Omega-3 fatty acids and are actually healthy to eat compared to the high levels of LDL cholesterol-producing Omega-6's in feedlot cattle that are unhealthy to eat.
People owe it to themselves to look into grass-fed versus feedlot beef.
Happy grilling and happier eating to you all!
