Manly outdoor kitchen centre - Table and knob!

[lewist123]

Sooo.. with the brillient weather we have been having recently, I naturally reached for the BBQ.

Damn!! The gas bottle was empty. Oh well I thought, I will give the BBQ a service and pick up a new bottle. Out came the racks and lava rock.

Hmm.. I thought, the flame holder looks pretty rusty. Best get the wire brush out and clean that up....







Poo! A new gas bottle refil was £30, but I can get £30 back if I give the bottle back and cancel the contract (or keep it and make a wood burner ) so I decided that it was time to create a mega BBQ oven cooking centre.

A friend had recently given me a load of high density concrete blocks and a load of bricks left over from a job he did. He also gave me a massive slab of slate.

So... to work.

I nominated a corner of the patio



Laid out some blocks to get an idea of what would fit without taking up too much space



It looked good, so I drew up a few plans and idea and then set to work.

The plan is to make a corner unit with a central brick lined oven area. Above that will be a metal grill or a slab of slate cut to fit in its place. The concrete blocks will from the outer shell with a brick lined combustion area.

I can either use the oven area as an oven (with the slate closing the top off) or the grill to BBQ over a wood fire. This gives me the option to do many many things with this BBQ oven like putting a concrete slab in there to cook pizza, an rotisery rack, normal oven racks etc.

I am also going to make a pan that will sit into the top opening to so that I can burn charcoal with the grill on top like a normal BBQ.

So here are some pics.









I staggered the bricks making the inner combustion area so that racks or slabs can be placed within the oven.





I cut one of the big concrete slabs in half to make the two side table esk areas





Oven lined with bricks



This evening I mocked up the base of the chimney. Needs some work but the idea is there.









Here is a pic of the slate that I will use for parts of the top etc



The top of the BBQ oven at the front will be closed off to form the grill area.

So some more progress pics soon

Lewis

[hamps]

cool love it good job

[squeezemetim]

awesome, thats a proper manly bbq

[lewist123]

Well I was having a poke around work today for stuff.

I work at a company that deals in timber consultancy and testing (of many and various sorts). We have a 'scraps' bin at work. Any off cuts of timber of scrap stuff gets chopped up into bit and stored so that employees can take it for fire wood. The scaps bit in huge, and the following stuff is a small fraction.

SCORE

So I got a load of softwood 2x4 for firing the oven. Well enough for a burn or two..



I also have a load of logs as well that can be chopped up, but these bits are a great size.

I also got a load of different type of hardwood. When using it as an oven, hardwood burns more slowly to give a more gente burn.

I snagged some chunks of oak for smoking





Some (I think) beach



and all sorts of various other stuff, like Iroko, Ipe and some other stuff.



As I was walking back into the office, I noticed a pile of scrap bits of ductwork that had been removed from the roof of one of the test labs. I asked the boss man, and snagged a few bits.



Lo-and-behold, it fits perfectly. I will level off and fill the tapered bits to make the charcoal tray and an oven tray or some such. I will also use one of the other bits in the chimney intake bit.



More over the weekend (hopefully).

Lewis

[captainmatt]

That ducting looks galvanised. I'd do checks on it as the heat could damage it and taint your food.

[lewist123]

True, and a good point that I hadn't considered.

Thanks

[Deleted]

Taking shape nicely!

it might be worth filling the voids with Micalite too (granular stuff used for cavity fill in chimneys, aga's and other hot things!). It keeps the outside temps down - giving you a more stable surface for rendering over and less burnt children - and inside temps up!

Joe

[lewist123]

Joe

That was generally the plan, although I had planned to fill it with gravel, rubble and other stuff that I have knocking about. The brick lining should keep the temps of the concrete structure right down. I need to figure out how to insulate the door. That will get much much hotter. It will probably be double skinned and insulated.

Lewis

[lewist123]

Well here is an update from yesturday and todays work.

The oven is warming as I type this post ready to try and bake a loaf of bread, and re-heat some ribs from last nights chinese take away.

So

Here is a quick shot of old faithful. My knocking up 'barrow. It has had a hard life, but still holding out OK. Quilty british built





So onto the work. There are a lot of pics, so not too many words.

I started to mock up the top and figure out the chimney etc







I decided what I wanted to do with the top so started cutting paving slabs with my new diamond tipped cutting disk (a dream to use and cheep too!!)



