Barbecues
 

Bit confused as to which forum I should be posting in now but . . . .

We might finally get around to buying the essential bit of Australian lifestyle kit tomorrow - any recommendations? We are a family of five with extended family nearby so need to be able to cater for quite a number.

Having never had the opportunity to do much in the way of barbecues in the UK I would like to buy a book as well (recipes and tips) - anyone found a good one?

Looking forward to your advice. . . . .

Binbird (the novice barbecue chef - oops that should read the wife of a novice barbecue chef!)

Re: Barbecues
 

Binbird............you very nearly made a fateful mistake there (I notice you corrected yourself pretty sharpish)!!

BBQ'ing is a bloke thing, done by blokes, best by blokes.....take away our BBQ and you take away the man!! :D

Oh, and as your post is regarding Australian Lifestyle & Culture, I would hazard a guess that you are posting in the right place!!! ;)

Re: Barbecues
 

How very helpful :rolleyes:

Binbird like you i'm also looking for a decent BBQ - I'll watch with interest to see if anyone suggests any decent makes to look out for - I think me and hubbie are going to treat ourselves to a nice one for Christmas! Not going to be cooking on it on Xmas day though - not quite ready for that yet!!!

Some of the BBQ's have rotisserys for chicken etc - that would be handy as stops the house getting too hot when the oven is on. How are you anyway - been a long time since i've heard from you!!!!

Lynn ;)

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Just one piece of advice. Make sure it has a canopy roasting lid with a window so you can see what's going on without losing temp. also a temp guage would be good too!

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Blimey! Should a known..................get women talking about BBQ'ing and things start to get technical!

A temp guage???? :confused:
On a BBQ???? :confused:

Ya see, this is why blokes do BBQ'ing.....we dont need no temp guage! Once the flames die down - chuck the sossies on!! Simple! :D

No, seriously though.......it always amazes me to see the advancement in BBQ technology. The ones you see now-a-days are practically the same as yer cooker indoors, but outdoors...if you know what I mean!?

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Good tips - thanks!

I tried suggesting to hubby that a barbecue would make a good christmas present for himself but he wasn't too keen! How come us women are expected to be grateful for household type presents but it is not acceptable to the male species?! :rolleyes:

And hi Lynn - we have been busy - you know what it's like yourself having arrived at a similar time to us though a bit further along the coast! Saw your post about your trip to Sydney to collect your pet from quarantine (dog, was it?), anyway, hope you are happily reunited now. Kids have been in school for about a month now so life is beginning to take on some degree of normality (or it would if I could get the hubby to go job hunting - oh well, the money will run out soon!)

More BBQ info please folks - what makes / extras do you recommend?

Binbird

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2nd piece of advice, make sure it has a side burner, for normal cooking in a pan. Very useful for cooking outside when it is hot, stops the heat build up by cooking inside.

Kmart do some well priced ones, at about $500 http://www.kmart.com.au/departments/...8&pg=1202&L=0&

$999 =
http://www.kmart.com.au/departments/...urce_r9_c1.jpg

But they go up to $2,000 and beyond, for the really good ones.

Most of them come with a basic cook book to start off with.

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If you can't take the heat . . . . . get out of the kitchen!

I'm on strike now - I'm not cooking another thing until we've got our barbie (and then him indoors will be doing it outdoors instead!)

Binbird

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[QUOTE=ABCDiamond]2nd piece of advice, make sure it has a side burner, for normal cooking in a pan. Very useful for cooking outside when it is hot, stops the heat build up by cooking inside.

Thanks ABC - the usual gems of advice from a real gem! (Think that may be a bit advanced for my novice though! Stirring - what's stirring?!)

Binbird

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I AM A BLOKE! and a chef! But it amazes me that for 364 days of the year the nearest a bloke comes to the kitchen is to get another beer out of the fridge, then all of a sudden they become a Jamie bloody Oliver at the BBQ. The other thing is blokes cooking on BBQ can't stop playing with the meat. I cook steaks professionally and you cook on one side and then the other and that's it; none of the constant tweeking and turning.

The hood is for roasting say a Leg of lamb. Ripper on the BBQ!

