Hi all, I've been mulling over what barbecue to buy for a little while. I've had an Outback Cookdome for 18 months and never really been happy with it - in fact my barbecuing had regressed to only things that could stand being close to the coals. Anything slower was done on my Cobb.
In truth, I really wanted to buy a Kamado Joe but had been entertaining the notion of cheaper cookers (hence my request for info on the Hacienda). However, my wife pointed out that we still have to pay for our summer holiday, need to redecorate the front room, buy the kids shoes, etc. and put the kybosh on the idea. My budget was set at £250.
So, I returned to kettle barbecues and settled on a short list of Weber OTP, OutdoorChef Easy 570 and the Napoleon Pro22k. All have 57 cm grills and, the reviews I've seen (lots for the Weber, fewer for the others) are equally positive all around. In the end, I decided to plump for the Napoleon. I used to have an adjustable height grill and found it useful when doing the typical burger and sausage party (sorry!) and this was the only BBQ to feature that. I also think it's probably going to help when cooking something large - there's a good 3 inches between lowest and highest settings and that will probably help out if I ever decide to roast a turkey in it!
There are a couple of other useful features in its arsenal - firstly, it comes with a cast iron grill (hinged for easy adding of charcoal during cooking) and it also has a removable air diffuser that you can place above the bottom vents but below the charcoal. The theory is that it diverts incoming air out and round, preventing the hot spot you sometimes get over the bottom vents. I'll see how that works out in due course.
Assembly went pretty smoothly - the instructions are really clear. Sadly I managed to drop a nut and can't find it, so I'll have to have a trip to the local hardware store to get a replacement. Fortunately it's non-essential and doesn't affect the structure at all. The finished barbecue is very sturdy - no rattles at all when I give it a good shake.
I thought I'd include a couple of pictures to show what it looks like. As always, having taken the snaps I now realise that I really need to pull up the weeds between my paving slabs! Here's the completed unit:
And this is a close up of the grill (you can see the air diffuser at the bottom) - it's hinged on either side, where the lines go wavy:
I haven't had chance to put it to the test yet - I'll update with first impressions tomorrow. However, I'm happy with it so far and really looking forward to giving it a go.
One final point for now is that I couldn't be more pleased with the supplier, BBQWorld. I ordered on Wednesday, received lots of progress emails and had the item delivered on Thursday - even the estimated delivery time was spot on. I bought a couple of accessories, including a pizza stone and, unfortunately, the stone was cracked in transit. I phoned the company today and was treated very courteously and have already received notification that the replacement is scheduled for delivery on Tuesday. Absolutely brilliant.