Whether you're a grill novice or a seasoned grill master, you may be looking for a way to kick your gas grilling up a notch. While gas grills are convenient and easy to control, they don't get as hot as charcoal grills and sometimes cook unevenly. Enter lava rocks.

​

Just as their name implies, lava rocks are types of volcanic rocks that are left over after a volcano erupts. Once they cool, lava rocks become hard and are exceptional at holding heat. Because of this, they can help increase the temperature of your gas grill and help cook the food more evenly.

Lava Rocks for Gas Grilling

If you want to use lava rocks, you'll have to convert a gas grill, not a charcoal one. Don't worry, though — it's an easy, straightforward process. But before jumping into what sort of gas grill modifications you'll need to make, it's a good idea to talk about what lava grill rocks are and why you might want to use them. One of the downsides of gas grills is that they don't get as hot as charcoal grills. They also don't impart the same smoky flavor that comes with charcoal grilling.

Lava rocks are a way to change that. Adding lava rocks to your gas grill can help increase its temperature up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The rocks help spread the heat evenly throughout the entire grill so that everything cooks evenly. The lava rocks also burn in a way that's more similar to charcoal, so the finished food ends up having a little bit of that smoky flavor, although not quite as much as you would get from charcoal.

If you're looking for a compromise and a way to get a little bit of the best of both worlds, you can add lava rocks to your gas grill with a few simple steps. First, you'll need an expandable grill grate that covers the full length of your grill's burner. Remove the cooking grates from your grill and secure the expandable grill grate on top of the burners.

Once the expandable grill grate is in place, completely cover it with a single, tightly-packed layer of lava rocks. After the lava rocks are set up, replace the cooking grates. Then, turn the burners on as usual, cover your grill, allow it to come to temperature and cook your food according to your recipe.

Another benefit of using lava rocks in a gas grill is that you can check your food while it's cooking without worrying about the heat escaping. When cooking with only gas, opening the cover allows heat to escape, lowering the inside temperature significantly. But, like charcoal, lava rocks hold onto heat. So, if you like to check on your food during the cooking process, there's no problem.

Read more: How to Grill Burgers on Charcoal and Gas Grills