Welcome to the dark side 🙂 And by dark side I mean super flavourful smokey chicken thighs and beautifully charred burgers on your charcoal grill :D. Perhaps you’re a big spender and it’ll be King Prawns + a cracking Ribeye off the bat for you. Whatever way you look at it. I have you absolutely covered in this article for a fantastic first day on the charcoal bbq grill from assembly, right through to those yummy smokey chicken thighs we just talked about delicately seasoned with rock salt and pepper. Getting hungry? I know I am 😀 so read on for your first time perfect experience on a charcoal grill.
Ordering your charcoal bbq
If you already have your bbq skip this stage to the next. Don’t get too clever with this. Charcoal is charcoal. It doesn’t matter if you spend £1200 Kamado Joe or a few hundred for a Cosmo charcoal bbq, both will give you beautifully flavoured food that is sure to impress the friends and family as soon as this lockdown is done away with. Personally I would select from a charcoal bbq or potentially take a look at food smokers. You might be surprised to see they do similar things and overlap each other. If your goal was stunning smokey flavoured, slow cooked side of pork you might opt for a smoker. On the other hand if you just want something to duo a chicken thigh and a sausage/burger for the kids a charcoal grill is more than adequate.
I won’t lie. I am lazy as hell when it comes to shopping and wouldn’t dream of dragging back a big heavy box from the shops, just get it delivered 😀 Talking of which that leads us right on to assembly of your bbq and some mistakes you will easily make.
Assembling a charcoal bbq grill
Did you know some of these charcoal grills are turning into crazy technical near rocket ship tech to put together? Well with all the super cool gadgets like the beer holder, front control adjustable height of charcoal, bbq thermometer built in, and a list as long as my arm they are genuinely becoming a problem to put together. I bought one on the weekend and that’s what made me think of this article funnily enough. I thought ‘how could anyone using a charcoal grill for the first time actually see this through’. There were like a million pieces in the box! 😀
OK don’t panic, the first step is take them all out and lay them around the garden. Honestly it looked like a jumble sale. Don’t cut corners here, just take it all out and familiarise yourself with the contents. If you don’t then with these mainly originating from abroad with less than perfect assembly manuals, you will come a cropper. And after saying the assembly instructions will be less than perfect, I am going to appear to contradict myself now and tell you to LOOK AT THEM closely. That is the whole problem actually. They are never clear enough with their diagrams. Have you ever put together an IKEA product? If yes, you’ll appreciate just how great the instructions are (if you didn’t agree this is going to be a tough old process getting the bbq together :D), well these foreign bbq manuals are nothing like your friendly IKEA. So you really need to scrutinise to be sure you are placing the right component with each stage of the build.
Here’s me laying all this out in the garden to ensure I know where I’m at.
Once I feel I have a handle on this I begin assembly. Guess what? There are like a hundred screws and bolts. This is a typical install by the way and what you can expect from any flat pack charcoal bbq. In fact this isn’t limited to charcoal bbq, you will find exactly the same problem with gas bbq’s, or any BBQ for that matter. No I am not joking, take a look at this pack of screws, nuts, bolts, and other fixing bits:
So I start off using their rubbish tools and realise I will lose my whole first day on the BBQ. The hope is you are someone organised and googling this prior to the event! 😀 I quickly switch to decent screw drivers and spanners. This still takes an age going through each mundane step, so I then resort to pulling out my trusty cordless drill. You may not have one so persevere with better screw drivers and spanners (sorry!). If you do have a cordless drill then for the love of god, change up to save your sanity.
You get to the point you nearly have the thing standing. This is cool and you feel like you’re on the home stretch. This is no kidding, at least two hours later. Don’t be mislead. If you’ve bought a big kit the sis no quick fix thing. Now if you wanted to still be in the BBQ spirit you might want to be doing this assembly the day before. I don’t know about you, but if I get worked up then I find myself far less interested in having fun. So try to keep a cool temperament whilst putting it together. I would suggest having a swift cold one but how could I possibly do that when you’re using a cordless drill 😉
Finally the thing is upright. You literally cannot help but play around with the dials and levers, or in my case, someone else messing around with it. So annoying, I put it together, someone else starts making short videos sending it to all the friends hogging the glory. Still what can you do, you can’t bump your wife off can you? 🙂
Now comes the fun bit the BBQ for the first time
Well nearly, do you have neighbours? How about letting them know you’re about to smoke them out. Good manners and gives them a chance to bring in their washing. You have a legal right to BBQ, that doesn’t mean we need to alienate anyone in the process 🙂
If you’re handy at cooking then don’t bother cutting up your chicken. If on the other hand you are not then prep your chicken and meat the day / night before and wrap tightly in clingfilm or better use one of those vac pack machines if you happen to have one. I don’t, I simply cut up the chicken from whole as it arrives to me on the bbq. Baby steps my friends 🙂 You might want a bbq side table too.
What I would do those is leverage on the wife or partner to prep all salad, cook some potatoes (don’t forget to throw some foil around a few spuds and slam them in the hot coals. After all, this was the whole point of BBQ. Stab them. You could throw in butter but I don’t bother, when they come out in an hour I load them up with more butter, salt, and pepper than you can believe.
Don’t forget you can practically BBQ anything. A banana, a steak, peppers, mushrooms, and anything you can think of. OK, I don’t BBQ a banana but I know in some countries it’s a delicacy. It was trying to make the point it’s experiment time and you no longer need me to make this thing work.
Well, yes you do. No BBQ is complete without a copious amount of booze. Please ensure you have more than enough for two bbq’s in a row. I guarantee that once you have your first test of a bbq you made yourself, you will be straight back for another and I applaud you for recognising just how must more tasty charcoal is over gas.
Now for the boring bits – safety when using a bbq for the first time.
Obviously make sure you are no where near anything flammable, in particular carpets, hay, dry grass, and anything else that will go up fast. It’s not a joke, bbq safety is a real concern and if you have pets keep them out the way. Many a dog are hurt by a hot coal that innocently falls to the ground by accident.
To be sure you give yourself the best chance of a safe first bbq:
• Keep a bucket of water close at hand, sand or a garden hose that you can easily turn on and ready to go nearby.
• Always follow any safety instructions provided by the bbq manufacture, after all they are the ones that test this apparatus.
• Never ever leave a lit barbecue unattended. If you have kids or pets, this is absolutely all on you, they get hurt. Blame yourself. You have been warned. Sorry for the serious aggressive tone, it’s for real. This point.
• Following on from leaving the bbq unattended, keep children and pets away as much as possible and don’t allow them to play ball games nearby.
• Keep your barbecue well away from fences or sheds, particularly anything flammable (like the petrol you have in your jerry can in the shed).
• Talking of which, never use petrol or paraffin to start your bbq. A bbq chimney can help with this.
• Don’t overload your bbq with charcoal, there’s no need you can always top up. That said, make sure it’s lump wood without chemicals to start it, so that when you do top up, you are not eating paraffin!
• Ash will ignite the next day, before you finish douse your ash in water thoroughly to help put it out. Never put the contents in a wheelie bin until it is completely cool. You will set fire to it!
Sorry to end the article on such a serious note but a bbq with charcoal is a big responsibility and if done right it is one of life’s best pleasures. Be safe and enjoy your first bbq. Here’s mine put together:
