Simply put, it's a gas grill with a ceramic tile that has microscopic pores all over it. It focuses the heat, and gives you a much higher temperature than you might be accustomed to.
It will allow you to actually char a steak and leave it rare in the middle, the way it should be.
There are plenty of guides to effective infrared cooking on the interwebz.
I've got a Solaire portable infrared grill that I use when I need to cook just one steak, a couple of burgers or some hot dogs. Works great - the only gas grill I will use. It's all stainless steel construction but clean-up involves some disassembly to do it right.
If you've got a grill with the IR burner on the side, I believe that is for rotisserie cooking and should work well.
but clean-up involves some disassembly to do it right.
Is that something that should be done after every cook, occasionally, or once a year? When I do gas, I'm really looking for quick and easy. If it becomes as much work as a charcoal Webber, I might as well deal with the Charcoal.
The way I clean my (gas) grill is to run it up to like 500 degrees and then brush off the grill with a stainless steel brush. That's it. Takes about 5 minutes and then just set the temp and cook. Them fancy infer red burners sound like just something else to go wrong.(insert burnt chicken smiley here)
Under those are the corrugated/perforated infrared grilles.
Under those are the regular ol' LP flame burners.
I plan to treat mine like my old LP grille - clean it when food tastes funky or the smoke is so bad I can't get close enough to turn the meat over. As I said...food is already tasting better now that the grille has some seasoning going on (drippings from past cooking).