4 Burner BBQ

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  [Deactivated] on 16/01/2012 - 12:24

  I don't have experience buying one, but I have fully reconditioned several discarded BBQs. As with everything nowdays, I would avoid anything made in China. I'm fairly sure BBQs galore used to sell Australian made BBQs, but now, who knows!? I have looked closely at a couple of Chinese made BBQs in BigW, and sure, they would work ok at first - but the build quality is just atrocious. The spot welds were so small and so few, and the sheet metal so thin, I could see the welds straining when I raised/lowered the lid. I can't imagine they'd last long before cracking. I'd rather pay $50/$100 more for one that lasts say, 10 years, instead of a Chinese one that lasts 2-3 (and then have to buy another anyway).

  Also, if it were me, I would have a look under the cooking plates - and avoid BBQs with burners that are just silver metal tubes with drilled holes. I'd look for the old-style cast iron burners instead. If they rust out, you can easily buy replacements (about $12 last time I saw them) at Bunnings. The tubes might be stainless steel. So ok, they probably won't rust out in the first place. But China copies (or is it "deceives") wherever they can. So they might not be stainless too! Either way, I know cast iron ones are dead easy to replace. (Pull out the single metal spring clip underneath at the back, lift burner up from the back and then out of BBQ. Replace with new one in the reverse order.)

  In Bunnings I noticed some BBQs had a black ceramic coating on the cooking plates. I'd just get plain cast iron plates, because I've seen the ceramic coating char and crack. Unless people like crunchy steaks. ;-p I've also seen aluminium plates (alzheimer's anyone?). You stop the cast iron ones from rusting by scraping clean immediately after cooking (food comes off dead easy at that point), and wipe over with cooking oil on some paper towel. The oil dries and seals the plate from rusting. (For a few weeks anyway.) If it rusts after that, just bring to full heat, scrape clean and oil again before cooking.

  Once you decide, try and clean it every few months - when the grease-absorbent grit in the bottom tray looks dirty. (I just use kitty litter, and I've heard one of those TV gardening shows say the same.) The grease tray nearly always rusts out before a BBQ wears out, because people never clean it. The grease traps in moisture, which rusts through the tray. Just scrape it out with a paint scraper, spray with home brand oven cleaner, hose it out, refill with kitty litter.

  One thing you might want to consider is buying a completely separate cast-iron cooking ring. The smaller wok cooker on our BBQ just doesn't get hot enough. It's ok for small amounts of food (say a typical chinese-takeaway container full). But any more than that, and it produces soggy, steamed food. Most camping stores sell several sizes of cast cooking rings and they are cheaper than you'd think. My wife & I bought one for wok cooking. It connects straight to a BBQ gas bottle and the extra heat it produces turns out asian-style food that is more like the restaurants, instead of "soggy & steamed".

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    ShortyX on 16/01/2012 - 13:34

    +1

    We bought a Jumbuck 4 burner (from Bunnings) a few years ago. It's still going ok…we left it out in the weather at our old house for a couple of years (no patio and no BBQ cover) so it's weathered quite a bit. The ceramic coating is starting to come off and the plates are rusting quite a bit.

    @realfamilyman - how do you protect and clean the plates with the cermaic coating?

    We would like a new BBQ but is it worth reconditioning this BBQ or buying a new one?

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  [Deactivated] on 16/01/2012 - 15:11

  As long as the inner-rear is still ok and not rusted through, I think it's worth it. (But buying new is always nice too.)

  The area where I mean is, if you lift the plates right out, under their back edge (inside the body of the BBQ), there is a flat horizontal lip about 4cm wide, with oval-shaped holes - one for each burner - that the back of the burners clip into… Between these holes there are what I call, little metal "gas trenches" - that are usually pop-riveted on. Most BBQs only have one burner that you light, then you turn the gas to the other burners on, and they catch alight. Well those little folded-metal, pop-riveted "gas trenches", cause the gas coming out of burner #2, 3, etc, to "spill back" to burner #1 (which is alight), so the other burners can catch alight from #1. Anyway, if those "gas trenches" are BADLY rusted, or the body of the BBQ is rusted so that gas path is all but ruined, then the gas can take too long to reach the other burners - in the usual way anyway. In that case, I'd probably either discard it as being too risky, or, if you were the only one lighting the BBQ, you could light them manually from behind - or from underneath by pulling the grease tray forward momentarily.

  If the body inside is ok though, and only the "gas trenches" themselves are badly rusted or missing, I have bent up my own with a vice and hammer and riveted them on. (They don't have to be precise.) Or once again - just manually light each burner in turn.

  That's another reason why BBQs need to be cleaned by the way… Those same trenches fill up with grease. So the gas can't flow between the burners. Then someone tries to light the BBQ and you hear them muttering… "Damn BBQ, won't light agai… WOOOOFFF! Honey - it's lit!"

  But if you have a BBQ with the silver burner tubes, you wouldn't even know what I'm talking about above. :-p

  As for the cooking plates… Once the ceramic stuff starts cracking, it just gets worse. Two things you could do… Use an electric drill and a set of wire wheels from a junk shop (GoLo, Crazy Prices, Clints, etc.) for less than $10 and grind all the cracked ceramic stuff off. Sometimes the ceramic coating isn't all cracked/loosened though. And it can take HOURS and more patience than I have nowdays to get it all off.

  The 2nd way is far easier - as long as you don't have a BBQ with plates that are curved in some way. If you have a BBQ with plain square plates, then they are nearly always the same size as other BBQs. So you just wait 'til there's a local council cleanup, and watch for discarded BBQs - carry some newspaper in the car boot, and pinch the plates. ;-)

  I do this too, because I prefer to have two flat plates instead of the one slotted/grill they always give you. Apart from the fact I don't like meat cooked that way, the fat drips through the grill and clogs/rusts/ruins the burners. (Although I've noticed manufacturers have wised up to this, and a lot of the time now put covers over the burners to stop fat dripping on them.)

  Another reason I avoid the grill plates is, I read online the smoke from those volcanic rocks contain carcinogens.

  Oh, and you can do the thing with the drill/wire wheel on plates that are so rusty they can't be cleaned. And/or the cast iron burners too. They all come up like new. Poke any rust collected in the burner holes through with a piece of wire. Then bang and turn them back and forth to get most of the lose rust out. Then coat the plates with cooking oil again between uses. (No point cleaning the underside of the flat plates though. Yes, slow learner over here. I found they rusted again in just a few days. I just clean the tops now.)

  If you do anything with the drill/wire wheels, try to use some breathing protection. Even if it's just an old T-shirt tied over your mouth and nose. That black stuff gets in everywhere! And glasses/goggles of course - so none of the broken wires fly into your eyes. (I still remember the incredible pain from picking them out of my cheeks and forehead.)