Outdoor cooking - Barbecues, Barbecue, BBQs, BBQ, Smokers, Grills. And Ribs.

Long stall! Haven't wrapped, so just letting it ride. I have a masterbuilt 560, so I just set and forget thankfully! up to 70c internal temp now, so should be past the stall

Yeah, game changer for me when I got a temperature regulator system for my kamado, takes 90% of the stress away. Saying that I've never had a pork shoulder come out less than a couple of hours later than I wanted it to.

Dredge- have you made good pizza in this?

Yep! Probably not quite as good as a dedicated pizza oven, but I can get it up to a consistent 500 degrees, throw a couple of stones in and it cooks s pizza in about 3 mins.

Interesting.... currently in the big Kamado vs debate.

I love mine, going to throw a couple of chickens on it tomorrow, just so easy.

Quality control is not great on the early units, things like the switches are quite poor, but apparently these have now improved significantly. They have also just released the 800 which looks really good.

I have a kamado and can't rate it highly enough but if pizza is a major reason for your decision I'd choose something else. You can make decent pizza but it is a massive faff and keeping the temp high for multiple pizzas is tricky. I got an ooni pizza oven in the end and it's so easy it's not with messing about with anything else imo.

Pizza is a major driving force for sure.
Looks like it might be a dual purchase in the end- MB560 + Ooni (which I can just re-acquire from my parents).
Though the space saving element of just 1 item in the garden sways against that.

I'd wanted a kamado for ages and it's something I always said I'd get as soon as I bought a house but if the 560 would have been around a few years ago I definitely would have considered it. I'm not a massive fan of how it looks but they seem to have pretty much sorted all the little things that are a bit of a pain when it comes to smoking and it looks really easy to use.

My only concerns would be durability and replacing the fan unit if it fails, can you just swap it out or is it integrated so much that the whole bbq is dead and needs to be replaced if it fails? Kamados are pretty bombproof.

As for space and looking at the dimensions, my kamado and ooni take up about the same space as the 560.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/gardenline-kamado-ceramic-egg-bbq/p/710081460879600

Out of stock, but more on the way apparently.

@lowbrows

Have had mine for a year now.

The food it cooks and the ease of use are just brilliant. Spatchcocked a chicken and threw it on today, cooked in an hour, didn’t look at it once, perfect moist, crispy skin.

It is not without its flaws.

It’s not made for the thickest steel, so some of the the internal parts do rust if you don’t keep it well seasoned. The plunger switches to turn off the fan fail (I have just bypassed mine and have a manual over ride). Both of these have been remedied in a revised version, but not sure if they are available in the UK.

The other negative is the app is not great when you compare it to things like fire board but it does the job of telling me the current internal temp.

Fans are really easy to replace, just 4 screws and it is essentially a PC fan, so costs about £10 to source an easy replacement.

My longest cook on it is close to 24 hours, doing a mammoth pulled pork, and all I really had to do was fill the hopper of charcoal once and keep the meat moist. I certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near as adventurous if I was in a manual world.

I would love both a traditional charcoal (for things like dirty steaks) and a dedicated pizza oven, but the 560 does both really well, so can’t justify it.

I think if I was buying now I would go for the 800 over the 560, for slightly higher specs.

Oliver Giles at ProSmokeBBQ is the guy to go do for info.

Also @lowbrows have you come across Marcus Bawdon? Runs BBQ courses down here, he is in the process of setting up a bigger set up at Fordmore farm shop, on the Honiton to Cullompton road, might be worth a visit when it is up and running and you are down this way.

I'm looking for a new thermometer/controller to replace my basic wireless thermometer set up.

I've got it down to:
Thermaworks Signals & Billows, £234,
FireBoard Drive & Fan, £314.

Does anyone know if the latter is worth the extra £80? I've seen a few positive mentions of the Signals in the thread.

I need to get a chimney starter for my barbecue. Are the Weber ones worth the extra money over the generic ones?

Also, where do people store charcoal (no garage or shed)? I've seen suggestions of using a heavy duty drybag but I'm struggling to find one large enough.

I have a clas ohlson generic and it works a treat

I have a Weber and it hasn’t been bad... but I can’t think it has anything over generics as long as they are built decent. But whatever you do, get one. They’re amazing. Game changer. I have a friend who won’t buy one and I constantly hear from him how long it’s taking for his charcoal to heat up.

I keep charcoal in the bag it came in, decanting it seems like a filthy task! Big bulldog clips to keep it closed? Cover in a bin bag?

I’ve had a Weber one for 7 years that’s lived outside in my garden and still going strong.

I have generic (b & q I think) one. Game changer as others said. Only a tenner or so and it’s about 4 years old so easy worth it.

Cheers, I'll have a look at generic ones first then.

I wasn't thinking of decanting the charcoal, just getting a big enough dry bag to stick the whole bag in.

I had a generic cheap one, was fairly flimsy but lasted a few summers.
Probably would still work, had I not accidently launched it with the old barbecue

The only advantage it seems to have is 6 probes over 4 (although it only seems to come with 2 meat probes, a grill probe and an ambient probe), are you ever going to be cooking more than 3 of anything? The signals doesn't show the graph on the the unit but it does in the app.

I've never seen the other one so can't tell you if there's something special about the build quality I can only give you my opinion of the Thermoworks, which has been excellent. Bang on temperature every time, using it with a kamado you do all fine control with the lid vent, when using the fan its extremely sensitive and fast to increase/decrease temp (which is definitely not the case without). I'd get the thermoworks and buy a thermapen as well ( you'll still have saved money vs the FireBoard)

Probably just one big thing at a time, so no issue with 4 probes. It's to go on a Weber kettle, so there isn't loads of room for multiple items.

One thing I noticed with BBQ Guru and FireBoard is they sell a shaped piece to aim the air downward. I can't see anything similar from Thermoworks, so I'm trying to work out if I need/could make something to suit.

Already got the Thermapen, although it lives in the kitchen where it's used every day. Super handy!

One thing I noticed with BBQ Guru and FireBoard is they sell a shaped piece to aim the air downward. I can't see anything similar from Thermoworks

No idea I'm afraid, that looks to be something specifically for kettle conversions because of where you have to drill your hole?

I just typed 'cube brackets' in Google and this came straight up so I don't think it would be hard to fashion something.

Yeah that's the reason - the hole has to be higher than the ash/vent blades, so ends up only just below the charcoal grate. From there it would be blowing at the flat face of my slow n sear, rather than getting underneath and to the coals.

Great find there anyway, I wasn't sure what to Google, but that definitely looks like something I could adapt. Thanks.

When I looked at the Thermoworks one for a weber kettle I'm pretty sure it involved modding it or the barbecue in some way to attach it.

My Master Touch is about 5 years old now, so I'm not too worried about drilling a hole or two in it. I'll take another look but I hadn't spotted anything more than that.