Episode 10- Smoking Hot Confessions

Dan - Host: 0:04

Welcome to another episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast. This week on our final episode of season one, we have Ben from smoking hot confessions. This man is a huge inspiration to us. Ben has an award winning podcast for smoking hot confessions. He also has an award winning website against smoking pot confessions. And he's definitely worth checking out. He is strong in the competition scene, as well as highlighting all of the cooks that he does at home and he interviews some fantastic people. We talk about not only his story and how he's got to this point, but also the setups that he has, and some of the experiences that he's had in Australia, which we can only imagine from cooking in the UK. So here's Ben.

Owen - Host: 0:54

Welcome to another episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast. We're here with Ben all the way from Australia. How are you today, Ben?

Ben Smoking Hot Confessions: 1:00

I am awesome. We're in the middle of a long weekend. It's the Anzac weekend. It's a commemoration of our soldiers in in World War One and the the collaborative war effort that we did with New Zealand over in Turkey. And it's a great weekend for us to sort of get outside cooks and barbecue, have a few cold berries and just relax and enjoy the freedom that we have that's been paid for by those that came before us. So, you know, just wanna say lest we forget. And, you know, thank you to all the servicemen and servicewomen who have paid for what we can enjoy today.

Dan - Host: 1:36

Here, it's so important to remember that and everything that we have today is thanks to those people. So thank you so much to them. Thank you. You talked about it's a great weekend to be barbecuing. Have you got anything on the go at the moment,

Unknown: 1:49

I literally have right now I have a boneless leg of lamb on a little while ago. Anyway, I've set it up, because there's only three of us in my family. So I only sort of Cook small amounts at a time. And I find that the little Weber go anywhere. It's just perfect with this little thing. It's called an offset plate. It's by a buddy of mine. Jg grills sorry, JG barbecue is the name of his little business. And he's built this little offset plate that sits in front inside the Weber go anywhere and it effectively turns it into a mini offset smoker so it seals off the little plate seals off all the vents towards the back end and and it has a vertical sort of bend up towards the end. And so it just creates a little channel just a little strip of charcoal that you can line up at the end and then it gives you an indirect cooking area towards the back. And so just by manipulating the vents you can turn this tiny little web or go anywhere grill into a mini offsets I've literally got right now just outside through this wall here that I'm pointing at it you can't see it that's fine. I've been working on my new barbecue area outside there and it's the first time that we've been able to cook in it this weekend. So tonight we've got the boneless leg of lamb on there with some slowburn a barbecue rub on their heat beats charcoal and some peach wood and last night it was pecan Yeah, tacos so we've been having a great time out there and really enjoying enjoying this long weekend.

Owen - Host: 3:15

So interesting about the Weber go anywhere because obviously traditionally here we would take it away cam you know I suppose like most people would take it away camping. It's just burgers, sausages, kebabs anything that you could do direct quickly turn it into a smoker it's ingenious.

Unknown: 3:31

It's It's really incredible we we have a full drive and one of the things that we love to do is go for Drive camping and in the school holidays just past the Christmas holidays that's our long our long break here in Australia for five days we went out bush and took the Weber go anywhere with us and where we went to it's a full drive park and I don't know if you're familiar with the with the concept in the UK but these these farmers have started to build these four drive tracks around their farms to add an income revenue stream to their to their farming business because farming is really tough in Australia at the moment and they basically create like a like a ski park but for for drive so they build these tracks and they're all graded like green blue or black for different difficulty levels and things like that and we love that so we we go out there we can for four or five days we took the Weber go anywhere with us cooked every night on it and because this particular one was also a working cattle ranch when I turned up at the kiosk when we were checking in I noticed that there was a cool room on a trailer just off to the side and I said what do you guys got in the in the courtroom and they said I will because we're a working cattle farm we kill and process some of our cattle here and we make it available to buy for the customers for the for Dr. Park and I said can I go see what's inside? And they had the biggest like the biggest Kettlemans cat, ribeye steaks which like it's basically it's a tomahawk steak with the that the end of the big long bone off. And men I cooked a bunch of them. Reverse see them on the little web ago anyway sitting out by the river with the you know, the river flowing past and I gotta tell you, that was some of the most amazing steak I've eaten it was grass fed, it was all organic, like just free range. It was beautiful, absolutely fantastic and cooked, literally on the side of the river with our tents put up and nobody around us for miles. And it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And I've got to tell you, I've really been getting into into cooking a whole bunch on this little GA and the versatility of the thing is amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Dan - Host: 5:39

Well, I know Owens been looking at getting an offset. So I saw him perk up as soon as you mentioned.

Unknown: 5:47

I do have one of them as well, I've got a one of a kind, vertical offset built by radar Hill smokers. They're not around anymore. But yeah, there's, there's only one in the size that he built that that's mine. And he specifically built that for me, he sort of wind me up and knew that I'd like it and build that for me. And there's there's two others in the same design but larger. So that's there's only three in that design and only one in that size. And yeah, that's why it's a 20 inch vertical offset at the moment that only gets used about two or three times a year for for big parties or family gatherings or work functions, things like that. Because like I said, there's only three of us in the in the house here and we just don't eat, you know, two briskets and four pork butts and six chickens.

Owen - Host: 6:36

I know. Yeah. That's unlike any camping trip that I've ever been on. You know, any caravan park that I've been to or camping park you'll have a little kiosk there is literally you could buy a loaf of bread a pint of milk. And that's it. You can just buy yourself big old steak ribs and

Unknown: 6:56

same same Yeah. And so that's that's why I asked when I saw it because it stood out so much because we growing up in the 80s here in Australia caravanning was the family holiday. And so my family used to pack up every school holidays, my both my parents were school teachers, and we just go off around in the in the caravans. And so when I was in this for Dr. Park and saw that saw that cool room, I had to know what was inside. That's what led to all that. Well, for

Dan - Host: 7:25

anyone who doesn't know, would you like to explain smoking hot confessions?

