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Barbecues - making your own?

We own a BBQ that was a gift from the Duke of Edinburgh. He was very pally with the in-laws and brought it as a present when he came to stay one year.

It was built by “the engineers” at Sandringham or Balmoral, whoever they may be.

It is basically a standard hibachi style grill, with fold up metal legs, but it’s made out of very thick gauge steel, 3mm at a guess. It has racks for adjusting the height of the grills, but other than that it’s pretty much a no frills grill. It doesn’t have a lid or anything.

This thing must be 50 years old and it’s still going strong. We even use it commercially now, for big weddings and what not. The punters are unaware that they are eating burgers off a grill that Phil the Greek himself designed and operated.

I would say it’s worth finding someone who can weld you up a DofE spec hibachi grill.

Identical to this:


You used to work on boats and your in-laws were pally with Phil. Admit it, you're Meghan Markle.
 
Back in the seventies whilst living in PNG, Dad acquired a gas burner plate from one of the messes around the place (thanks Francis), to make a BBQ for the same purpose you require. Actually it was two burner plates. One for the Pistol Club and one for home. Your solution:
  • buy a second hand gas burner plate formerly used in an "industrial" kitchen from where ever they are auctioned
  • lay concrete slab
  • build a brick support frame, table, etc to your own design
  • weld up a metal bracket to support burner plate, if required
  • buy BFO gas bottles
  • connect gas bottles to burner plate
  • begin cooking
When my folks left PNG they bought the burner plate back with them and built another BBQ along with subsequent house moves.

Any deployable military unit worth its salt would have a portable version of the above.

Simplez really.
 

Place I go to puts baked beans in the smoker/BBQ. They get one of those big oblong cooking dishes, empty in a couple, or three huge catering tins of baked beans, then throw in a couple of pounds of diced previously smoked pig. Putting the beans in the smoker heats them up and also imparts a nice smokey flavour……………then they sell a polystyrene cup full of them for about $3.

I’m just putting together a recipe for a tomato based dipping sauce for BBQ. Nicked the idea from Franklins BBQ………..

Home - Franklin Barbecue | Austin, Texas

I shall put it up when I am happy with it.
 
6 burner? You haven't got a BBQ you've got an outdoor lady's gas cooker.
Yep! We're in the middle of nowhere and get lots of power cuts. One factor in the purchase was could we cook a full roast dinner in it? Well, we can!

I also hate all the faffing around with charcoal. Mine is click on the gas, click on the flash button and get the meat out! Cast iron burners 2 cast iron grills and a cast iron tray - so I can even do fried eggs!!
 
BGEs/Kamadoes are both grills and smokers. And ovens. And Pizza ovens. But costly.

It sounds like your climate is similar to mine, although we probably get more rain. Which brings up another consideration - a covered deck makes all the difference, I use my gear year-round, hot or cold. Might be worth building one of those first, and use an expendable BBQ in the meantime. @RoyalGreenJacket has a nice BBQ shack too.

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This was the first winter in mine.....

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I built my own out of wood (not the burny bit, obviously) as I had an old wheelbarrow lying around. My parents had owned it for a good 30-odd years; it has a galvanised tub but a non-galvanised frame so most of the bit that make it a wheelbarrow had long rusted into uselessness.

Just built a sort of very thick table structure, attached a few bricks to the top to which to mount the hot part and put this nice, solid tub on top. The tricky bit to be honest is getting hold of the grill to fit.

Overall it's worked pretty well; the only real negative point with making it from wood is that whilst it's nowhere near hot enough to burn, the wood does still get pretty hot and so has changed shape slightly making the original mortice and tenon joints a bit crap and leading to slight wobblyness.

Will take some pictures when I remember, and when it's light.
 
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