Thursday 5 July 2012

Health and Safety

Today I saw this on the net and thought I'd do a bit about staying safe while enjoying a bit of roofless grilling. Why even have one of them? The job it does on the grill is cosmetic at best and in this case could have killed someone. If you chuck your grills on while the fire is burning in before cooking, the flames and heat will destroy any living microbe on that grill rendering it completely clean without doing anything. Just because its black, doesn't mean its dirty. Bloody hell. I bet these same people have loads of allergies and poor immune systems.

Cleaning the grills the easiest, most thorough way

Easy as that.

Building the Smoker Part 2

The build is still progressing and is so far going well. Last week, we added fire bricks to the fire chamber. Here you can see them through the hatch:

Smoker's fire chamber with fire bricks


Last Thursday I was in the pub when I got talking to a mate about the smoker and how I need some pipe for it.


Rastaboat

Remember that £30,000 affront to the spirit of outdoor cookery? Here's how it's done properly. A mate of mine from work and his mates did this, the Rasta boat.

Rasta BBQ boat


They entered it in a regatta of some kind up in Scotland and came third. Well done lads! This is the real spirit of aquatic grilling. A handsome craft  knocked up by mates in a few weeks complete with authentic Jamaican thatched roof, cans of Red Stripe and a little bucket barbie to get the jerk chicken done on. Don't think it cost £30,000 somehow though and all the better for it.

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Building the Smoker

That's the first bit done, the masonry. There have been some changes to the design since the 3D model. The fire box at the bottom now has a smaller door to make it easier to make a door for and reduce excessive air intake. The fire chamber will now be lined with fire bricks from an old storage heater to stop the brickwork from falling apart in the heat. Stainless steel lugs have also been added to hold the rack rails inside the smoking chamber and hold the grill at two different levels for cooking instead of the sideways bricks you see in the model. Fire bricks will also be on top of the big slab to stop it smashing under the hot coals.

Monday 25 June 2012

Caribbean Style Pork Skewers

It's nearly time for the build to start on the smoker. The brickwork and that is getting done tomorrow an the metal work as soon as possible after that. Meanwhile though, I did these the other night - Caribbean Style Pork Skewers.

I used:

Pork loin steaks
Reggae Reggae sauce
Red sweet chilli peppers
Sweet potato
Red onion
Ground chilli flakes
Ground roasted garlic and herbs
I chopped up the pork and mixed up some Reggae Reaggae sauce with some water, put it all in a dish and left it in the fridge covered up with cling film for a few hours. If I'd thought of this before I went to work it could have sat a lot longer and ended up stronger tasting but it was ok. I half boiled the sweet potato and chopped up all the other stuff into big chunks. All of this was then stuck on skewers and seasoned with the above mentioned chilli flakes, garlic and herbs.

Caribbean pork skewers raw

Wednesday 20 June 2012

3D Smoker Model

Here is a 3D model I made of the smoker to give you an idea of what it will look like finished with all of the iron mongery etc. Weather permitting, it's being built on Tuesday next week. After that I need to get all the metal work done, which could be difficult and actually cost some money. Looking good though. Don't know what the neighbours will say...

Front of 3D smoker model

Friday 15 June 2012

Hot Smoker Plans

Exciting news! As previously mentioned my main barbecue cracked under intense heat caused by an over ambitious cook out. Like the government, I did't want to let a good crisis go to waste and used it as an excuse to build a smoker. I had to get my dad, who will build it, on side. The exciting news is that after I showed him the amateurish plan that I drew, he seemed very enthusiastic and already has most of the materials for the masonry!

Most of the plans I had seen on the net were made from metal, required welding and were huge. Neither I or any of my friends or family can weld. I also have a very small space for it to sit in (the same space as the current barbecue) so most of the plans I saw were out of the question although still very impressive. Here's one here.

Barrel Smoker

I did a search for brick smokers and there are lots although again, they're massive. Have a look.

