off to buy one today

also - woot

Fortris wrote: I discovered a new unit of time. It's somewhere between a microsecond and a picosecond. I call it a webersecond. It is defined as 'The span of time required for a brand spanking new Weber BBQ's stainless steel exit vent control to get stained brown with charcoal smoke' On another topic, I found an ace brand of charcoal today, nice clean bits of wood instead of the Solid Energy style random chunks, burns nice and hot.

I like it! I'll add a secondary definition: 'the amount of time your skin needs to contact the surface of the Weber in order to produce a nice burn and instant blister'

That charcoal looks good What's the brand? Solid Energy is pretty crap, I'm using some 'Charka' brand or something at the moment from Mitre 10 - It's ok, but a lot of small chips and dust at the bottom, and fairly pricey.

Grolim wrote: That charcoal looks good What's the brand? Solid Energy is pretty crap, I'm using some 'Charka' brand or something at the moment from Mitre 10 - It's ok, but a lot of small chips and dust at the bottom, and fairly pricey.

'Foxpine' brand, made in Foxton. It's pretty reasonable - 10kg bag for $29.00

There is 5, 22.5" ones in napier. But they dont say weber etc. Are they still the good ones?

Edit: mmmmmmmmm

This is what the warehouse has: http://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/red/c...6cm?SKU=1430015

This is what the box is meant to be? http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-livin...n-446473871.htm

Fortris wrote: 'Foxpine' brand, made in Foxton. It's pretty reasonable - 10kg bag for $29.00

That's the stuff that moore wilsons had for $23. Good stuff.

LiQuid.Ace wrote: This is what the box is meant to be? http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-livin...n-446473871.htm

This guy must have emptied the Pram Warehouse stock of kettles!

Warehouse Queens gate have the 18.5" at $75 clearance price

Got a Weber Silver one-touch 47cm today from the Warehouse for $75.00. Hoping to get out there and have a good play this weekend and try out some ribs. Anyone know a good place to pick up some good charcoal or briquettes?

I've been watching intently at your guys BBQ porn, am very keen to get a charcoal BBQ. I have a four burner gas BBQ that I use quite a lot at the moment. Any tips or information online to get me started?

Spanked. wrote: I've been watching intently at your guys BBQ porn, am very keen to get a charcoal BBQ. I have a four burner gas BBQ that I use quite a lot at the moment. Any tips or information online to get me started?

Just read the threads here for a start. There are some good links in a few of the post that can take you to some good forums and other sites for further info. Also Youtube has plenty of vids on charcoal cooking from basic to advanced. I learnt through those and a bit of Food Tv and mainly from trial and error myself. Good luck man.

BBQPitBoys on youtube gave me a lot of ideas, such as this which shows the technique pretty well. You can put the lid on to control the flareups you see in that vid.

The single biggest thing that got me started was the idea of banking the coals on one side of the kettle so that you have a high heat zone for searing meat, and an indirect zone (when the lid is on) for finishing. Prior to that i thought kettles were just more tedious versions of gas grills, since i'd only ever seen people dumping tons of coals over the whole bottom level. From that idea stems the snake and minion methods which let you get to proper low and slow temps (100-150C).

Once you decide what you want to cook, that more or less dictates how you set up the grill. Something tough like ribs/butt/beef will need a snake to keep the temp down, chicken breast (i can't recommend brining these enough btw) on the other hand should get seared over a moderate pile of coals and finished indirectly (imo), pizza on the other hand requires balls-to-the-wall level heat.

Here are some forums that helped me
http://tvwbb.com/eve/forums - Virtual Weber Bulletin Board
http://www.aussiebbq.info/forum/index.php
www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/index.php

Sign: I get my heat beads from Mitre10mega, previously they had 10kg bags available but last time i checked they'd sold out. My lump coal i buy from Moore Wilsons.

Deadm3at wrote: Sign: I get my heat beads from Mitre10mega, previously they had 10kg bags available but last time i checked they'd sold out. My lump coal i buy from Moore Wilsons.

Last time I cleared Mega out of their 4kg bags as their price was $14.99 and I knew Countdown had them for $14.49 (sometimes they are on special for $13.49), so I pulled out the "cheaper price elsewhere we'll beat it by 15%", so they had to ring Countdown and confirm and I ended up getting it for $12.30

Talk about your protips

Deadm3at wrote: Talk about your protips

lol. Was wondering if it would work on a Weber Kettle when Warehouse had them for $100 No doubt they'd have some sort of weasel clause like no parallel imports or something...

Would you say its worth grabbing one of the $200~ shipped ones off trademe? (22.5")

I'd try bunnings first. See if they're still doing them around that price.

Saw in their mailer they were $198. I'd take that in to Mitre 10 Mega and get them to beat it by 15%

Grolim wrote: Saw in their mailer they were $198. I'd take that in to Mitre 10 Mega and get them to beat it by 15%

Just went into mitre 10, they put there price down to $198.00 today match bunnings. Their "better" price bullshit only works if the other price is cheaper not the same

haha, sly!

So you pick one up?

Yip, paid $270 all up got:

22.5" one touch
22.5" weber cover
2x thermometers (1 in meat one, 1 general bbq temp one)
3 piece utensils (long tongs, long dual spike and long spatula)

Now just need to do some reading on what coals/wood/firestarters?/etc i need

http://iforce.co.nz/i/xgzpouay.yjv.jpg

Get yourself a chimney starter and you'll have a much easier time of it. After that grab a bag of whatever black stuff is on offer, don't be picky just yet as even those home brand briqettes work fine, fire it up and cook some meat. Burgers and chicken wings make a good start for example, something to let you get the feel for charcoal while being hard to damage too badly. Don't be shy about the amount of charcoal you fire up first time either, better too much than a frustrating first cook.

Deadm3at wrote: Get yourself a chimney starter and you'll have a much easier time of it. After that grab a bag of whatever black stuff is on offer, don't be picky just yet as even those home brand briqettes work fine, fire it up and cook some meat. Burgers and chicken wings make a good start for example, something to let you get the feel for charcoal while being hard to damage too badly. Don't be shy about the amount of charcoal you fire up first time either, better too much than a frustrating first cook.

Alright any chimney start will be fine?

I was looking at trying something like:

I just use the $20 one that mitre10 sell, usually start it by chucking a firelighter underneath. It takes about 20-30min to be fully fired so factor that in to your cooking time. That pitboys style is my favourite way to do chicken on the kettle, go for it

If you use lump charcoal you don't really need a chimney started, it lights much easier. I just shape the lump into whichever pile I want, stick 2 of those parrafin/wood shavings firelighters in it, light, and forget about it for 30 mins.

On another topic : How in all the hells do I maintain a 110C / 225F temperature for slow smoking in a Weber? Even with the bottom vent totally closed it's hard, temp wants to hover around 240-250F. I'm too scared to start covering the top vent in case I get creosote on the food...

You can do the same with briqs, I just like the convenience of being able to do things to the BBQ while the coals are lighting.

Check out Merkinz's post about 5 posts down on this page and look at how the briqs are set up and the number that are lit to start it off. With the bottom vents around 1/8th to 1/4 open and top wide open it usually settles somewhere around 225, it can take some time to come up to this temp but that's only a problem if you keep lifting the lid.