Unknown: 7:30

Wow, that's a big question. So, so swung your profession started as a, as a blog, I was in a job that was really not creative at all. And I'm a very creative person. And if I, if if I'm not building something, if I'm not making something, I just I just die inside. And so as a creative outlet, I started blogging, and it was literally just me outside on a gas grill, taking photographs of things. I was cooking and writing up recipes and put them up online and just it was for me it was never for anybody else. And my wife is American and her mother came to visit us. They're from Arkansas, which is just above Texas. And it's a barbecue still really big over there as well in Arkansas. And so her mother comes over and my wife says Ben take mom out the back and show her your your barbecue. I took her out the back beautiful big four burner, shiny stainless steel gas grill. My mother in law just laughed at it and said, Oh honey, that's not barbecue. And I said what do you mean, what are you talking about? And she said go inside, get on YouTube look up brisket look up pulled pork, and then come back and talk to me in the morning. And so she was here for three weeks. By the end of the first week I'd ordered my first smoker by the end of the second week it had been delivered and by the end of the third week, she taught me half a dozen different different real barbecue recipes. And so that that that sort of got me into low and slow and so from there competition barbecue picked up in Australia shortly after that, and I went down the rabbit hole of that and got into competition barbecue travelled around the the east coast of Australia here competing, did untold number of miles and you know, 1000s of dollars going to barbecue competitions. And and along the way, I realised that there was no one in Australia who was doing a barbecue podcast. And at the time when I got started about five years ago, there was only three or four barbecue podcasts in the world full stop. And so when you know what, I'm a creative guy, um, you know, I used to play guitar in bars. So I'm reasonably familiar with, you know, audio equipment. This is something that I can do that I'm I'm going to give it a crack. So I started to do that. And a whole lot of things started to happen for me as a result of this little 10 episode, first series barbecue podcast that I put together. So one of the things was that one of my buddies I'd interviewed him for the show Show. He's from Tasmania, and which is literally the other end of the country from where I am. I'm in the Northeast in the south. And he was putting on a little sort of mini camp pre eve of a competition here in Melbourne called meat stock. I don't know if you've seen it on the socials. It is just, it's unbelievable. It's a massive festival. You got to jump on the socials and check it out. And he said, Listen, I want you to come down and emcee, this little mini festival that I've got running. Because, you know, I've, I've, I know that you're good on a mic, you're good on stage in front of people. So you know, come on down and do this. And I was like, Yeah, sure, no worries. And then he says to me, but listen, here's the thing. I've only got the budget to pay $500 for you to come and do this. And I looked at my and I remember, like talking to my wife about I was like, he wants me to go fly into state, hang out with my mates, eat beer, talk about barbecue, and he wants to pay me 500 bucks. And she's like, Yeah, I rang him back and said, yes, my we can make that happen. That's, that's great, hung up the phone and then danced around the room going, Oh, my God. And it, it, it just sort of built from there. So being a kind of a handy creative guy, I'm good with a camera. I'm good with a microphone. I'm good with a video camera. And so I started to build this suite of services that I offered to event promoters. So I'll go to an event now. And I'll be their MC, I'll be their photographer, I'll be their videographer. I video, a series of mini interviews, and I publish them as sort of mini interview videos across several weeks after the event. I'll put them all together and release them as one big podcast episode, I've started recording what I call after dark podcast episodes, which is where I grab a tent and some lights. And late in the night. While teams are cooking for their competition, I'll grab a couple of guys who have got some time up their sleeve and gals. And we'll just have a bit of a chat at you know, 11 o'clock midnight, and just chat for an hour and just and just see what happens. And so what I do now is basically I cement the event in the minds of the public. So that next year when the event rolls around, it's right at the front of people's minds. So that's in a nutshell, that's the service that I offer at smoking hot confessions. And as a result of that, we've actually opened up a side business or kind of a spin off if you like, which is meeting fire media services. And we now make all these different services available to other businesses. So we will go and we will do their photography for them. If they want to start a podcast, we've got a portable podcast studio now, which we can go and do we do videography. My wife and I are both drama majors from university so we can coach people in terms of being comfortable on camera and how to speak into a microphone and all that sort of stuff as well. So we've basically bundled all that up and between the two businesses, that's, that's what we're doing with all that. Yeah, so we've we've spent five years building all this up. And as a result of that, we've been all around the country, we've had two full week tours of of the United States doing this. We've been we've done very well with the National barbecue and grilling Association over in the United States. That is the barbecue industry body over in the United States. And we've done very well in their excellence awards, which is part of their annual conference. And this year in particular, we won number one for barbecue audio series for the second year running, which wrestlers using Thank you, thank you it's a it was a huge, a huge achievement considering that over in places like Texas, they have primetime radio shows, none of that I just about barbecue. And so for us to be up there. And to to knock them off was was really good. And we also picked up number one barbecue website. So on the website, we've got our, of course the podcast, we've got recipes, we've got tips, we've got how tos, we've got product reviews, we've got our own little shop there with all our different T shirts and things available. Hats. beanies. beanies are very important for me being a follically challenged gentleman. Yeah, I guess that's kind of in a in a very big large nutshell. That's, that that's what we do. It's all

Dan - Host: 14:35

about inspiring people as well, that that's part of the reason why we've started doing this. If we can make one person think you know, I'm gonna get a barbecue. I'm going to try cooking outdoors. That's what we want to do. And it's amazing to speak to someone who's been through that journey is continuing through it but also has the same sort of passion. It's amazing to see and being from somewhere completely different from us as well. Give issue a completely different view on barbecue, to what we used to own. And I felt that not many people here in the UK were barbecuing or talking about it, and we've got everything there to do it. And if we can help people do that, that's we want to do and everyone can do it, anyone can do it,

Unknown: 15:20

there's a very low barrier of entry.

Dan - Host: 15:23

It doesn't matter what you're cooking on either, that that's the first thing as long as you start and you give it a go, and whatever works for you, that there's so much you can do and so much you can learn just by going out and getting cheap kettle and all of a sudden, you've got indirect you've got direct depending how you set up, you can be smoking you can be reverse searing, there's so much that you can do and it's just having the time to experiment and have fun.

Unknown: 15:50

I tell you what, the first two or three years that I was competing, I competed on what we call over here curbside rescue Weber's it's a basically Weber's that, that people throw out on the street for hard rubbish. And I would run around in my car and pick them up and throw them in the back of the car and take them home and clean them up and bring them back to life. And that's, that's what I competed on. So they are absolutely perfect for getting out there in the backyard and jumping on and having a good time with. And the the thing about barbecue that that really drives us here at smoking hot confessions is that there's nothing quite like barbecue to bring people together. It's it's primal. It's in our DNA. you light a fire, you throw some meat on. All of a sudden, all the neighbours from all around. They're sticking their nose over the fence. Oh, good. Hey, Ben, how's it going? Oh, you cook in Oh, what are you cooking? Oh, I'll drop by later on. Yeah, I'm sure you will. Yeah. Yeah. It's just as you see things like, you know, families who might not have seen each other for six months, and they get together for a bit of a family reunion. Things start off a bit called a bit edgy, you know, there's always, there's always sibling rivalries or, you know, various different reasons to be estranged. And, man, you like those calls, and you throw some meat on the coals and that scent hits the air. And you can feel the change in the atmosphere at those family reunions. And all of a sudden, all the old grudges, all the old gripes, they all get forgotten, they all get pushed across to the side. And everybody reconnects. And so BBQ is about far more than just the food barbecue is about the people.

Owen - Host: 17:34

Yeah, couldn't agree more. And I think no matter whereabouts in the world, it's the same for everyone, even though there might be different styles of cooking, you know, a different type of equipment, different ways. Ultimately, it's about that social element bringing that, you know, bringing the community together, like you said, families parties, it's just a really sociable way of interacting. And I think what we're seeing in the UK is, there's a big trend, you know, especially since lockdown, you know, there's there's more and more people getting into barbecuing, being at home. And actually what that's doing is really spurring on a social media community in the UK. Competition barbecue, what is happening and there is competition, you know, barbecue happening in the UK, but I don't think it's anywhere near probably what it is in Australia. And also, of course, America, but I think we're we're starting to come on, we're trying to kind of dispel this myth that we, you know, cook only burgers and sausages. It's black on the outside pink on the inside. That, that I think that's synonymous with British barbecue. But there are a lot of people at the moment that are trying to break that stereotype.

Unknown: 18:47

Yeah, well, it's, it's going to be people like yourselves that that are going to help get the word about real barbecue out there. And I think what you guys are doing is great. That's why I reached out to you and said, Hey, you want to be part of the national barbecue news magazine. So we're going to now be able to share your story with something like 400,000 readers over in the United States. So you know, you guys are leading the way over in the UK. And the way I hear it is you guys are only maybe you're in terms of competition, seeing you may be only 12 months behind where we are. And we're nipping on the heels of the US in terms of the scale of some of the competition. So I think you guys are doing a great job. I love what you do. And yeah, I just want to make sure that you understand that, that around the world. Your message is being heard and it's being received and it is having an impact.

