weber kettle

[PinHead]

haha Tangles..I knew you would not be able to help yourself once you saw that weber name...almost as alluring to oyu as the word tackle.

I had a weber years back..how primitive with heat beads etc..took it to the dump..slow and terrible. I much prefer the gas barbie.

[Giffo65]

Troy
love my Weber Kettle,I fill the cages to the brim with heat beads (easy light ones ) If they are slow to burn,the leaf blower on them gives em a hurry up.I work on 1 hour per kilo of meat and works well,I rub Pork with oil and salt and you get great crackling,(I can feel my arteries hardening as we speak).At the end of the BBQ extinguish the remaining beads with the hose and use them next time,this way you do not run out of heat half way through a roast.Big rule,NEVER lift the hood to have a look,work out your cooking time and leave it.Don't buy a new Kettle as they are cheap 2nd hand, as most buy em and put em in the shed as to hard to use,my new one was given to me by the neighbour as he did not like it.

[Noelm]

lucky I found this post, I am the Weber king!!!!! (well I reckon I am) I have two kettle BBQ's one genuine Weber, and one found on the side of the road Kmart one, now I have no idea why, but the genuine one leaves the shit Kmart one for dead when it comes to cooking, so make sure you buy the "proper" one. Now for what to do, first off, as mentioned, only buy the quality heat beads, the cheap ones are crap, the number of beads will determine the heat available, not how long it will burn for, and trust me, they will stay hot for hours, so time is not a problem. The genuine Weber will have two basket sort of things that you put the heat beads in, for indirect cooking, I put around 25 heat beads in each basket, and when they are well lit (that is, they turn white) you pull the baskets to either side and put an aluminium tray between them, the meat is then place over the tray and the lid is put back on (and dont keep checking it) what happens is, the tray protects the meat from the direct heat, and the main heat is from around the side and up over the top of the meat, so it cooks from the top, and makes the worlds best crackling! a rolled Pork roast, or leg of lamb will no take very long to cook. Now for direct cooking, the heat beads can be either stil put in the baskets, or just spread over the bottom rack and the meat is placed over them, this is more or less like cooking a conventional BBQ, you need to check the meat now and then to make sure it does not burn. My best and most asked for Weber meal is marinated ribs, here my "secret" method to follow in the next post.

[Noelm]

Now for my world famous (well maybe not world famous, but famous at my place) ribs, go to your local butcher and buy a couple of racks of pork ribs, you can buy the already marinated ones if you like, then get a bottle of smoky BBQ sauce marinade, get a baking dish and put some water in the bottom, get a rack (to keep the ribs out of the water) and place the ribs on it, cover the whole thing with a few layers of ally foil. Get the BBQ lit, (remember this process takes about half an hour, so do it well before hand) put the tray with the ribs in the BBQ and leave to to slow cook (with the foil over it) for an hour or so, then just before you want to eat them (when the free loaders show up) take them out of the Weber, and remove them from the tray, they now get placed direcly over the heat beads and brushed with trhe BBQ sauce, turn them over and brush again, repeat untill they have a nice "bark" on them. cut the rib racks into a couple of bits, the meat will be falling off the bones by now, place in the centre of the table and stand back, the freeloaders will stampede you to get to the ribs, trust me, I have done them 500 times now, and everytime it is sensational

[Noelm]

Back to the Kmart "weber" and the original one, they both look almost the same, except the vents are a different shape, and the legs don't fall off the genuine Weber, I do not know why they cook so differently, but they do, I use the shitone for a fish smoker now (and for cooking meat now and then, like Christmas) but almost always, I use the good one, gets pretty interesting when you put a turkey in the Kmart one, and the shit leg falls off, spilling heat beads and the Turkey onto the ground, I just prop it up, scoop all the heads beads back with the tongs and kid like it never happened. I went to my local BBQs Galore and got a couple of the Weber heat bead baskets for the Kmart one to try to make them the same.

