The bbq photo & recipe thread
Discussion
Good chance the Aldi deal will repeat next year as they had them last year too...
Kept it simple tonight with some co-op “still fresh” fillets on the Kamado Joe with garlic butter on top and asparagus and onion on the side, tremendous:
Excuse the green mould on the bbq! Now finishing up a homebrew with the chimnea on so I can pretend it isn’t freezing cold!
Kept it simple tonight with some co-op “still fresh” fillets on the Kamado Joe with garlic butter on top and asparagus and onion on the side, tremendous:
Excuse the green mould on the bbq! Now finishing up a homebrew with the chimnea on so I can pretend it isn’t freezing cold!
Jambo85 said:
Good chance the Aldi deal will repeat next year as they had them last year too...
Kept it simple tonight with some co-op “still fresh” fillets on the Kamado Joe with garlic butter on top and asparagus and onion on the side, tremendous:
Excuse the green mould on the bbq! Now finishing up a homebrew with the chimnea on so I can pretend it isn’t freezing cold!
Cracking view.Kept it simple tonight with some co-op “still fresh” fillets on the Kamado Joe with garlic butter on top and asparagus and onion on the side, tremendous:
Excuse the green mould on the bbq! Now finishing up a homebrew with the chimnea on so I can pretend it isn’t freezing cold!
Some low and slow set up advice needed:
Having bought our first house back in October, a good BBQ was one of my top priorities. I bought a Napoleon Pro 22K, which is pretty much a Weber Mastertouch with a nice feature where you can drop the height of the cooking grill down toward the coals for whatever reason.
I did my first low and slow cook on Saturday - a pair of slabs of babybacks cookined indirect, following the recipe and cooking guide from Let There Be Meat! - the book from the Red's True BBQ restaurant owners. They turned out great - best ribs I've ever had, but I found I needed to nanny the charcoal most of the time.
I used the CPL restaurant lumpwood charcoal (from the big blue 12kg bags) in a single coal basket. My problem was keeping the temp low enough down at 120degC throughout the duration. I found that a single decent sized piece of lit lumpwood taken from my chimney starter was enough to get the temp up there, and would shut my bottom vent down to 25% open and the top vent down to 50% open to try to maintain it, but no amount of control with the top vent could stop the temp from eventually creeping up.
I had tightly packed my baskets with cold coals, and left a small gap in one corner to put the lit chunk hoping to use a Minion-type method. Over time though the heat would spread across the entire bottom layer of the coal basket, rather than work its way through entire chunks left to right. This then meant that all the coals on top were starting to take at the same time, and the heat just go too intense. I got to the point where I was often lifting out lit coals and replacing with far fewer cold coals just to keep me going for the 4 hour cook time. Even still, I only really used like 2 handfuls of lumpwood the entire time. On one had this seems really economic, but the amount of intervention required to keep the temp down was far too much to bother with doing a 12hr brisket or the like in future.
I see a lot of poster's photos here and it looks like their grills are half full of ashed coals. If my BBQ looked like that I'd have temperatures in the 220degC+ with both vents pretty much completely shut over.
I plan to experiment with briquettes next instead, relying on their uniformity to see if I can get more of a chain reaction going with one coal after another, rather than the whole lot inevitably going up. Any other PHer's tips for managing coals, keeping temps low, and semi-self sustaining would be really interesting!
Having bought our first house back in October, a good BBQ was one of my top priorities. I bought a Napoleon Pro 22K, which is pretty much a Weber Mastertouch with a nice feature where you can drop the height of the cooking grill down toward the coals for whatever reason.
I did my first low and slow cook on Saturday - a pair of slabs of babybacks cookined indirect, following the recipe and cooking guide from Let There Be Meat! - the book from the Red's True BBQ restaurant owners. They turned out great - best ribs I've ever had, but I found I needed to nanny the charcoal most of the time.
I used the CPL restaurant lumpwood charcoal (from the big blue 12kg bags) in a single coal basket. My problem was keeping the temp low enough down at 120degC throughout the duration. I found that a single decent sized piece of lit lumpwood taken from my chimney starter was enough to get the temp up there, and would shut my bottom vent down to 25% open and the top vent down to 50% open to try to maintain it, but no amount of control with the top vent could stop the temp from eventually creeping up.