Dan - Host: 19:46

I can't wait for people to see me stood out in my tiny garden. My little fire mounting. Christmas times stood in the snow doing smash burgers just enjoying ourselves but it's about having Fun. That, to me is the most important aspect of barbecue. It's having fun and putting a smile on you on other people's faces. And the food helps as well.

Unknown: 20:08

Exactly. Yeah, I was a teacher in South Korea for two years. And I'm a beach boy here from Australia. I love the sun. I love the surf. Can't actually surf to save myself, but I can boogie board pretty well. And I have done the beginners learn to surf course three times and just eat sand every time I just I cannot I cannot do it. I cannot do it. But no, I live in South Korea. And the second year that we were there. My wife and I rented a little sub basement apartment. So the exterior window was a was around chest height was where the ground was outside the window. And so outside we had this little sort of mini courtyard it was, I don't know, 20 square feet. And I went, you know what, I can do something with this. And I found a little hardware store and I had to draw pictures of what I wanted. Like I wanted bricks. And I wanted a barbecue. And so there's an old Korean man on a motor scooter delivered 150 bricks, 20 bricks at a time sitting on the floorboard of this motor scooter and I bought just like a little hibachi was about the the best thing I could buy. It was just made a thin sheet metal. And I dug up that that courtyard and laid out all the pavers and added them all in properly and build it all up nicely and made sure it drained and all that sort of stuff. And I reclaimed a bunch of furniture off the street and knocked it apart and use the wooden frames to build a staircase to get up from from inside the apartment. So you could slide these giant windows open and just walk straight out onto the little barbecue patio area that I built out in the garden and I tell you what, man, it didn't matter if there was three inches of snow on the ground. They were people around, they would come round we would barbecue. They would sit outside in the snow. And it was just fantastic.

Owen - Host: 21:57

I'm assuming that some of you have to do that often anymore. Cooking the snow.

Unknown: 22:01

No, no. Ben doesn't do snow. Ice. Ice I grew up on a farm and I now live by the sea. I can build fences. I can butcher animals, I can drive tractors. I helped my dad build our house that we lived in. cannot walk on ice. So in South Korea when the sidewalks used to isover I've just spent most of my time on my butt.

Dan - Host: 22:31

To be fair, the snow that we get is not that much anyway is it but it's good fun though. The same time we get when we get it flat one week once a year cord we take advantage of it and do we moan about it as well core if there's one thing that we love to do in Britain is moan about the weather doesn't get hot enough it doesn't get cold enough and then when it snows we moan that it's snowing, classic us you talked about the setup that you have at home. Briefly, what else do you have and what are your favourite things to cook on?

Unknown: 23:08

Who I've pretty much got one of everything except the pellet grill. But I'm working on that. So as I said I've got my my biggest one is my big radar Hill. And that's my baby I love that it doesn't get nearly as much use as it should. But I I routinely cook for the jujitsu club that I'm part of so anytime there's a bit of a club event I'll I'll either have them here to the house and we'll cook up here or I'll cook it and I'll take it to them. What else have I got I've got two full size Weber kettles 118 inch Weber kettle that's my son's I've got an 18 inch Pro Q which I think actually originates from the UK I think pro Q is a is a UK brand. Yeah I've got a Weber go anywhere and a Weber Smokey Joe that I brought home in suitcases from the USA because the prices in Australia were just outrageous compared to what they were ever in the US when I was over there. I've got a Napoleon three burner, gas barbecue with infrared and all the rotisserie infrared stuff across the back from Canada that's a really nice bit of gear that one that's really nice. It's got charcoal baskets you can drop in so if you'd still want charcoal barbecue you can drop these charcoal baskets in like the gas burners underneath get the charcoal running turn the gas off and then just cook on the charcoal. That's that's pretty cool. That's very cool station. I've got a whole bunch of those little those little mini sort of camping gas cooktop jobs with the barbecue plate across the top I seem to have like a crude about four of them for some reason I don't know why people just give them to me and they're just stored under the house now there's I've got about more of them. I'm forgetting something unknown forgetting something. But yet anyway, I'm up to about I think it's 14 or 15 barbecues now.

Dan - Host: 25:03

That's the dream. I've got my second. I've got my second barbecue arriving middle of May. So I've currently cooking on a fire mountain, full sized kettle, which I picked up last year I had been cooking on a gas Weber one of the Q series. Okay, yeah, but for five years, and I just wanted to move across to charcoal. And at the time, I hadn't even considered having more than one barbecue. I just thought Look, I know I've got this one. I enjoy this one. I've had it for a while or sell last I'll use the money to get a kettle and move on. And I've loved using it and the amount of things you can do it is really fun, but I wanted something very different and something that I felt would give me access to almost all types of cooking so I've got a Kamado ceramic one for monoliths arriving I cannot wait for that thing to arrive. I cannot wait.

Unknown: 26:03

Kamado is the other one that I don't have. I don't have a tomato either. But yeah, they are fantastic. The particularly like like if you are cooking in a in a snowy area. The heat retention that the those ceramic barbecues have is just incredible. Absolutely incredible. I've got I've got friends that that live in Chicago that show me photos of themselves standing outside, and they've had to actually shovel a foot and a half of snow to make a path to get out to the kamado. And it's just holding tamp. It's just sitting there holding perfect temperature cooking briskets and pork butts and all sorts of stuff. It's incredible.

Dan - Host: 26:38

I cannot wait but oh in on the other hand, he's got a bit of a collection that he's working on as well.

Owen - Host: 26:42

I have this is not happening purely because of the barbecues, but it is definitely happening. And it's a major reason that I'm actually moving house to get a bigger garden so I can fit more barbecues in

Unknown: 26:54

there's a man who's got his priorities right. I like that.

Owen - Host: 26:57

Pretty much. Yeah, so the next the next two things I want to get like yourself is a pellet smoker. I've got a bullet smoker and I've got a Broil King Cake similar to a tomato. And yeah, so I want to try the web wood pellets. And then finally I want to go for offset smoker. And I want to get one from America the Yoda which which eater? Oh right. Okay, we got big old thing ridiculous amount of money. It's like a dream kind of barbecue, but

Unknown: 27:26

Oh, somebody's really expensive here too. Yeah, yeah,

Owen - Host: 27:29

at some point in my life that is the aim to get it to get one of those but I don't even think I could. I couldn't watch couldn't fit it in where I am now with the five that I've already got. So yeah,

Unknown: 27:42

yeah, yeah, the those years are beautiful. I had actually lined up to go to Yoda head office and an interview the head of Yoda when I was supposed to go there last year. But of course that that didn't end up panning out.

Owen - Host: 27:58

To see more content on our social media channels, follow the hashtag meat & Greet BBQ podcast. And for our cooking challenges. We sell guests each week, hashtag BBQ pink. If you've got any festivals or competitions or anything that you're going to be attending soon.

