9
HEAVY METAL
As the growth of BBQ in the UK continues at a sprint, many BBQ'ers and street food vendors are looking for ever more high end and stand out bits of kit on which to cook on or in...
There are a select band of companies and individuals who are recognising this demand and coming up with some epic smokers and grills.
The trend is not just for U.S. style trailer smokers, though which are growing in popularity, Argentine style Parillas, and European hanging grills are readily available now. There are also some pretty wild looking smokers that are now appearing such as steam trains and truck smokers.
This article was prompted by an email out of the blue by a really interesting chap, Otis Griffith, who told me about a truck BBQ he was building.
Otis is a metal sculptor based in Essex, and created the 120kg BBQ Truck called the Man-BQ (but I can think of some smoking ladies who would love this too). Here's the story of the build..
I use new and up-cycled/ re-cycled materials. I had a large old BBQ and was going to up-cycle it and modify it to a Big Rig but when I worked out the scale it would have been too big so I decided to start from scratch. So off I went to my local steel stockists to get a few sheets of steel and some square steel bar..
I had to wait for the pneumatic wheels to arrive before I could start on the Man-BQ as I had to scale the truck to these 10 inch wheels ... I was soon off and in mind being gripped by my new project, after a few days a chassis was taking shape and over the next few weeks and many hours the Truck began to resemble a Big Rig ..was gaining weight day by day too .. after many hours and weeks I rolled out the rolling model and then final fabrication plans were made and the next haul was started.
Finally after 2 months of blood, sweat, tears ( literally.. a steel splinter in my Cornea).
I was soon back working on the charcoal and food grills which took nearly 200ft of steel to make. I designed and created a stand and for it to sit on and while it was out to be powdercoated I finished the truck fine details and accesories and finished it with several coats of VHT clear laquer outside and Matt Black VHT spray on the inside.
Finally finished weighing in at over 19stone/ 120kg+ 6ft long it was towed out of the garage. The Cab top tilts back, this area is your traditional charcoal grille BBQ, the sleeping compartment of the truck is a slow roast smoking compartment, with varied height levels and comes complete with wood smoking box.
The Man-BQ is on show at the moment but I hope to fire it up soon and will forward you some pics with the smoke coming out of the stacks and food sizzling away.. have a couple little suprise cooking aids that you will see when I forward the pics hehee.
Commissions and all enquiries can be made through my webpage ..