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

Also sea bream sounds bloody lovely. I'll take the above learnings/advice on board!

Ahh, thanks for that. So when you light the charcoal, do you leave the lid fully up for max air flow until such time you feel it's all stabilised?

I tried another experiment yesterday to try to get a feel and the coals died after ~8 hours which makes me think they've just gone a bit old.

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I probably use my little Weber Go Anywhere more than the big barbecue. Nice to just throw a few things on quickly.

This is the top tip you're looking for!

I always BBQ fish in a basket, it's just a total mess otherwise.

yeah like a normal bbq you need to let the charcoal turn to embers.

for a low and slow i fill the basket as much as possible that it's not going to interfere with the deflector but has plenty of fuel i then put 3x woodies fire lighters tucked into a grapefruit sized area in the middle, light them and leave it with the vent open and the lid up to light and then settle down to glowing embers in the centre, you don't want a raging inferno at this point just a decent burn in the middle. I also scatter my wood smoking chips among the charcoal when filling but soak them in water for a bit before i start to delay them catching too quickly. requires some trial and error to get it right.

once the charcoal is ready i set the lid down and sort the vents, then the billows takes over to get it to the target temp. obviously with the lid opening and closing it jumps around a little at the start but so long as you don't overshoot it with a massive charcoal fire at the start you should have less problems for the rest of the cook.

finally the last thing to watch is the colour of the smoke, when it goes from opaque white to a thin blue/clearish colour is when it's ready to get the food on.

edit: @inchpincher

Remove the grill

Oil on rag and apply to the grill

Replace grill over coals and watch it burn off

This will save your hands instead of trying to oil the grill rack when over the coals as the oil isn’t dripping onto the coals, flames flaring and the cloth burning.

Fish baskets work well. I often use a cake grate thing.

Yeah, that's what I started out using but you can't flip it so I went the whole hog and got a basket. Reminds me of being at my folks' in Galicia cooking sardines in a massive one.

Awesome, thank you for the tips.

Thanks 👍

That is hibachi charcoal. Really good but intense and best for direct grilling and not great for low and slow. Well at least I haven't had and luck with it - i found it too hard to control temps and starves at lower oxygen levels. It looks like you discovered the same.

Briquettes I find better than lump because of predictable size and therefore burn rates. But some people swear by lump.

Cheers, can't believe I need to buy a table top grill now too :)

Ahh I was thinking that was some fancy charcoal and wondered if it was ceramic grill thing

When I was searching on ‘ere, it seemed like ‘restaurant grade’ was the shizz so this is what I got…

These are links to a couple of good fish BBQ ideas, I’ve tried both successfully, the second one is a bit messy but worth it.

Apologies for IG, hopefully the links work

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-CJNwkoKvP/?igsh=MTFoNzcwdWFqdWYxaQ==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9hmCjjoC19/?igsh=ZWtmMmg3cHBnNWdi

Smokeless is the element to that style - for indoor use or for small hibachis. If you see charcoal kebab places, that is what they will use.

Again, great for grilling but really intense heat, so use a bit less.

But hey. Yakitori!

In this thread grilling and BBQ get used interchangeably when they are different things; that is restaurant grade grilling charcoal if you want long lasting direct grilling heat for a 4 hour evening service on a Josper (for example) with minimal ash to clean up.

Second one is wild!

Quite fancy trying it with maybe a bit less throwing hot oil around. :)

Totally agree, I think for the majority of English people barbecue is just food burnt outdoors, with raw bits if really inept.

Then there is:
Grilling - direct heat
bbq - indirect heat
Smoking - indirect heat with a smoke source generally at a lower temp than bbq

you were close. i use this one.

https://bigkproducts.co.uk/products/dura/

Story of my life… cheers!

I picked up some briquettes from the garage yesterday to experiment with and they’ve been going 13 hours now (@107°c) with a bit of a dip into the 90’s at 4am but I think that was because I closed the billows a fraction too much to stop it from creeping earlier on. Curious to know how long a whole bag will sustain the temperature.

Also props to @aggi for the battery suggestion, only used 20%.

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Get my garden back today so celebratory BBQ. Want to do potatoes and beetroot before grilling some kebabs - what are you doing with yours @dancing james? Only got a Weber though.

Which egg is that? Ticks all my boxes*.

* It just needs to be black. 🙃

Looks like the Aldi one to me. It's great for the ££