Indirect cooking

A huge advantage of the Barramundi BBQ over other wood fire barbecues is that it enables you great flexibility to move and manipulate the fire to serve your cooking needs.

The thick steel cook plates compliment this by soaking up the heat of the flames and giving you unparalleled control over the barbecue considering we are working with raw wood fire.
Here is a pic of an example of this concept.

indirect wood fire grilling with the Barramundi BBQ

Here you can see that the fire has been moved under the grill plate to cook the chicken wings, while the  onions are cooking on the cooler solid cook plate which is receiving indirect heat from the flames.

Note the small size of the overall fire. We can quickly regulated this with the the Barramundi BBQ tools, and by adding just small dry pieces of wood to the fire. A blow tube is also a useful tool to spur the flames along.

Wood - the original barbecue fuel

Lets face it, when compared to the other barbecue fuels, wood is way out ahead of the pack when it comes to maturity and seniority. It has been with us for about 1 million years after all, so I think we pretty much know the ins and outs of cooking with it.

cavemen cooking over wood fire

A significant fact that is well know but somehow forgotten is that the unmistakeable smokey flavour of barbecue can only really be achieved with wood fire. It is the complex aromas contained in the smoke of certain woods that create that mouthwatering flavour.

It is true that adding wood chips to charcoal or even gas grills can reproduce these tastes, but something intrinsic is lost in the translation.

There is a quite revolution taking place. Passionate grillers are switching off their feature packed gas grillers and turning to simple and effective wood fired barbecues.

So at one end of this movement, and I'd say these people did not move anywhere, is the home made grillers. These people show an amazing level of spontaneous ingenuity, and are masters of the reuse and reinvent tradition.

shopping trolley barbecue

Probably not the best for results, but in the hands of experience could well turn out a pretty tasty steak, but pushing the envelope just a little is the most significant and, I dare say the only real innovation, from 1 million years ago till now for cooking directly with the power of wood fire.

The heavy steel cookplate.

This protects the meat and other barbecue goodies from the intense and erratic heat of a raw wood fire. As soon as this erratic behaviour is tamed, it becomes a real pleasure to cook the way our distant forefathers did.

For those serious about trying to step away from their gas grillers and experiencing the taste of wood fire barbecue is the Barramundi BBQ from Yagoona. Designed around the fat cook plates, this barbecue takes most of the fuss and guesswork out of cooking a fantastic steak over wood fire. Models like this compact, award winning barbecue are winning over more and more converts to wood fire.

Yagoona design Barramundi barbecue with the Goanna firepit

And then there is the taste! Wow, no charcoal grill or gas griller can touch the result from a wood fire using the right wood. Try it yourself!

Tips for success with a wood fire barbecue:

• Always use dry wood.
• Never use woods that contain a lot of resins (pine or cypress for example) a full list here.
• Prepare a bucket full of small pieces - about the size of wood chips. These are ideal to throw on your base of hot coals allowing you great control of the heat and prevents overly smokey fires.
• Never, and I mean NEVER use wood from construction sites or pallets. This is poisonous!
• Avoid grilling with wood fire on a windy day.

This article has some more info on cooking with wood.
And remember have a great time. Barbecue is what it is all about.