Unknown: 28:16

So I just did. Just a couple of weeks ago, I went down to Sydney to the forest outside of Sydney, about an hour's drive southwest out of Sydney. I can't remember the name of the forest. It was for the meeting the daily festival. So that was really awesome. That was the first competition in New South Wales since the madness started last year. And it was great to just see everybody get back together again. And it was really good for me as well because a buddy of mine, Matt Staunton, he's brought from the United States. He's brought kids Q nation out into Australia. And it's a it's a full fledged competition body over in the United States. And he's started a chapter of it here in Australia. And so I was able to bring my son with me to this festival. So I was hired to go and work and do my thing at the festival. And my son came down and he was a part of the kids Q nation. So that was really great for me because he got to hang out with his mates and he got to cook with his mates. And because of course, because of the the the madness my my son started to play computer games online with Matt's kids from Yeah, and where a 12 hour drive apart sort of thing and so they got to actually meet in person for the first time. So that was awesome for them. He got to see me working he got to see what I do at all these weekends away that I Okay. Of course last year I've I was home the whole year, the year before that 2019 I was away almost every other weekend working all these different festivals. I think my wife and I counted it up it was 22 or 23 festival or something like that, that I'd festivals or events or conferences or that sort of thing that I've been away working at. So it was For him, he got to see me doing my thing he got to compete. He got to it, he got to experience competition. And we got to go have a bit of a, you know, daddy son adventure and you know, jump on the plane fly down on the plane and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, kids don't have to wear masks at the moment. But he's still you know, because because I had to wear mine in the airport, he went, he pulled his out and put his on. And, you know, he was just, he was a real little, real little professional about it all. And so that was a great experience. Coming up soon in the future, what is next on my calendar. So I'm working for a festival that's going to be up in Brisbane, it's gonna be the Brisbane barbecue festival, hosted by a buddy of mine, Julian, I've worked with him for about the last four years on his different events, he runs three or four events through the year, it's always a cracking event. And then shortly after that, we're actually putting on our own event we're putting on Barbie con, which is going to be the world's first online barbecue conference or virtual barbecue conference. So we used our time during the madness, to investigate how we can maximise the use of our virtual space. So the cameras, the lights, all that sort of stuff that we bought for the podcast show. What else can we do with that. And so I've got this, this new way of recording the podcast show now where it's all live, edited, and recorded all at the same time, cuts right down on editing, but the beauty of it is, I can now remote produce a show. So for example, I've got you two blocks here. So you've got me on your show. Now, using the software that I have, you could put one iPhone on you and one iPhone pointing at your barbecue, connect both the iPhones to this little link that I email you, you click the link, both phones connect, I remove myself from the show completely and I can remotely produce your show. So what we're gonna be doing, yeah, it's it's pretty wild, it's pretty wild. We're going to be jumping around the country on the on the Saturday jumping into different competition winning pitmasters yards. And they're going to show us how to cook all these different things. And then on the Sunday, we're going to be jumping into different businesses into different workshops, all this sort of stuff. So the Sunday is going to be all about barbecue business. So it's going to be super cool, we're going to be sending, we're going to be shooting all that live straight out into people's lounge rooms. And that's, that's Barbie con. And we're putting that on smoking hot confessions. So that's happening. And then I'm going to be part of the Townsville barbecue battle as well, up in the far north of Queensland, and something similar, they're running a virtual barbecue competition alongside their in person barbecue competition. So using my studio here and all that gear that we just talked about, I'm going to be running the virtual side of things from here in the Gold Coast, they're going to be about a 16 hour drive north up in Townsville, with a face to face competition. But I will be there on the big screen on the stage there jumping in and out of different people's yards all around the country in beaming it all onto the stage up there in in Townsville. So that's gonna be really cool as well. And that's what we've got on the agenda so far at the moment. Julian, I know always has a few more events up the sleeve. So there'll be the Sunshine Coast barbecue Festival in September, which is actually just about 10 minutes down the road from we were talking off air before your brother in law in Caloundra. Did you say? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so that'll be pretty cool. I'll be there in September, you should try and make sure you can get over here.

Owen - Host: 33:31

Yeah, it'd be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah. Once the madness is over, and we can actually travel again, the madness. So I actually just like to hone in on that the kind of tech side at the minute and actually get your opinion. So obviously, everyone's been longing to get together and do these festivals and get together with friends, family and just cook out in you know, in their back gardens yards. But do you think because how used to virtual, the virtual space, we're coming of interacting with each other across the world? Do you think there'll be a lot you know, with the technology, they're more virtual barbecue festivals Do you think in the future, internationally? And if you know people like yourself that are pioneering that, do you think it will become more popular?

Unknown: 34:21

I think what it will be it will be an accompaniment to a face to face competition. So like the the festival up in Townsville that I was talking about, they're going to have an in person event and they're going to have the virtual event running simultaneously and the virtual event will be live cast on the big screens on the stages up there. I don't see virtual competitions replacing in person competitions. Unless we are all back in lockdown again in the madness. But I think that there is a place for it. I think it dramatically dramatically has the the the potential to expand this Seine and to enter unite people together and to grow the scene at an exponential rate. So one of the things that we did as soon as we entered lockdown, we said, Okay, we we had been recording the podcast in series before that. So for the previous years, we've done either 10 or 15 Episode runs. And that'd be it for a year, you'd have 25 episodes. And that that was the year. And one of the things that we said was, look, we've, we've worked really hard to build this group on Facebook, the smoking hot confessions barbecue community. And we do a lot in that group. And we are very protective of that group. Any the riffraff doesn't even make it through the door in the first place. And if they do, they're very quickly start showing the door. I paid my way through uni working as a bouncer. So I've got no issue with with rejecting people or anything like that. And so we realised that a, I was going to go out of my mind if I didn't have something to do. And be there was a lot of people in that community who were going to be feeling incredibly isolated, and incredibly alone, and there was a lot of things that we could do to help them out. And so we did two things. Sorry, three things. The first thing we did was we switched the podcast from a serialised podcast to a weekly show. So in the last 12 months, we did 50 episodes. So we did 50 episodes in 52 weeks, we took a little break at the end of the year. And we also did a 10 week barbecue game show. So using zoom, like like we are tonight, and and some other different online platforms, I actually worked out how to build an online game show. And I wrote all these questions, 20 questions per week, for 10 weeks, all about barbecue. And that the 20 questions were in four different segments. So there was or, you know, chapters or whatever you want to call it. And we managed to pick up a few sponsors for monkeys, barbecue, goat brewing, lots of other stuff. So we were able to start by the end of the 10 weeks, we're able to start giving away some weekly prizes, and then a big grand champion prize at the end. And we did that every Friday night for 10 weeks, because we we hit a for here for where we are here in Australia was all up and down the East Coast, the government has put us all into a hard 12 week lock down, bam. And so took me two weeks to work it all out. And then we did the next 10 weeks, we did all this barbecue game show. And then. So that was all recorded. And I edited all that back together afterwards and then published it afterwards. And and then after that game show each Friday night, we then took down all the branding took off, you know, put on this regular T shirts, took off our branded gear, and didn't record anything and started a separate zoom call and it was just a fireside catch up. It was just come have a beer, come have a chat, get it off your chest. Let's just talk about whatever you need to talk about to get through what we're going through. And so those were the three things that we did. And we found that that really, really brought people together. And it was really important for a lot of people to have those connections. So one, they had the regular weekly comfort of the podcast. So they knew every week there was going to be an hour long show written for them recorded for them published for them. The guests were a lot of them. So one of the things I did was I actually went to the Facebook group and I said, right, who's got who's got businesses, barbecue businesses, I'm going to interview all you guys. And so I was actually able to help bring exposure to these barbecue businesses who had been thrown into lockdown. And so I was able to do my part to try and help them get through the lockdown. And then the second thing I was able to provide was a bit of lighthearted relief with the game show. Just something fun to do. And again, it was purposefully written for the barbecue crowd. It was recorded by barbecue people and it was published and distributed to barbecue to the wider barbecue scene. And then the third thing was that we had those Fireside Chats the just completely unbranded unrecorded, you know, what is said here stays here, type type meetings. And I think that sort of satisfied for the people that needed some of the emotional support that they needed to get through that as well. So those are the three things that that we did here at smoking all professions to, to help it everybody deal with the madness.

