Everything You Need To Know About Kettle BBQ's

All About Kettle BBQs - The Pro's, Con's And Whether They're Right For You

While I believe their great strength is as a slow roaster, they can be also be used as a conventional grill and as a smoker.

I use mine to complement my hooded grill as, despite it's great versatility, the gas-fired hooded grill cannot produce the same great melt-in-your-mouth texture and flavour that a charcoal/briquette fuelled kettle can.

Pros:

• They come with a variety of heat source options; gas, electric, and solid-fuel



• Can be used as a normal grill or as a slow cooker/roaster with the lid on



• Can be used as a smoker by using soaked wood chips directly over the heat source or using a in-BBQ smoke box



• Different size models available, ranging from something big enough to cook a chicken through to ones big enough to take to large turkeys. It just depends on your budget and requirements



• Because of their wide availability it's usually very easy to get parts and extras from places like K-Mart and Target through to the specialty stores for the more specialist items



• Highly portable, as long as they're not built into a trolley. Even the large kettles come apart quickly and can be packed in the average car.



• With prices ranging from around $150 to $1000 they can be accomodated into most budgets - even if they only get pulled out at Christmas to do the annual turkey or ham.

Cons:

• Electric ones cannot be used for slow roasting



• Gas-fired ones do not produce the same great flavour and colour that you get from solid fuels



• Solid fuelled ones cannot be used during fire ban days



• Solid fuelled ones can be difficult to get fired up and overall take around 20-30 minutes to get up to temperature.



• I'm not convinced this is a negative, but if you are slow roasting a large cut of meat (e.g. large turkey, leg of ham, etc) you should plan on doing some gardening or watching the footy as it could easily take 4-8 hours and you need to be around.

Comments:

• Do you need one ? No. Should you have one - Absolutely ! Slow cooking results in a beautiful, tender, great-tasting piece of meat that cannot be replicated any other way.



• If you are intending to get a gas-fired or electric one and primarily use it as a grill I believe you would be a lot better off spending a little extra and getting a hooded grill. The exception to this is if the portability is a primary requirement for you.



• If colour is something you get hung up on, my advice is, go with the black - most of the by-products of BBQ are black so they won't show up. Also, if you chip any of the other colours, you'll just end see the original black enamel coat that's underneath.



• My final recommendation with these is that you choose a solid-fuelled one (i.e. charcoal or briquettes) as it gives a far superior flavour to the food and is worth the little extra hassle getting it started.