[Shawn 66]

Hey Troy ,
I have just had a thought , my post does not help you in any way . I now realise you were asking about the heat bead side of things , a subject I have no experience with .
Sorry Bud .
Shawn

[troy]

Hey Troy ,
I have just had a thought , my post does not help you in any way . I now realise you were asking about the heat bead side of things , a subject I have no experience with .
Sorry Bud .
Shawn

All good Shawn, getting some good advise.
Troy

[Noelm]

I guess there is a couple of drawbacks with kettle style BBQ's, one being, they take a long time to 'light" about half hour or so, and the outside gets as hot as buggery, so kids need to be aware of this, or a close eye kept on little kids, Weber do make a cool touch one now, that stays cool on the outside, but they are as dear as poison, so being a tightarse, I never got one! they are also not cheap to use, by the time you buy a bag of heat beads, and the firelighter things, a BBQ would cost around 5-8 dollars to do, I don't re-use the heat beads, I just let them burn away to nothing, ready to be brushed into the tray and put into the bin. The end result is well worth it though, for some reason, meat cooked over the coals seems to be so much better than cooked on a gas BBQ, no idea why, maybe it is just my imagination, but it sure seems better. A Christmas pork and Turkey done in the Weber is the highlight of Christmas dinner at my place.

[PinHead]

sorry Noel..but weber + ribs = yuck for me.

I had not trouble cooking on the thing (cooking may be a bit of an incorrect word, cremation would be more applicable) but the messing around getting it lit and hot etc. Takes way too long.

[troy]

Pinhead nothing like a challenge maybe you and i could be entered into the funniest home bbq shows.
Troy

[Giffo65]

I like the smokey flavour of the heat beads over a gas BBQ,a bit fiddly to get going but worth it.

[troy]

Another question , if you are doing a roast when do you put your veges in as advise has been not to take the lid off during cookong the roast.
Troy

[backhoe]

Another question , if you are doing a roast when do you put your veges in as advise has been not to take the lid off during cookong the roast.
Troy

I can cook a great roast in the Weber but have never mastered veges. Best advise I can give for the meat is to get one of the remote digital thermometers. Never had a failure with this. Would love to hear if anyone has mastered veges on the weber and how they do it.

[Tangles]

Troy,

With the roast and veges, its simple if you have the coals all on on side and the roast on the other as you can place the various veges closer or further from the coals,

With advise of never taking lid off, well i dont follow that advice and have never had an issue, saying that i only take the lid of to either add the veges or extra coals

Potatoes can go in at the start = jacket potatoes
Things like carrots and pumpkin i put on about 40 mins before estimated finish time of roast

Hope this helps, no right or wrong ways really,

Mike

[charleville]

I gave a Weber decent hiding for many, many years but eventually I got tired of the messy clean up so I bought a conventional gas barbecue a few years ago.


I used the conventional gas barbecue for two or three years but stopped using it and refurbished the old Weber 'cos nothin' barbecues as nice as a Weber.



I absolutely loathe cooking shows and I am totally useless in the kitchen ........but not when it comes to using the Weber though. Even a celebrity doofus like me can deliver stunning results with the Weber.


My "signature" fare is barbecued duck. I barbecue the duck whole and then a few minutes before I take it out of the Weber, I brush the duck with honey and skewer pineapple rings with glaced cherries in the middle all over the skin of the duck and give it a few minutes to brown the pineapple. Yum!!!!


I do jacket spuds in Alfoil.

I too agree that the branded Heat Beads is the way to go for predictability reasons. Have tried all sorts of alternatives including natural charcoal but the heat beads give the most predictable results.


The Heat Beads website is worth a look.... http://www.heatbeads.com.au/ They have a few helpful tips and videos there.


My old Weber has always lived outside in the elements and so some of the fittings rusted away over time. (That's how old mine is!) The basic enameled kettle remains in good shape however so I refurbished it with a spare parts kit from Aussie Barbeques & Heaters at Murrarie. I suspect that all specialist barbecue retailers who sell Webers will have such kits. So even if you bought a second hand Weber, you could make it like new again because the basic kettle lasts forever.



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