Big Brick Smoker


I had to get clever and design my own that would fit the space the old one came out of, work as a smoker and barbecue and be made of readily available, cheap, workable materials. After studying different designs and learning the basic principals involved I came up with this. Click it to enlarge.

This is just a plan for the masonry. Notice the staggered slabs that separate the fire chamber from the smoking chamber, this is to stop direct heat from grilling the meat instead of smoking it. The heat will instead rise with the smoke and leave through the stove pipes that will stick out of both sides and wrap around the back before going up. The heat can be controlled by dampers in the stove pipes and at the bottom of the fire chamber. Metal doors will be fitted to the front of the two chambers to contain the heat and smoke. Rails, possibly from an old oven, will be fitted to the sides of the smoking chamber to hold different racks depending on what is being cooked. It has a traditional barbecue on the top as well.
I hope we can get started when the weather is better because the ideas I'm having for cooking in this are fantastic.



Get in!!!

We are grilling

Look at this!

Crap Barbecue Boat

What you see there is the barbecue boat. Our American friends never cease to find novel new ways to get their cook on outside. While I completely agree with the sentiment, boats are great, so are barbecues thus combining the two should be a guaranteed success.

The problem is this thing costs thirty grand and looks nothing more than one of them crap donut boats you get at fairs that are incredibly difficult to control and get stuck in endless spins. You can imagine how that would end - hot coals all over. Saying that its probably gas to help justify its price. Here's the full article that tells you all about. It still looks crap like. No room to move about, prepare food or KEEP THE BEER COLD! This could have been so much better for thirty grand.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Bad Crack

A few weeks ago, I had a barbie. It was overly ambitious and there was loads of people came which was class crack, but the barbie itself had some canny bad crack. I had loads of bait to do so I stoked it right up and set light to it. The ensuing conflagration was terrifying. You couldn't get anywhere near it and it took quite a while until you could get close enough to cook on it. As the smoke cleared, it became clear that the brick work couldn't cope with that amount of heat and had cracked right down the back through bricks and mortar. Have a look:

Cracked barbecue and bent grate

If you click the picture to enlarge it you can see one of the cracks through the black brick and continuing down the joint. Also notice the warped grate.

Thursday 17 May 2012

Chiminea Chicken

Yesterday morning the weather was lovely, so I decided I was going to make the tea outside. When I left work, it turned horrible. I got a chiminea a few weeks ago but I have only managed to light it a few times because of the weather. I hadn't originally intended to cook with it but it turns out they are very good for this. I cooked some lovely skewers of steak and prawn with chilli sauce not long after I got it but the blog wasn't around then. I'll revisit them sometime and share the joy on here. Anyway, on to the chicken...

Chicken, bacon, cream cheese, garlic and rosemary wrapped in tinfoil and cooked in chiminea.
I used...

4 x chicken breasts (2 each)
8 x rashers of bacon
A bit of cream cheese
Garlic (a clove for each)
Rosemary
Salt
Black pepper

Thursday 10 May 2012

Da's work christmas do

To start this thing off and in the absence of sunshine, here's what my dad and his mates did at work at christmas.
This is a gas bottle with a bit cut out, some scaffy tubes for legs and a chimney as well! They've gone for a stew in a suspended pot, but you could easily hoy a grill on and do some chops. Well done lads.


Gas Bottle Stove


Hello

Hello everyone! Summer's (supposedly) here and it's time for barbecues. I've always loved a nice barbecue, the smell, the flavour, fire and of course the beer. As this blog grows it will document all of my exploits with outdoor cooking, not just barbecue. I hope to explore different cooking methods, techniques and recipes that lend themselves to outdoor cooking.

Despite being May, the weather is shite. I've only managed two outdoor sessions so far this year. Hopefully this will improve soon and I can get some quality posts up (and food down).

Here is a picture of my soaking wet, unkempt (can't cut grass in the wet) garden:

Wet Barbecue

I know that was crap and boring but I need to see what pictures look like on this and to see if the background image displays better when there's a bit of length to the blog.

I promise, as soon as the sun shines, there'll be some stuff going up.