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I have been trying to get to grips with my WSM, so today I went to the UK Weber Grill Academy, “Weber’s purpose built cooking school – open all year!” for a course on Smoking Methods. Once out of Reading, I had a lovely drive in the Oxford country side, through blue bells and rape seed fields to a house just outside of Oxford. Upon entering the car park I saw the amazing site of the Weber Experience BBQ Roadshow Airstream Caravan.

We were greeted by Clare who orchestrated the day excellently. Oh and a lovely freshly smoked bacon sandwich… nice.

Jamie was our chef, who played mainly the indoors role where he explained/showed the prep to us (at their new table…, your welcome Clare). Jamie is also a dab hand at bread making as he made this Focaccia which was cooked on the grill. The Focaccia (still warm) was used to host our smoked cheese and also some mackerel pate (which I really liked).

It was interesting to cold smoke the cheese, which I have never done but always wanted to. We used two briquettes in a metal ring and then put soaked wood chips on top of them with the cheese on the other side of the BBQ. Then when the lid is on you put the vents of the lid over the cheese to pull the smoke over the cheese. You have to let the cheese mature in the fridge for 3 days before eating, so we tried some that they had done earlier.

After prep’ing the food course we would head out to the covered grill area to cook and smoke the food.

Clare would explain everything about the fire prep, cooking and determining when the food was cooked (every BBQ chef’s dilemma do I cremate it or give them food poisoning).

We used just about every method of grilling and smoking on just about every product Weber catalogues:
Charcoal – direct / indirect / 50-50 / Cold smoking
Weber Smokey Mountain
Weber Q
Planking (some did not make it through the day – vbg) and Wood Papers
Gas with their new smoking boxes that fit over the flavour bars – (nice bought one of those in the accessories store)

We also used lots of different wood chips to smoke with:
Cherry
Apple
Pecan
Hickory
Oak
Mesquite

Each wood has its own smoking time and permeation into the food which then determines the depth of smoky flavour. We spent quite a bit of time with Clare discussing this with us, and also used all of the wood types to their best food partner.

This process would continue for rest of the day, prep then cook until about 1:00 when we got a sit down in the dinning room (aaahhhhh my poor feet, not used to standing all day)

In the first course we tucked into smoked shallots dipped in smoked sea salt and smoke peanuts. I really need to have diced smoked shallots on one of my burgers soon, so good. Then the foccacia turned up and with it smoked mackerel pate and some sliced smoke cheese. Too bad I was driving because at that time a large glass of crisp house white would have really hit the spot… another diet Coke please

While we relaxing and eating our aperitifs, Jamie was making our smoked peppers/tomatoes/garlic into a lovely soup by liquidising and straining then reheating and finally adding some mascarpone cheese. This was brought to the table and I had a great time dunking the foccaci into my tea cup of soup (dunking is not “the done thing” in proper British Society but who cares it rocks!!!).

Jamie had been up early to get the Weber Smokey Mountain smoking some ribs and pork shoulder.

And I have to admit that this pork shoulder was the best food of the day, thanks Jamie! I am going to do this soon, but with longer days I need to brine on Friday and then cook on Saturday for about 8 hours to get the pulled pork that I am destined to be famous for… or not.

All in all a great day out and learned lots!! The staff at the Weber Grill Academy are top notch, and the venue was first class. Get in there and learn to BBQ properly and not serve burnt bangers; this is the place to learn it! Now all we need is… some BBQ weather!

Beer with a Barbecue…Wine with a Weber!

It is that well known fact that barbecues come part and parcel with…barbecue tongs in one hand and a beer in another! At the Grill Academy, on Saturday, we hosted an event for the Casillero Del Diablo ‘Supper Club’ winners and surprisingly enough, this barbecue theory was changed ever so slightly. It was ‘wine with your Weber’ instead! The Grill Academy was transformed with an array of glistening glasses and plenty of sounds ‘chink, chink’!

To win a place at the Weber Grill Academy, the entrants had to send in recipes that would complement a selection of wines by Casillero Del Diablo. The winners were carefully picked and offered two places each. We had 12 winners plus an expert Semillon called Joe. The day began with a glass of bubbly and then a 40 minute wine tasting tips session. Like most Semillons Joe was a lively, flamboyant character and certainly knew how to get the show on the road. There was certainly no ‘warming’ up to do when the winners came into the kitchen to start cooking.

The winners cooked a four course meal on the barbecue, learning all the ‘tricks of the trade’ not to mentioned the perfect wines to match. I think we can safely say that they left the Grill Academy ‘Merry Good Experts’ in both fields!

To read a blog from one of the attendees please click on this link: www.london-unattached.com/2012/04/casillero-del-diablo-supper-club-2/

Easter Fun!

Can you believe it is Easter, this weekend?!? It only seems like yesterday that it was Christmas! Much has happened at the Grill Academy since then.

We have had over 450 of our retailers visit the cooking school for training, since January. So look out for members of staff in your local garden centres showing off their Grill Academy certificates and ‘Weber Expert’ t-shirts. We have had lots of fun cooking a variety of different dishes including homemade pizzas, smoked stuffed potato skins and even upside down apple cake, to mention but a few! We are pleased to say that we didn’t have one disaster, just great food and lots of laughs. Even the weather didn’t put us off. We experienced high winds, torrential rain, sunshine and even snow. We love the fixed canopy at the Grill Academy – every garden should have one. Feel free to check out some of the pictures from our retailer courses on the Weber NWE Facebook page.

It has also been fantastic to see some of our consumers attend courses so early on in the year. Our first course was on 17th January – and it was fully attended! Fantastic! It just goes to show how passionate some of us are about barbecuing. With these glimmers of sunshine and lighter evenings, I can’t stop myself. Not only have we been barbecuing daily at the Grill Academy, but at home too! In the last week, I have only cooked indoors once!

Well, it’s the big Easter weekend; I have heard that although some of us are experiencing snow again…the temperatures are set to rise again. My plan is to entertain the ‘Edwards’ clan with a full on barbecue ‘fest’ all weekend – come rain or shine! I have a few dishes up my sleeve. On Good Friday, Grilled Mackerel with Garlic, Rosemary Roasted New Potatoes and salad. For dessert, Hot Cross Bread and Butter Puddings. These puddings are great, especially if you cook them in individual in ramekin dishes – making sure the cross is on top…they puff up
beautifully! It has to be Roast Butterflied Leg of Lamb on Easter Sunday! Can’t wait!

The team, at the Grill Academy, wish everyone a great Easter. Enjoy the break and happy barbecuing!

My new Weber Charcoal Grill is a welcome addition to my existing Weber Gas Grill.
I attended the Smoking Methods course at the Grill Academy last year and wanted to put my new smoking skills into practice.

This was my first attempt yesterday. Pecan Smoked Tuna, with Fennel, Red Pepper, Tomato & Hazelnut salsa. It was lovely.