I then decided that to make things as simple as possible I would need two steel lintels. I will allow some movement for expansion and contraction of the metal.







I then cut some bricks up to mortar over the front lintel to hide it.













And with some left over motar I threw a bit onto the blockwork to start to get a scratch coat going.







So that was Yesturdays progress... todays in a moment.

Lewis

[lewist123]

So onto today.. I will mainly let the pics to the talking...

Bricks at the front had dried



Render getting there



As i was cutting the flue hole in one of the slabs it cracked on me





SO I had to do that one over again





Sucess!!



I then started to add the other tops into place.







I then cut and test fitted the slate black (used when being used as an oven only).



Then the start of the chimney



Nice and level (was a quite a suprise tbh)







I then made a small fire to check that the chimney draws







Rack in place



I then knocked a charcoal tray up out of a bit of old steel sheet



Needs the whole welded up





I also made a divider so I don't have to use the whole charcoal bit (big)



And a parting shot. I just need to make a door now as well as a rotisery rack and BBQ grill grid with hieght adjusters



Bread next!!!

Lewis

[retrowagen1234]

Looks good ...


You gonna do a winning video like this when its up and running?

[lewist123]

Bum.... the internet just ate my post.

So here it is again (hopefully i can remember what I wrote first time)..

I decided to fire the oven tonight to have a little test burn and cook some bread.

Here is the dough



And here is my loaf tin



Now some of you (well maybe not) might be thinking, hey, he made his own bread dough. Well, to tell the truth I let the bread maker do the work. It has a great dough cycle that mixes, needs and gives first prooving to the dough.

So after it did its work, i poped it in the tin, covered it in foil and popped it in a warm spot to rise again (not like the undead or anything like that).



So into the oven where my ribs were nicely warmed though.



After lots and lots of pacing like an expectant father, it was looking goood......



It came out after one hour looking OK. The sides were quite dark, but not actually burnt.



Slice



BUTTER



It was a fairly good loaf! They are fairly variable at the best of times, but this one is good! I will be toasting it for breakfast tomorrow and thinking about what to do next.

Lewis

[grizz]

Awesome stuff Lewis, I was going to post the other day, and then typically the PC crashed when I hit the post button.

Learning from you as I go along.

[lewist123]

Thanks mate, I am learning too!!

This afternoon we had a family BBQ.

I didn't have time to make the grill racking so just 'freesyled' it with some bricks and a small rack.

I also decided to fire the oven on some big chucks of log. Last night I was firing it on softwood 2x4 (untreated obviously), and had issues in maintaining the temp. The wood burned too hot too fast to maintain a consistent heat. The logs worked much better, burning more slowly and not smoking as much (tannins and tar in the softwood).

Here it is set up with the charcoal pan



Bits of wood to burn



Baked potatoes in the oven (corn went in as well later on)



Chicken marinading in BBQ sauce



Firing up the charcoal



getting ready to cook



YUM





So, all in all it worked really well. Oven got really nice and hot. Backed spuds and corn were excellent. Charcoal pan worked well as well, and will be better with a bigger rack and some height adjustment.

After the food was oven, I took the oven door away, and threw on some more wood to keep warm





Thanks

Lewis

[TS]

God I'm hungry now. Great work.

[grizz]

Inspiring pic.

[Colonelk]

like it

[lewist123]

^ I'll cook you some dinner on it later if you want

Grizz - thanks mate. Was yummy

I tried to cook a puff pastry pizza the other day. I cut a slab os slate, popped into the lowest rack, and set a nice fire.

I think I did too much fire, becuase the base burnt before the cheese was fully browned, but its all a learning curve.

Thanks

Lewis

[mini-mad-nick]

i really like that buddy excellent idea i really want to make one now, but the parents wouldnt agree :L

[lewist123]

Well, we had a big BBQ today for the family, ColonelK, Myke and his better half Collette.

I was a bit more ambitious today and cooked a small belly of pork in the oven on the slate slab (as well as the usual BBQ faire).

No shots of the pork in the BBQ oven I am afraid, but got the oven good and hot on a mix of lumpwood charcoal and big logs to get a big hot ash bed going. I then roasted it uncovered for 2 hours (lots of salt and pepper on the skin).

The slate got really really hot and caused the bottom of the belly to crisp up as well as the crackling, but it was really nice, and the pork flesh was moist and juicy.



ColonelK liked it very much



and then proceeded to pic all the scraps off the chopping board.



That went quick