British BBQ Society Forums

Lo all,

Been browsing the forums for a few weeks now and thought I’d join and say hello.

I’ve been a BBQ fan for years, started off in my late teens with a brick built HomeBase kit in 1988. That lasted a year and I then switched to the horizontal oil drum route. That one lasted 14 years, several new drums, frames, grills etc but it was still the same barbee! (Almost used a galvanised grill once, until my old man informed me that it gives off arsenic when you heat it up!)
Most of the time I was grilling on direct heat but in later years I stacked the coals to one side and cooked chickens on the other side with lid closed. This was in the days before tinternet, I thought I’d invented something new...

I finally succumbed to pressure from ‘er in doors’... and the slow decline in people to invite round for parties, and purchased a cheap Weber clone from BnQ in 2002. I expected it to last a year but the bloody thing would not fall apart.

So against my old philosophy of not replacing a bbq till I can see the floor through a large hole in the bottom of it, I have gone and bought a ProQ Excel 20. The Weber clone will be refurbished and retired to the car park at work!

The ProQ arrived last week but tonight’s the first time I’ve had the chance to put it together and put a fire in the hold (just to fire it off, no food yet).

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Jayson

Hi Jayson,

Welcome to the forum, your intro sounds so much like my right of passage. I went with the Brick built grill, then moved on to an old oil drum cut in half which served me well up until I was introduced to Weber by a friend in 2003. Since then I have progressed on to the Weber Smoker Mountain, I've had a Frontier, Excel 20, Amigo and still have a few portables kicking around.

Of them all I think you will find your E20 the most versatile and easy to use, but my one piece of advice which I would impart for all brands... Don't trust the lid thermometer. One thing that does set the E20 aside from its rivals is that the lid therm is configurable, you can calibrate it.

Hope you enjoy the forum and look forward to reading some of your posts.

Cheerz

Adie

Welcome to the forum.

Hi Jayson, welcome to the forum.
I stayed with the burn-it method for many years until I met some of the chaps (and chapesses) on here, loads of advice and just generally nice people. You should pop along to one of the comps and have a snoop around, a chat and a beer

Chris

Hi Jayson, just bought myself an excel and am loving it, where abouts are you from?

Sorry for the late reply guys, work commitments and the winter hibernation put paid to my smoking initiation. I managed a couple test with the ProQ, just chicken and ribs. The food tasted great but I noticed some temperature swings whilst cooking (using a digital thermometer). I gonna try using a terracotta plate in the bottom instead of water this time, I might even fire it up this weekend... is April to early for a barby? Ozza, I’m in Camden, north London, not a great smoking area, most people seem to use cheap grills or gas round here.

Hi fella, welcome to the world of low and slow. Got a pro q myself. Consider it as a old classic car. Sometimes it has a mind of it's own, but once you can get it to run properly and understand it. They are as good as anything els..

Let us know how you get on.

Eddie.

Hi Jayson,
Welcome to the forum.