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LMAO....yeah I agree completely!!
I think most blokes bar the minority like your good self, actually have a genuine fear of cooking!! Too many things to think about at once.....does our heads in!!
:D

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I don't mind cooking.........I eat it all the time. :D


Here's a BBQ site for you........
http://www.bbqblue.com.au/smoke_woods/home.html

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I got mine from Bunnings for $400, special offer a few weeks ago, very similar to the one ABCD posted the picture of. Now all we need is some decent weather to get chance to use it :rolleyes:

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Are you talking real mans barbecues, or the woosie things these wimps use here?

Real barbecues go like this:

http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/grill/2...arcoal/cg.aspx

We have one. It takes three hours from start to finish.In that time I get to watch fire - a la caveman, drink beer, watch meat burn, and then wifey makes some salad stuff.

Thats a REAL barbecue :D Charcoal, its what a bbq is!

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You tell 'em! Aussies haven't got a clue how to bbq properly. Any monkey can cook with gas. Weber make a good braai (bbq), I've got one, but the best type is half an oil drum with some holes cut in it, some legs welded on & some meshed steel on the top, should cost under $20. As a Saffa one of my duties is to teach Aussies how to bbq properly.

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3 hours !!! That's way too long. My wife doesn't have that much time to spend cooking when she gets home from work, we like to eat within an hour or so of her getting home ;)

Gas BBQ's are good for everyday outside cooking (to either keep the smells out of the house, or to keep the heat out of the house), charcoal ones are good for that special treat :) (I get the feeling I have said that before a few times)

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[QUOTE=ROBnCAZ]:

Ya see, this is why blokes do BBQ'ing.....we dont need no temp guage! Once the flames die down - chuck the sossies on!! Simple! :D

SOSSIES :rolleyes: How very gay, look if you new chums cant get the lingo right you hav,nt got a hope in hell.
You cook SNAGS on the BBQ, ................ :beer: mm

Re: Barbecues
 

The most important thing about the BBQs is the output of the gas (MJ) for the side burner somewhere in the region of 16mj is very good and on your hot plate etc around the 80 - 90 mj mark.

If there is not enough heat output then you wont get that sizzle and your meat will stew.

Nice thick plate is always good. The rest of it is cosmetics.

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Blah blah blah. :rolleyes: You add charcoal until you can feel the heat from the barbie about 10 feet away. Then you add some more charcoal until its almost impossible to get near the bbq. Then you throw on your meat of choice from a safe distance, let it sear on the outside for about 30seconds each side, then feed it to your friends and family. (stick with the salad yourself of course) :p

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exactly. Get the BBQ to mid temps - half way up the scale, cook all your meat in 10 mins flat, steak in 4 mins, 2 each side.

Forget all the tweaking.

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The other two hours and fifty minutes is for secret men's rituals.

There are barbeques for the balconies on one bedroom flats, those for daily use, those for when friends come over on the weekend, those that are held when you are fighting bushfires or after a football match or sausage sizzles at polling booths or motorway openings or outside Bunnings on Saturday mornings. Barbecues for total fire ban days. Then there are Don's Party barbecues.

The question: "Please recommend a barbecue" is a open ended as "please find me a wife".

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If you force me, I'll dig up the article that says men need an hour of 'fire-staring' a day. Its our genes when we were cavemen we would shoot our wooly mammoth and then drag it back to Mrs Caveman who would marinate it and add some rosemary and a bit of fennel, while Mr Caveman got the fire going.

And he would sit and stare at the fire for an hour thinking,

thinking how the hell did four blokes drag a wooly mammoth home.

Or thinking, damn, looks like wooly mammoth on the menu for the next month. No dinosaur burgers.

Anyway, I'll go look for the article :p

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That was helpful

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Didn't get round to buying a BBQ today so still open to helpful tips like the above - thanks!

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How many people call BBQ's "Barbies" ?

Where we all stand around and chat about nothing special, like in the new Barbie Forum ? ;)

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You're welcome! I also have cures for humour bypasses if you need one :rolleyes:

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Hubby wanted a BBQ so much we ended up flying to Perth to buy one, and then air-freighting it back to SEAsia! :scared: It was his birthday & christams present :p

Anyway, we got ours from "BBQ Galore", a lovely one made of cast-iron, gas obviously, and a 5 burner with hot plate & grill. It also had a hood with a temp gauge, which does come in really handy - we've cooked the Christmas turkey on the barbie for the last two years! :cool:

Now one thing I have to ask the ladies of this forum - do you too find that blokes love cooking on the barbie, find it oh-so-easy, but forget that they did f*** all when it came to buying the food from the supermarket, putting the tinnies in the fridge to cool down, the preparation of the burger buns, the salads, cutting the meat up, skewering the meat onto the kebabs..... :rolleyes:

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Yeah yeah yeah .......whatever!!!!! :D

Seriously though, I am in the middle of clearing our garden of dead branches etc.....(over an acre of woodland)...