Owen - Host: 39:37

And it's quite a community. You've gotten that Facebook group I had a look.

Unknown: 39:41

It's 15,000 followers on the Facebook page, three and a half 1000 People in the Facebook group.

Owen - Host: 39:46

That's a lot of people, isn't it? It is Yeah, clearly engaging with obviously, you know, the content that you're putting out and building that community and actually didn't obviously just again, flicking to your podcasts I continue to kind of celebrate a bit of a milestone episode this week, in the last couple of weeks.

Dan - Host: 40:05

It was a great resume. I did. So intro Thank

Unknown: 40:08

you. We voted audio or did you watch the video?

Owen - Host: 40:12

As we listened to the audio,

Dan - Host: 40:13

I listened to the audio, and then I watched probably about half hour of the video as well, where you all sat out in your garden next to each other. And it was lovely to be able to see people together in that way. We've only because of the madness, we've only been allowed to do that in the UK for the last week. Really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. We, the situation we're in at the moment is where we can have six people in total, together outside somewhere. That's it. And it's Since Christmas is the first time we've been able to even do that. So it was nice to actually see people sat together and talking and knowing that you had their steaks going on and you can enjoy the time together to have data and the story put together was great.

Unknown: 40:57

Yeah, that was great. And so yeah, so that was our 100 and 50th episode. So that's kind of a big milestone. And we didn't celebrate anything until we got to 100 episodes, because one thing that our shows always been about is it's it's never been about us. The smuggler professions podcast is not about smoking hot confessions. The smuggler professions podcast puts a light on what other people are doing out in the scene. So they might be competitors. They might be barbecue businesses, they might be, you know, manufacturers, rub companies, whatever, we do our very best to keep our opinions out of it. Because like I said, there are other shows out there, you listen to them. And the guest barely gets five words in. And it's the host ranting about their own opinions about everything. And, you know, there is a market for that kind of show. Absolutely. You know, and that there's an existing model for that kind of show. And so there's nothing wrong with doing that. We want it to go a different way. My wife and I are also both teachers. I mentioned both my parents before were teachers, my wife and I are also both teachers. And so we aim to educate and entertain. And we find we can do that best by not talking about ourselves. So 150 episodes, there's only been two episodes that have been about us, there's the episode 100 and the episode 150. The episode 100 took four years to come about before we started to talk about ourselves. And then like I said, we switched to an episodic format. And we hit 150 12 months later. So the 100 episode was just audio before we added all the cameras in the studio here and all that sort of stuff. So that's that was just my wife and I here with our, with our mixing desk and a bottle of fireball. And we just got stuck into it. How you you obviously have fireball in the UK there as well. And for Episode 150, we've got a friend of ours, Michael from very media to come and interview both of us. So we were able to add Brees perspective to to the story as well, which was really interesting. And I only asked if you'd listen to the audio or the video, because it's a constant learning process. And I learned a very hard lesson about video camera settings in the outside. Because every time a cloud passed over the video screen went almost black and then and then we'd come back again when the clouds passed away. So yeah, that's, that's something I need to work on for next time we decide we're gonna record in the garden. It feels

Dan - Host: 43:35

real when those sorts of things happen, and people want that. Like you said, there's always a place for something that feels artificial is a strong word, but put together in a certain sense. But for us, and what we're trying to do we want it to be real and authentic. And when it comes to learning people learn more from that.

Unknown: 43:56

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's that it's that authenticity. It's the third party validation. It's the particularly for what we do in barbecue. It's the oh, they're just like me, if they can cook that, if they can do that, I can do that. Which is exactly what we're looking for. That's exactly what we want. We want people out there cooking in their yards, connecting with their families having having conversations that they wouldn't otherwise have, because their faces are in iPads or whatever. And yeah, it's it's kind of cyclic in that regard.

Owen - Host: 44:29

What I took from that episode 200 and 50th Episode was just how much of a family affair everything that you do is, which is quite special. And I think again, barbecue brings families together. I took a lot from that when I was listening that actually, you know, like you said, your son, your wife, very, you know, actively involved in this kind of things that you all do together to create this. Yeah, that's

Unknown: 44:53

that's a huge part of it. And you got to walk the talk, which is a good analogy here considering that we are podcasts. And we do talk about all this sort of stuff. So you've, you've got to walk the talk. And if you're going to stand there and talk about how barbecue brings families together, you want to make sure that you've got your family involved. And to be honest, this monkey confessions, I guess, ecosystem is the best word for it, we do so many different things. Now. If they're not involved in it, then it's going to break us apart, it's going to be that thing that takes me away half the year. And it drives a wedge between us all. So if we're not all in it together, then it's gonna, it's going to end very poorly. So yeah, that's, that's, that's family is at the core of everything. Basically, that's, that's what we do we have, I have a full time job. I have a 1.25 workload at that job, which means I'm actually working a one and a quarter full time job. We then have all this other stuff on the top. And so if we're not all on board, it all falls apart.

Dan - Host: 46:15

So this is the part of the podcast we like to call the cut, where we have a fantastic a butcher on board, who's going to talk about great cuts of meat that everyone should go out and try doing something with. So would you like to introduce yourself to everyone listening?

Burnt Island Butcher: 46:28

My name is Tom course. I'm a second generation master butcher, based unbuttoned Thailand and faith and Scotland. I took the on a small butcher shop there. And 2016 It was quite ironic. I started my trade and a different shop further down the high street many many years ago was my father's shop and he retired from all the different things but he started again elsewhere and I joined the business again in 2003. Retired 2015 for a year. And now the small shop and bond PAL and just as a hobby really, and things kind of took off again for us say a year later, we won Britain's best new picture business, the butcher shop of the Year Award stone in London. And you know, send Sam have won a few other major awards, including the holy grail award of the Scottish haggis champion. And it's only a small short that we have but punches we are profit sweet, you know, have a website for haggis which is a bandaid on the bottom tail and haggis, you'll see that they're on the World Wide Web and we can deliver that to you next day interview in the UK. And we're just about to launch a retail meat website as well Tom cooks quality foods. I'm not allowed to say the date of the lunch but as a Third of May don't tell anybody and I'm looking forward to that. I don't know how that will go before the snowed under will go off my wife are working 20 hours a day instead of the usual 18 But

Dan - Host: 47:59

if someone was looking to do something different on the barbecue something lower and slower. What would you recommend to people if for their first attempt of doing something like that?

