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

just scored a super cheap gas grill because it was missing cooking surface. need a 350 x 700mm grill (or 2 350x350..) - of which I've found a couple of brandless ones - but wondering if anyone knew anything clever

It should work in theory as a kettle is basically the same as a kamado but a smaller volume (although metal and not ceramic), not sure I'd want to be drilling a hole in a new bbq though, have you seen any good examples of it working online?

I got a kamado because it's great for grilling and smoking but they're £££ and not worth it if it's only gonna be used a few times a year? Although (in theory) you'll never need to buy another one. Maybe you'd be better off buying a cheap smoker than drilling your bbq?

There's various stuff suggesting it should work. For the moment though I've just picked up a £20 bluetooth thermometer with a couple of probes and will just have a play around controlling it manually to start.

Definitely a good plan to learn how to do everything manually first so you don't end up spending money on the wrong thing.

For low and slow you want to be using restaurant grade lump wood charcoal, the larger size makes them burn a lot more consistently for slow cooking. I use the big k ones that come in a box.

Cheers, I'll look into that. A lot of places seem to have sold out at the moment so I'm just using whatever I could find.

My new toy arrived yesterday, the country fire kitchen portico home, looking forward to cooking over an open fire over winter. I also ordered a flambadou which I cant wait to try... burnt beef fat oysters anyone?

A couple weeks back I made a ragu in my wood fired oven and it was spectacular.

It started out with beef shortribs, which was a separate dish entirely but I was half cut when I pulled them out of the oven and decided to do something with the gelatinous fatty bits that I didn't want to put in the finished dish.

What started out like this...

...ended up like this. Crispy, crunchy and outrageously indulgent beef scratchings.

I roasted off a sofrito with loads of herbs in.

Plus a tray of chopped mushrooms.

Then I roasted off a tray of beef mince.

In went a full bottle of cooking plonk, reduced it down for a while.

Everything got combined along with some tinned and roasted cherry tomatoes.

Which then cooked in a smokey oven for a couple of hours. Damp cherry woodchips provided smoke throughout the cooking time.

We had the beef ribs that night so the ragu went in the fridge overnight. The next day I made some pasta to go with it. The smokey taste was amazing, and quite unusual to have in a ragu. The purists might weep but it was so good I'll definitely be doing it again.

The purists might weep but it was so good I'll definitely be doing it again.

Don’t give a fuck about purists and drooling right now. Sounds awesome

Fired up the portico home for the first time yesterday, was much more involved cooking over a fire but it was great fun.

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How long is the cooking time with that method? It does look like a lot of fun but I'm guessing it needs constant management?

I'm up at 3am most mornings to feed the baby so I decided to throw a pork shoulder on the kamado yesterday. This is day 2's sandwich with fennel slaw.

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Beef ribs were about 6 hrs, yeah it was constant management but I really enjoyed it. The rib eye was fantastic, I slowly brought it up to 45oC then blasted it.

I'd love to have something like that but the constant management is a non starter these days. The thing I love about having a kamado is closing the lid and forgetting about it, bloody brilliant with a 7 month old knocking about.

Bone in sirloin and linguistines on the bbq yesterday.

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linguistines

That's a delicious typo... Great setup, love it...

Love the idea of medieval roasting. What is your set-up?

It’s a country fire kitchen portico home, quite pricey but really solidly built. I have the rotisserie attachment as well but not used yet, first outing will be porchetta on Xmas eve if the weather is ok.

Freestanding?

Yeah 4 legs, takes 5 mins to put together.

Looks fantastic, I’m guessing this is their website?

https://countryfirekitchen.com/products/portico-home

How long do you allow to cook that sirloin and what would the rough cost of the wood be for a single cook?

Yeah that’s the website. It took me 2 or 3 hours but I didn’t let the meat come up to room temperature as has stupidly shaken it out the freezer a bit late the day before and it didn’t have time. You gently bring the meat up to an internal temp of between 40 and 50 then blast it over a hotter fire and crisping up all that lovely fat you get on the sirloin.

It cost about £10 on wood I reckon but I wasn’t economical at all as the weather was cold and it was keeping me warm whilst having some beers. I also cooked a mushroom and whisky source using some scraps of beef and marrow bones off the butcher, next up will be some slow cooked lamb belly on the bone.

How much does wood cost you? Over here it's between 60e (from the local council) or 100e a cubic metre. At that 10 quid you'd have to have burned nearly 100kg of my last load

I paid far too much for a box of logs, think it was £20 for 20 kilos or something like that so I probably used about 10kg, I've ordered some logs in bulk this week so will work out much cheaper in the future.

15 hours into a pork shoulder... hoping to be ready for a late lunch.

Have you got an American sized shoulder on the go or are you just having an extra long stall? Fingers crossed for lunch, hope you slept through most of that cook?