BBQ Product Design

[JTerry]

Hi everyone!

Hope I've posted this in the right place, otherwise, mods, feel free to move it.

My name is J Terry and I'm a university student currently in the fourth year of my Product Design and Technology course. One of the requirements for my final year is to come up with an innovative new design for a consumer product and develop it over the course of the academic year to a standard where the design is almost ready for mass manufacture.

As a frequent BBQer, I have noticed a lot of problems with the basic BBQs that most families buy at the start of each summer and chuck away around October time as they have fallen apart, rusted or gunked up with BBQ grease/fat etc. Obviously the members of this forum are likely to have more specialised kit than the average J Bloggs, but I am trying to gather as much information as possible that I can use in my work.

Over the next eight months I will be examining the BBQ experience as a whole and trying to improve it wherever possible. However, at this early stage I am trying to develop my understanding of the BBQ activity as a whole, rather than addressing specific problems. For example, I would like more opinions on questions such as:

Why do people BBQ?
What is the attraction?
What do you enjoy most about the BBQ? Is it the cooking? The preparation of the food? The organisation of the event? The social element and reunion of family and friends?
What other activities take place at your own BBQs that helps to make them such fun events?

If anyone could contribute useful feedback, I would really appreciate it as it will help me a lot and, hopefully, should result in my final proposal being a well-informed and considered design which real people would consider buying.

I will also be starting another forum thread to address what issues people most commonly find with their BBQs that put a damper on the event. In this thread, I would welcome contributions as to what most annoys you about your BBQ, or BBQing in general.

Any contributions will be completely anonymous and I will request permission from all submissions before including them in my portfolio of work.

Thank you for anyone who contributes!

JT

**EDIT: In fact, I will ask for people to post their problems with current BBQs in this thread too as there doesn't seem to be a different forum appropriate to that thread. If the mods would like this thread moved, please, of course, do so. **

[JTerry]

Hey again,

Looks like there have been 38 views and no comments... maybe the first post seems a little long and boring.

Basically all I'm trying to find out is what people love about BBQing as an activity and a food, and what's wrong with your home BBQ that gets in the way of the fun.

Anyone have any thoughts? I'd really appreciate it.

JT

[clairbare]

Fun = Everything about bbq'ing, the atmosphere, food, beer, trying new techniques and flavours etc
Downside for me is weather in this country (want all year round outdoor cooking ), finding good quality nice priced meat (although I am new to this)

dunno if that helps?

[Swindon_Ed]

Some of the issues i've had is to do with keeping constant temp's and the negative affect that the wind can have when trying to cook at low temp's.

I don't know if there is a way of making the vents on a bbq/smoker sheltered from gusts of wind, and if their is a way to insulate a bbq like the Komado's do but at a much lower price?

I hope this gives you some ideas and also see what other issues other people are having.

The joy off bbq that i've found is down to sharing a great meal with friends and the social side of the gathering so anything that can give people more time with friends whilst still creating great food would be a plus.

And before any of the pellet heads pipe up, yes i know you can do this with a traeger but it would be nice to have these features and still have the flexibility of a charcoal bbq/smoker

[Steve]

Ed, you need to take a look at insulated cabinet smokers like Spicewine's Stump's etc or you need to build yourself a UDS. My UDS is a set and forget job in most weather conditions

JTerry, to give my opinions for you....

Firstly before I deal with your questions, you need to appreciate on here most people identify a difference between BBQ and grilling where as most people in the UK consider grilling to be BBQ.

so onto your questions...

Why do people BBQ?
Well for me, I love the food, the process of cooking it and the social aspect of it. It always feels special to be cooking outside over a real fire and people are always drawn to the fire. It's always much more sociable then cooking in a kitchen.

What is the attraction?
see above.

What do you enjoy most about the BBQ? Is it the cooking? The preparation of the food? The organisation of the event? The social element and reunion of family and friends?
All of the above when it comes to backyard BBQ I couldn't pick one I like more. However I do competition BBQ too and that's all about the prep and chilling out in a field with my buddies.

What other activities take place at your own BBQs that helps to make them such fun events?
My BBQ's are always parties with great food (even if I do say so myself) maybe it'll be a BBQ with the boys watching the game, maybe it's my wife's friends round for a cocktail night or it's just a regular old knees up. If we didn't BBQ we'd probably provide some other food, but for us a party is an excuse to BBQ and lighting the BBQ is an excuse for a party


I'd be interested to know what kind of ideas come up with for your project and what problems you're going to look to solve. If you're looking at designing a new bbq or grill there's plenty of chaps on here who can give you feedback on what's out there and what's good.

[JTerry]

Thanks very much for the responses guys, it's all valuable information and I'd encourage anyone else with an opinion on the matter to chime in too.