Unknown: 48:11

Well the one thing Lord and slaughter you can't really go wrong with as obviously as spatchcock chicken and chicken dispatch kocot What you're doing basically is cutting up the backbone and folding the chicken flat so that you're actually increasing the surface area present in a larger area to the to the heat on the barbecue so that it cooks more evenly and quicker I suppose. And you know check is one of these meats YOU CAN'T BELIEVE ME jumeriah has to be done. We're done 74 degrees or above. And again, it's one of the one of my favourites on the barbecue because a spatchcock chicken you can have it playing if you like but there's so many different things you can do with it. You can get all sorts of barbecue rubs, whether it be garlic puree, and BBQ sweet jelly we sell stacks of these in the shop every week particularly feta salad and a lot of people do do barbecue them and that there are quite an easy simple a you know, a meal to prepare and again you just put it on the barbecue it stick a little in the barbecue and just forget about it for the best part of 15 minutes. You know if it's nice law even heat, again it's something you know you just have that again my jacket potato coupon on the barbecue, you know some potato salad of our green salad, and a lovely meal and as an a sharing meal as well this size, the four pound chicken was there for people. And again, it's just so simple cooking, great flavours. Nice British chicken, if you can get it up a little bit extra but worth it.

Dan - Host: 49:41

It's important what you say as well about cooking temperature. I mentioned 74 We always say 75 Stay alive, but making sure that you're getting the temperature right is the most important thing for not just making sure it's safe but not overcooking it as well. Particularly when you're cooking outside. I think there's this misconception of it's going to take X amount of time It's not about the time at all, but the temperature.

Unknown: 50:02

Yeah, one of the best investments that anybody can make, you know, for the home pillar cooking indoors or outdoors is actually a metre monitor that ideal. And you get these charts that will tell you what the temperature temperatures are relevant to a particular cut of meat. And again, you're something like a chicken, all you do is just you stab it into the middle part of the thickest, you know, the thickest part of the meat, whether it be the drumstick, or the breast, the temperature from there, and like you said, it's got to be above 74 degrees, then it's good to go.

Dan - Host: 50:32

Tom, thank you so much for your time again, and we look forward to speaking to you again next time on the cut.

Unknown: 50:49

One of the other things that you wanted to talk about was, what do I do when I'm not barbecuing? And I've mentioned it before, it's jujitsu. And so a very good friend of ours. Kai Oh, he's one of my best mates taught me how to build websites, the same website that just won best barbecue website. So always give him a shout out every opportunity. He's a he's a genuine Reggie Didj ex national champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu from Brazil. Wow. And so he's immigrated to Australia, he started a gym. And he's because I'm a teacher by profession. He's asked me what I help out with the kids classes. Could I teach the kids classes? So short? No problems? Yep, I'll do that while you're getting set up and you know, getting on your feet. And my son does jujitsu with me as well. Because for us martial arts is something that's really important. It's a, it's a life skill. It's right up there with cooking, you know, you need to, you need to know how to cook and kick us at the same time. And so, so my, my son has become a part of those classes that we teach. So he and I go three times a week together, and we're there from four o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock at night. And we spend two hours teaching kids classes. So he'll he'll help me teach. He's my assistant for one hour, then it's his own class. And then he sticks around, and he trains in the adult classes with me as well. So everything we do is a family affair.

Owen - Host: 52:19

And that's what it should be is yes, especially it's more special that way.

Unknown: 52:22

Definitely 100%.

Dan - Host: 52:24

And on the topic of anyone can get involved and it's all about learning. One of the things that we like to talk about here as well because people learn best when they're fails, or BBQ fails. So do you have any stories that you'd like to share or things that maybe didn't quite go? Right?

Unknown: 52:41

Just Just one. Oh my god. Okay, so the first major competition that I entered was the Burley barbecue competition just here on the on the Gold Coast, and it's a fantastic competition. It hasn't been able to run for the last two years because of different Council regulations. So even before the madness, the burly barbecue competition, the first year that I competed, there was 2015 and I was cooking on one of those rescued curbside kettles that I was telling you about. And just the week before that, I'd been trawling my local Barbecue Shop and I found a rib rack that would fit in this kettle and I went Ah, that's what I need to cook these pork ribs for this competition coming up. And so completely untested and untried. I took it to competition and I set this this rib rack up and I very naively very first time competitor really set the ribs up or oblique to the heat source. So I had had all the coals pushed across the one side in a charcoal basket on the other side was the rib rack and I probably should have turned them on their end so that the heat and the smoke could pass between the different racks but I didn't I put them oblique and I didn't think about things like okay, well if they're going to be oblique that I'm you know, every 30 minutes I'm going to have to cycle them through so they look none of that sort of stuff even crossed my mind. So I threw the three the pork racks in cooked them up it came time to box them up I pulled the front rack out tempt them they were on point but they were on temperature sliced them they look beautiful nibble the end ones because you know you never give the ones on the end to the judges nibbled them when all these are meant and and then cut up the rest of them. And when because the ribs had been oblique to the heat source the ones behind the front rack hadn't cooked properly. Yeah and so we got murdered by the judges absolutely murdered. We got we got presentation points only because the the head judge on the table told the rest of the judges not to eat them because they were under done. completely fair. completely fair enough. I I agree. And it actually ruined us for that competition, we had been looking at a top 10 finishing our first ever competition. And we ended up finishing second last because our ribs came in bottom by a long, long, long way.

Dan - Host: 55:18

But, you know, you learned from it,

Unknown: 55:20

we did learn, we did learn a lot from that experience. Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, it's a constant learning process. And it's a constant. You know, being aware of where you are and where you want to go and what you want to do and constantly adjusting and making all those sorts of changes. And so you know, from those fails, we ended up soaring to the top so we a couple of years after that, mean a couple of other fillers we'd we were from three different states here on the East Coast with we'd met up at all these different sort of festivals that we'd either been working out or competing at, and there was one competition, it was a particular favourite of all the competitors. It was the Port Macquarie BBQ wars competition, and it was the barbecue mecca, it was dead set in the middle of the East Coast, you'd have teams coming down from North Queensland teams coming up from Melbourne, you know, driving 1416 hours to get there, all that sort of thing. So we went, Hey, listen, we've been kind of hanging out for the last 12 months, this competition is dead set in the middle of all of us. Let's just make a one off team. We'll just go into this competition, we'll drink some beers, we'll cook some meat, we'll have some laughs and we'll just kick back and, and just have some fun. And anyway, we ended up jacking third place overall, at this massive competition was 104 teams, it was the biggest competition. It was the biggest competition ever outside of the United States. And we ended up jacking third place. And this, this composite team, so it wasn't just smoking hot confections, it was a composite team. As a result of that, because we'd be come Third, we got one draw in the lottery, to go compete at the world's barbecue championships in Houston. So in the in the 12 months prior to the draw, there were other teams who had won multiple grand championships, multiple first places, they had 1520 entries into that barrel. And they they said to all of us, they said, Listen, we need you to confirm that if you're going to put your name in the barrel, that if we draw you, you're going to go to Texas. So like you need to have the funds, you need to have the means you need to you know, and the guy's got a bit nervous at that point. And I said, Listen, are you kidding me? This is a one. First of all, it's about it's literally about a one in 700 chance that they're going to pull that one little piece of paper with our name on it out of that barrel, there's a one in 700 chance that's going to happen. And it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. So let's just say yes, let's tell them to put our name in that barrel. And if we get drawn, then we'll work it out afterwards. And sure enough, you can see the lady she drew it out. She read our name. She's like, Ah, really do you know Steven Bradbury, I don't know if you would, because you guys are from the UK. He's an Australian speed skater. And in in one of the Olympics about 10 years ago, maybe a bit more, he won the gold medal because he was coming dead last in the race and then everyone fell down in front of him and he just sort of glided across the line in the in the speeds to win the race. So we jokingly say that we Steven Bradbury our way into the world's barbecue over in Houston in Texas. So we we went over there and we did that and that was just a life changing experience massive, unbelievable experience. And that is what introduced my brand smoking confessions and some of the other fillers brands because we were composite team introduced us all to the US scene. And so that was kind of the the catalyst for the success that we've had smoking professionals has had in the states in the three years since that so, you know, it's funny how you know, all these little things, all these little things just can add up to a really big thing.