Have had a fire going for 3 days and just CANNOT drag myself away from it!!!!

There HAS to be something built into us blokes that makes us want to sit 'staring' (and I do) at a fire for hours on end!!

Very soothing.............. :)

The women just dont get it and think I'm barmy,,,,,,,C's ol' man even comes and joins me on occasions with a cigar and a beer!! We just sit there, in silence, and stare (at the fire, not each other)!!!

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I do great meat, but what's the best way to clean the grid and hotplate afterwards? I confess that I tend to get up the following morning, scrape the loose stuff up and then run it hard next time to burn off any germs!

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On a serious note......only buy the BBQ the size you want to store.

because regardless of all the talk only 10% of you will ever really cook on the thing after 3 years, it will be used 2-3 times a year after that ;)

Then the wife will learn to use the grill, get used to opening a door for the smell and heat!!!!??? excuse while I barf


and the bloke gets well bored....

if I am wrong, please send me the bbq recipes from all blokes still using the outside gas oven after three years in Aus and not using pre bought kebabs or steaks, Thanks.

As for the original poster.....learn to cook on a BBQ.....marinade all your old meat in any left over bottles from the fridge....include tomato sauce, chilli dip, coke, butter, brown sauce, dill pickle, ...etc etc in one bowl overnight. Give it to master chef at the big outside gas oven and let him burn, some ejjeit is bound to ask for the recipe!

Cheers

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I hate to say this cos I'm a bloke, but........
This is not far from the truth.........:rolleyes:

When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion:

Routine...
1) The woman buys the food.
2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert.
3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is lounging beside the grill - beer in hand.

Here comes the important part:
4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine....
5) The woman goes inside to organise the plates and cutlery.
6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with the situation.

Important again:
7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

More routine.....
8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table.
9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.

And most important of all:
10) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed "her night off."

And,
Upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing some women....

:D:D:beer:

Re: Barbecues
 

I think we must have bought the same BBQ, got it from Bunnings for $399 a few weeks ago too - the Garth 4 burner one? It was really hard work to put together though!

PL

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you've already turned it right down to actually cook. Now turn it up high again, scrape off mess whilst its hot, let it cool, then give the whole grill and plate a light oiling for next time.

Always keep a bucket of water near it too for problems eg fires, some kid getting burnt.

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They ALL are :scared:



We still use our BBQ a few times each week, and we've had a BBQ here for years. We must be one of the top 10%, or is it that we now live in QLD ? when we lived in Sydney we didn't use it very often ;)

Re: Barbecues
 

Thank you everyone for your advice. We did actually buy our bbq today and opted for a Weber in the end. Definitely on the pricey side but the guarantee and ease of cleaning swung it for me. Bought a rotisserie kit too so looking for a summer of outdoor cooking, for him, and all the preparation and tidying for me. What's new?!

Binbird

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Good call ! :D

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That doesn't sound like any extra work ... I like solutions like that!

I got my BBQ from the trading post for $80 with a rusty but in-date gas bottle which I used till empty, then swapped at Bunnings for a shiny new one : ) With a $10 Bunnings cover it even looks the part at the end of the verandah. We use it maybe a couple of times a month.

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lol - karma to you - spot on :D

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Good job you aren't in South Australia .........

20dec05
FIRE authorities have warned South Australians to prepare for extremely hazardous weather conditions today, with temperatures expected to top 40 degrees.

Total fire bans have been declared for seven regions across the state and the Country Fire Service (CFS) has reminded residents to implement their bushfire action plan.

CFS acting deputy chief officer Andrew Lawson said that in districts where a total fire ban has been imposed, barbecues that burn solid fuels also must not be lit. Courier Mail

It is that season again.

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This is why we have both a Weber and a Gas BBQ.... :)