Steve - you're right about the distinction between BBQ and grilling, and I should have made that more clear in my original post. To clarify, I am interested in home grillers, and how these could be improved for the families that use them.

From my personal experience, two of the main drawbacks about coal BBQs which are reduced (or eliminated) using a gas BBQ are: the difficulty of lighting the fire; and cleaning up afterwards.

The grill cleaning aspect seems particularly senseless; it's like the grilles were made to make them as difficult as possible to clean and keep hygienic. They rarely fit in a dishwasher, or even a sink, so you end up having to scrub it outside under a cold water tap with a wire brush. It feels like there must be a better way of designing the grille so that it's not such a laborious and difficult job to clean up after you've had the fun of cooking.

In terms of lighting, I'm aware of gas ignition charcoal cookers, and charcoal chimneys, which are both ways of lighting the coal more easily and getting the grill up to cooking temp quicker, whilst still allowing the flavour of coal. I don't want to give away too much at this stage (as I may look to take out some protection on the idea later), but I am wondering whether the BBQ could be designed so that it gets the coal up to cooking temperature quickly and lets the inexperienced BBQer know when it's ready to cook on. Often newbies start cooking before the coal is ready and it's a lot more difficult to cook good food on poor heat.

Any other key issues that you can see would be very valuable for me. I'm looking for any advice from anyone at this stage, please don't be shy!

Thanks again for your posts guys, I'll keep this thread up to date with developments with the project and I'll post some info when it's finally finished.

Cheers,

JT

[Steve]

With respect to grills, most manufacturers recommend spraying oil onto grills to facilitate easy cleanup, in general this works well as you can just get your grills clean by rubbing them down with a scrunched up piece of tin foil. This is particularly true with enammelled grills that are becoming increasingly popular. As for keeping them hygienic, the searing heat of the grill is enough to kill any bacteria, the main thing with cleaning grills is getting solid residue off, you don't necessarily want to clean them back to shiny every time, much like seasoning a wok. I know lots of back yard grillers who don't ever clean their grills and don't view a BBQ like they would an item in the kitchen its a much less sterile cooking device.

Gas is great for convenience but not so great for producing great tasting food, lava rocks and falvouriser bars help but you don't get the same smoky taste. You should check out the pellet cookers like Traegers and particularly Fast Eddy's pellet grill http://www.pelletcooker.com/ personally I think this is a great device for the typical British BBQ'er, offering a searing grill and an indirect area. It cooks on pellets so is convenient but still gives great flavour. If you could design something similar for the British market at a sensible price point then you'd have a great product on your hands. Cost reduction on the electronics would be entirely possible, use of a DC fan and auger motor plus potentially designing a new pellet delivery mechanism with a shorter uger are all options you could use to reduce the BoM.

When it comes to charcoal BBQ's then there's the iconic Weber kettle which has been improved with quite simple but effective upgrades over the years to help with ash cleanup but it still works to a basic principal and IMHO there's no better charcoal grill on the market.

Lighting of charcoal is an area to look at as you say but there are products like those you mention and the looftlighter already. As for knowing when charcoal is ready to cook on, lime ash is added to briquettes particularly to make it obvious i.e. the layer of grey ash that covers the briquettes when they're up to heat. I think the reason people cook on coals before they're ready is just lack of patience, speeding up lighting helps this, but do check out the looftlighter just in case its similar to your idea.

I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing your ideas I'm just trying to give you some feedback on the areas you've mentioned.

I reckon if you want to improve the back yard grilling experience I reckon you want to focus on making the experience simple, convenient, reliable and repeatable. Men in particular want to feel involved in the cooking process because its over fire but they don't want to miss the party because they're slaving over a BBQ all day.

[Chris__M]

The grill cleaning aspect seems particularly senseless; it's like the grilles were made to make them as difficult as possible to clean and keep hygienic. They rarely fit in a dishwasher, or even a sink, so you end up having to scrub it outside under a cold water tap with a wire brush. It feels like there must be a better way of designing the grille so that it's not such a laborious and difficult job to clean up after you've had the fun of cooking.

This was something that concerned me somewhat also, when I first started, but most people clean their grates by burning off the debris - i.e. giving them a good scrub while on the BBQ - either at the end of a cook or the beginning of the next.

However, there are already solutions to your problem. These grates are modular, and the components that form the cooking surface fit into a normal kitchen sink without any problem.

http://www.cast-iron-grate.com/

Chris

[clairbare]

I too use the burning off technique, when start the bbq the next time i put the grill rack onto the flames to "burn off" anything that shouldn't be there and scrape it at the same time so all is ready to cook on again when the coals are hot enough - hope that helps

[Mike_P_in_Tucson]

I wouldn't cook on a grill that wasn't well seasoned Burn off is the only way to do it. And, if there are any "bits" left that stick to your food, well, just call it a bonus.