Dan - Host: 59:22

Yeah, well, I always give my own barbecue fail as well because I'm gonna ask you for it. It's only fair that I give my own and, you know, 10 episodes and I've still got them. This happened two weeks ago and I think I've got away with it hasn't been mentioned to me by the wife. But I was doing some beef short ribs and I was also doing some brisket. And I had a waterbath underneath on the kettle. And I'd got probably about five and a half, six hours in did a check and realised the warpath had gone. So I quickly set things up, quickly took off the rack. Got them In a nice place to quickly change it, put it down. Now normally, I have some wood on the side that I'm going to use for future smoking that I placed the rack on. But because I was panicking and being quick, stuck it straight on the grass, I sorted everything out for the grill back on put everything back on close the lead thought of might have got away with this turn around big circle patch burnt into the grass. Now luckily, hadn't been cut for a while. So I spent the next kind of 1520 minutes trying to brush it out, hide it and everything. And it's been cut since and nothing's been said, so I think I've got away with it. But it's, it's, we all learn from mistakes and fails. And if anyone picks anything up off this podcast is that all of us make mistakes. And it's what we learn from those mistakes that make us better cooks. It's just I happen to have so much more than anyone else.

Unknown: 1:00:54

Yeah, my I've done exactly the same thing. Except I think I did it two or three times before I worked out how I was doing it. And I was actually just just lifting the lid off the web and just plunking it down on the grass. And the remaining heat on the underside of the of the lid was burning like a crop circle in my yard. And so I just had the I just had these crop circles burnt into my yard so my wife was pretty unimpressed with that. So we bought something that clips onto the side of the kettle and you could just sort of drop the drop the hood into the side of that thing. So my I feel your pain and I'm glad that you got away with it because I did not

Owen - Host: 1:01:42

I've bought my barbecue covers recently so I've got like a like a utility tables or stainless steel prep area with cupboards and all that kind of stuff. Got a nice cover on it and took the chimney starter off, placed it down a gust of wind come across and basically the covered in golf the chimney starter just burned a big hole in it. So

Unknown: 1:02:02

well look I'll tell you what, I'm from smoking confessions, I'll give you a confession. I've almost blown my house up twice. Once so it was when I was still doing a lot of work on gas barbecues, particularly the with the hoods, because I started getting into into roasting and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And at the time, I was being a bit lazy about making sure I was cleaning all the all the barbeque. So I'd end up with this sort of like grease sort of lined up around the inside of the hood and sort of you know, all baked in and that sort of stuff. And I thought you know what, I'm going to get into different types of cooking on this barbecue, I'm going to roast a chicken. Yeah, and so I got a beer can chicken roaster thing and you know, stood the chicken up on it, put it in the in the gas barbecue pulled the hill pulled the hood closed. And as soon as it hit about 200 Celsius, like roasting temperature, the grease lit up inside the barbecue. And so the whole inside of the barbecue caught on fire. And I had I had very neatly and very tidally tucked the gas barbecue up against the wall of the house. So that these flames were leaking three and four feet out of the top of the barbecue, and about one foot short of the eaves of the house. Wow. Because of course because it's a gas barbecue, you've got basically a bomb with the with this nine kilo gas bottle there and it's all burning down towards the gas bottle. So I very quickly sort of you know shielded shielded my face and reached in underneath and turned off the gas and then ran around and grabbed the hose and tried to spray down the grease but of course that doesn't work. So you just got to kind of wait for it to just burn itself out and ended up just throwing that barbecue away because it was on fire and then I hit up with the hose and so all the metal and everything all went ping, ping ping and all like bent out of place and so that one got thrown out. And then we moved house and the house we're in now is it's called an old Queenslander house and so it's um it's a wood framed two story house you know it's a it's a tinderbox let's be honest. And so I had a another Gas BBQ out on the front deck, and we got beautiful views out over Surfers Paradise and that sort of stuff. So I'm having a great old time. You know what, I think I want port crackle. And so I had a piece of pork skin that I'd cut off a shoulder and I'd stuck it in the freezer, very responsibly got a pan put the pan underneath to catch the fat as it sort of came dripping off the bottom. And again it just hit that that ignition temperature inside and the whole tray of fat caught fire lit lit the lit the grease that had sort of baked onto the inside of the hood of this second barbecue lit all that on fire. And again I had four foot flames shooting up out of the out over the hood of this gas barbecue. But this time I was I was under a wooden framed house with the balconies Whoo. Oh my God and my wife screamed and threw a fire extinguisher out through the door. And as I'm there hosing this barbecue down with a fire extinguisher, he's taking photos and posting them on Facebook. So yeah, look, you know, things happen. Things happen.

Dan - Host: 1:05:19

Yeah. And it's, it's also part of the fun if it wasn't slightly dangerous. That's part of the enjoyment playing with fire, right. Look,

Unknown: 1:05:29

barbecue is for everybody. Don't get me wrong. But we blogs. If it's not dangerous, it's not fun, right?

Dan - Host: 1:05:36

Yeah, exactly. And talking about fails and experimenting, I think it might be time for the part of the podcast that we like to call barbecue. Bingo. So how this works is we have a wheel with a number of different ingredients on it. We spin the wheel, and whatever it comes out, we ask the person who's the guest, whether they could do a cook with it, tags and share it and also use the hashtag barbecue bingo. And we're also encouraging any listeners out there who want to join in and have a go at the task as well for the week to give it a go. Now I know Owens been working on this because we were thinking okay, Australia, is there going to be some issues with some of the ingredients we have written down. One example would be we had Marmite previous episode, which for you would be like Vegemite.

Unknown: 1:06:27

Vegemite. I could do Vegemite. Yeah.

Dan - Host: 1:06:30

But we wanted to try our best to make sure there wasn't anything on there that you look at and go, Oh, that's what what is it? Or well, that's not even possible. Okay, hold off. So if there's anything on this wheel, that doesn't work, it's Owens fault. And I had nothing to do with it.

Unknown: 1:06:46

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Owen - Host: 1:06:47

What I also what I also did is I did a bit of research this morning and ended up on a CNN travel website for Australia with the top 40 Australian foods. So I've put a couple on there. And I don't know if they're going to be what you actually eat. But I will say one of the auto things that we like to do, and it's I don't think anywhere near as complex is the game show that you mentioned, we literally just click a button and spin a wheel. But we also talk about a signature dish. So one of the options is a signature dish. What would you say your signature dishes? Oh,

Unknown: 1:07:24

signature dish. Well, given that I spend a lot of time doing Brazilian jujitsu and cooking with the club pecan has got to be right up there. Had a great time with that. My signature dish though, I cook a pretty great brisket in my in my offset smoker. So yeah, we do pretty well with that. And I'm also pretty handy with desserts as well that I cook in the barbecue, smoked pumpkin pies, key lime pie, all that sort of stuff as well. So all cobbler Oh, I do love a good cobbler. So, yeah, any of those things would be right up there.