I had tightly packed my baskets with cold coals, and left a small gap in one corner to put the lit chunk hoping to use a Minion-type method. Over time though the heat would spread across the entire bottom layer of the coal basket, rather than work its way through entire chunks left to right. This then meant that all the coals on top were starting to take at the same time, and the heat just go too intense. I got to the point where I was often lifting out lit coals and replacing with far fewer cold coals just to keep me going for the 4 hour cook time. Even still, I only really used like 2 handfuls of lumpwood the entire time. On one had this seems really economic, but the amount of intervention required to keep the temp down was far too much to bother with doing a 12hr brisket or the like in future.
I see a lot of poster's photos here and it looks like their grills are half full of ashed coals. If my BBQ looked like that I'd have temperatures in the 220degC+ with both vents pretty much completely shut over.
I plan to experiment with briquettes next instead, relying on their uniformity to see if I can get more of a chain reaction going with one coal after another, rather than the whole lot inevitably going up. Any other PHer's tips for managing coals, keeping temps low, and semi-self sustaining would be really interesting!
Wrathalanche said:
I plan to experiment with briquettes next instead, relying on their uniformity to see if I can get more of a chain reaction going with one coal after another, rather than the whole lot inevitably going up.
Are you aware of the snake method? Using this set up with briquettes will give you a much more controllable low temp burn.
jimmybell said:
before i pull the trigger - anyone have any opinions as to why i shouldn't get a Kamado Joe Classic III? (vs BGE, or others)
I've ordered one myself. Not sure how they compare on price, but the KJ comes with more easy to live with features - the ash tray, split cooking system, practical top vent etc. I'm sure they cook the same though - I imagine the Aldi version, albeit a lot cheaper does too.tedmus said:
Are you aware of the snake method? Using this set up with briquettes will give you a much more controllable low temp burn.
It looks like the yanks use it lots, but I just see very few people using it, or at least explicitly recommending it on sites closer to home.
The lumpwood is great though - gets up to temp really quick, burns really hot for very little in weight, and burns out quite quickly. Seems perfect for quick after work meals of chicken wings, burgers and sausages etc. When I used briquettes for this before it felt really wasteful because they would burn for hours after we finished cooking.
I'll be quite happy if I have the massive bags of lumpwood, using very little for quick tidy cooks for 2 people, and smaller bags of Big K or whatever briquettes for when I want to do a much longer burn. How similar is that to other's experiences?
Wrathalanche said:
Yeah and to me it makes total sense now having an understanding for how little fuel it takes to get the internal temp into the smoking range.
It looks like the yanks use it lots, but I just see very few people using it, or at least explicitly recommending it on sites closer to home.
The lumpwood is great though - gets up to temp really quick, burns really hot for very little in weight, and burns out quite quickly. Seems perfect for quick after work meals of chicken wings, burgers and sausages etc. When I used briquettes for this before it felt really wasteful because they would burn for hours after we finished cooking.
I'll be quite happy if I have the massive bags of lumpwood, using very little for quick tidy cooks for 2 people, and smaller bags of Big K or whatever briquettes for when I want to do a much longer burn. How similar is that to other's experiences?
Before I got the kamado it's exactly what I used to do, always grilled exclusively over lump and saved briquettes for smoking in the kettle or my bullet smoker. With a snake in the kettle once the cook is finished shut the kettle down and you should save any unused briquettes for a future cook.It looks like the yanks use it lots, but I just see very few people using it, or at least explicitly recommending it on sites closer to home.
The lumpwood is great though - gets up to temp really quick, burns really hot for very little in weight, and burns out quite quickly. Seems perfect for quick after work meals of chicken wings, burgers and sausages etc. When I used briquettes for this before it felt really wasteful because they would burn for hours after we finished cooking.
I'll be quite happy if I have the massive bags of lumpwood, using very little for quick tidy cooks for 2 people, and smaller bags of Big K or whatever briquettes for when I want to do a much longer burn. How similar is that to other's experiences?
If you're on FB then the Country Woodsmoke group is a great resource.
number2 said:
jimmybell said:
before i pull the trigger - anyone have any opinions as to why i shouldn't get a Kamado Joe Classic III? (vs BGE, or others)
I've ordered one myself. Not sure how they compare on price, but the KJ comes with more easy to live with features - the ash tray, split cooking system, practical top vent etc. I'm sure they cook the same though - I imagine the Aldi version, albeit a lot cheaper does too.Gassing Station | Food, Drink & Restaurants | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff