Barbquick Instant BBQ > Reviews (2)

We all know how these work. You get a metal tray with some BBQ briquettes in them covered with a sheet of cardboard impregnated with a flamable substance, and a metal grid on top for placing the food on. You also get a couple of metal legs to keep it off ground level.

I use disposable BBQs a few times a year and the main use is to take to a music festival with my friends, so we can cook our Friday night dinner instead of being stuck with burger vans all weekend, and to cook up bacon for sarnies in the morning to get us all moving again. There's something about the smell of cooking bacon that can drag even the most hungover festival-goer out of their sleeping bag.

In use
One tip is to take those long kitchen 'cooks matches' you see in supermarkets. You have to light the corner of the cardboard - or more than one corner - and harsh experience has shown us that it's downright impossible with a lighter, and likely to lead to burnt fingertips with ordinary matches. The long cooks matches give you enough flame and time to light the paper in several places.

It's important to give the charcoal enough time to burn through and turn into white coals - if you start too early then you won't get an even cooking surface. Once they reach this state, we've found the coals last for about 40 minutes effective cooking time.

So...how are these bbqs compared to all the other brands? We were not impressed last time we had a batch. Our food had a definite taint of fuel - whatever those bbq briquettes are soaked with ended up transferring itself into our grub. Bacon sarnies with a hint of petrol/paraffin really aren't pleasant. We used them according to the instructions and have used disposable BBQs umpteen times, and this was the first time we'd had this effect so strongly. All of the ones in the batch we bought (about 6 bbqs in total) were doing this. We were hungry so we ate it but did worry about what it was going to do to us, and we didn't really enjoy our meals.

Maybe we were just unlucky with a bad batch, but I'd recommend paying a bit more for a better brand.

*please note this review will also be posted on Dooyoo under the same user name.