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We decided to have the first BBQ cook out of the year yesterday after returning from the School Summer Fair . I didn't fancy taking out the wooden floor of my cold smoker so dusted down an old, large kettle BBQ we got from a DIY store years ago because it was cheap. A Weber it ain't It has no controlllable lower vent just a coin sized slot in the side of the bowl. If you cook with the lid on the charcoal goes out, with the lid off you have flare-up meltdown. I'd been meaning to put it on a skip.


So... I drilled a 10mm hole in the base of it, took a piece of 10mm copper tube and forced a flange into the end so it wouldn't drop through. On the other end I connected the 45litre/min air pump I cold smoke with. I placed an upended perforated stainless steel fruit bowl over my air input and a bag of self lighting charcoal on top of the bowl, with a scattering of ordinary charcoal around the bowl and lit the bag. As it took I made sure the charcoal was distributed evenly around the fruit bowl and once all the paraffin burnt off put on the lid with it's vent fully open.

It quickly settled down to 146 deg C, measured on the probe inserted through the lid vent. 3hrs later it was still reading 146 deg so cooking was a dream. At this point I took the lid off and open grilled some more food, the charcoal stayed well behaved with no flare ups and I later removed the BBQ grid and did a stir fry with a Wok sitting on top of the fruit bowl.

I must have got 5 hours cooking out of 1.5kg charcoal,before we retired for the night, and it was still warm at lunchtime today.

I'm now repeating the experiment to ensure it wasn't a fluke, with burgers and sausages for lunch then a chicken for supper. Photos to follow.

Dave, all fingers and thumb

Like your style! pictures would be good! Let us all know how you get on.

pictures coming , I got distracted while hot smoking a turkey

did you manage to get some pictures?

You're embarassing me now I'll try and get them loaded up

Dave

Good Man!

While taking some photos I had another idea, I'll try and post them all together tomorrow, eerh, later today...

Dave

Here's the pipe from underneath:



and from inside:



the fruit bowl on top (needs a bit of a clean) Note the holes handily drilled in by the manufacturer :



Firing up some plum tree:



Chicken a la briquette. The chicken spent most of the cooking time above the fruit bowl out of direct heat from the coals and I moved it over the coals to crisp up the skin just at the end:



Bacon and kebabs



Let's turn the idea on it's head, skip the pump and use the bowl as an inner fire basket:



Seems to work just as well so long as I leave the lid cracked open slightly:

I'd run out of charcoal so took the contents of a disposable instant bbq (good for 1 1/2 hrs cooking, if you believe the packet) and cooked on it in the bowl over a 5 hour period... I forgot to take a photo of the chicken joints I cooked indirectly with a lump of hickory dropped into the basket, an amazing golden colour and beautiful taste. These sausages were cooked indirectly around the periphery of the BBQ out of direct heat (as was the chicken) and then browned off over the hot coals with the lid off, just before serving up.



The pump method is fantastic for long slow cooking, I have also done even more indirect cooking with the fire on only one side of the fruit bowl. By some quirk of the design of the fruit bowls, if I stack one bowl on top of another I can twist them so that the holes allign up in various permutations and only blow air out from one half/third or whatever I require.

I'm still playing with the fruit bowl turned over as a fire basket but this has lots of promise too.







Dave

Hi Dave , Had a look at your posts and I noticed that you went to bed at 1:20 am and got up at 4:44 pm. Is that a slow fire you've got there?
Love your ideas and your sausages just goes to show what a bit of inovation can do.

Timekeeping was never my best strength

Dave

Nice one! Worth a try I think.

I'm slowly re-inventing the wheel backwards, turning modern day products into useful artisan products to recreate real food with.

There must be a market out there for my genius...



Dave

PS, Please don't sue me if you modify an expensive Kettle BBQ this way