Owen - Host: 1:07:59

Sounds good. So one of the things that I've put on there, Chico rolls

Unknown: 1:08:04

is that rolls My God, I haven't had one of them since the 80s.

Owen - Host: 1:08:09

Right. Great stuff. I hope it lands on that then and then. But a crocodile is that quite a quite quite a delicacy.

Unknown: 1:08:19

It's it's growing. It's a little bit difficult to get a hold off. But if I if I shopped around, I could probably get hold of some.

Owen - Host: 1:08:26

Would it be better to be kangaroo.

Unknown: 1:08:29

Kangaroo we can actually get from the supermarket just down the street. So I might, I might need to sub some of that out. Or the new puppy that we've got that I was mentioning. He's eating kangaroo mints at the moment so I could just steal some of his and make a burger out of that out of the fridge. Wow.

Owen - Host: 1:08:46

I'm going to spin the wheel and let's see what you get for barbecue. Bingo. Yeah, let's do it we are Scallops.

Unknown: 1:08:56

Scallops Beautiful, beautiful. I live on the Gold Coast. We have fishing boats that pull into the harbour every morning just about a 10 kilometre drive down the road so fantastic.

Owen - Host: 1:09:09

Let's say What's your first thoughts with scalloped Oh,

Unknown: 1:09:12

okay, well I would need to do a bit of research because I've only cooked them once before. But I am a huge fan of some Thai flavours like lime and chilli. A lot of our food here in Australia is influenced by our our Asian neighbours. And of course when we say neighbours, it's a lot further away than your neighbours in Europe but you get the idea. So, yeah, I would be looking at some freshly chopped chilies out of my garden. My son and I started a vegetable garden here during the madness to help with his school. His school science projects. So we've got some beautiful chilies growing in there, some beautiful big red chilies, got some jalapenos as well. I'd probably be looking at some of those red chilies. freshly squeezed lime. And to be honest, maybe some sea salt and that would be about it. And I just, I just let them grill slowly on the possibly direct, but given the setup that I just explained about on the web or go anywhere earlier in the episode, I'd probably throw a bit of smoke over them. And then just finished direct, just finished them direct over the end. So I'd give them probably, maybe 15 minutes at a at about 225 Fahrenheit. Just get a nice little lick of some gentle fruit would smoke some peach or some apple. And then just quickly slide the shells across directly over the charcoal and just finish them off directly are so good and just eat them out of the shells.

Dan - Host: 1:10:43

Sounds beautiful. I cannot wait to see that.

Owen - Host: 1:10:49

If you want to take it off, Teigen is in on Instagram or Facebook. With Okay, barbecue, bingo. Hashtag barbecue bingo. And we're at meat & Greet BBQ podcast.

Unknown: 1:11:00

Excellent. I've just written it all down.

Owen - Host: 1:11:03

Great stuff. One of the things that we normally ask our guests and we actually haven't got to yet is actually what would you say is your ultimate barbecue meal? Oh,

Unknown: 1:11:13

look, I tell you what. I am happy with just about anything barbeque. As I said, I can't eat cheese. So I can't do a lot of the smoked Mac and cheeses and all that sort of great stuff there. But look, I love things like a couple of nice slices of brisket with my wife does this beautiful bean salad where she grills up a bunch of bacon and some onion and sort of runs that through some through some steamed beans with some butter and some of her potato salad that she does she uses some American mustard to make this sort of the sauce that goes on to the onto the potato salad. And I gotta tell you that that is really good. And so I would have some of that with possibly some scones. I saw you had scones on the on on the wheel there which are similar to biscuits for you, us listeners. Yeah. Which is of course different to what to what we from the from Australia and UK referred to as biscuits. Biscuits is what the Americans would call cookies. And so probably some biscuits mashed potato salad, my wife's bean salad, some nice delicious smoked fatty, fatty brisket slices. And look, it's got to be BlackBerry cobbler. I fell in love with blackberry cobbler when I was over in the US. And I actually managed to put it on six kilos in four weeks because I just kept eating BlackBerry cobbler every night, every night for the full month to that we were over there.

Owen - Host: 1:12:46

That's impressive. I was

Unknown: 1:12:49

kind of both ashamed and proud at the same time.

Owen - Host: 1:12:55

I think I would be as well. Yeah. So we've talked a lot about food and about the barbecue journey and your barbecue setup. But one of the things we also like to kind of ask our guests is about the drink side side of barbecue and so a What What are you drinking now or what would you normally drink when you barbecue so I'm

Unknown: 1:13:18

I'm not usually a hard spirits kind of person. I'm somewhat of a lightweight although I do quite like fireball. There's just something about fireball. I can I can drink that all night long. But generally hard spirits are no I like kind of tropical flavours. Because as I said, I'm in a real summery part of Australia here just to just sort of make you guys a bit jealous here on the Gold Coast. We have we have 300 days of sunshine per year. Wow. On on average, so I just had to work that in there somewhere just to rub that in. But I quite like tropical beer. So tonight I've been drinking a tropical X pa from a brand called tinnies Oh, that looks beautiful. Ken Yeah, it's a it's a really nice to nice, pretty can and they've got quite a lot. It's a craft brew type thing. And they've got all the different sort of hops and things that they put in there. It comes out tasting quite tropical. So that's what I like. I like these that tastes like summer I find that they go the best with barbecue. Nice.

Dan - Host: 1:14:23

What about your in? What are you drinking?

Owen - Host: 1:14:26

I am drinking Camden hills. So Hills lager from Camden Town brewery. They're getting bigger and bigger in the UK. And they're available in more and more places, but they've got some solid solid beers like yourself. I think beer just tends to for me to go best with barbecue. And I typically go for either an IPA or a nice lager.

Dan - Host: 1:14:56

IPAs are great. Love it. They're getting so much bigger as well. And Everyone's got their own kind of twist and different mixes and everything, and the flavours that you can get will complement so many different foods depending on what you're looking for. I've gone for something a bit different tonight. I've not had one of these before on the podcast, so I've gone for a cider. Now, because of the time difference. It's quite early here in the UK. Thankfully, we just passed new now I thought okay, what's a morning alcoholic drink that I could perhaps have? I thought, well, cider is basically fizzy apple juice. So I've gone for a thatches cider call Katie. And I had a sip of it. I thought it was nice, but it feels strong. 7.4% I wish I checked out. I poured it out for myself at half past 10 this morning. But it's it's a beautiful thing. And I love the fruity flavours that you've got, if you're pairing something with meat, it just brings another kind of aspect to it. But is there much better than having a drink with a barbecue? I don't know.

Unknown: 1:16:00

No, not at all. And just on that topic of ciders, if I'm eating something really heavy, that's that's going to be a bit sort of fatty on the on the palate, I actually I will go for a either a sour beer or a or a sour cider. So there's some some different passionfruit beers over here which are quite nice because they're quite tight and they just sort of Cleanse the palate before you start hooking back into the barbecue again so that's one of my tips as well is to explore some of the some of the sour beers the raspberries the Berliner vices. Those kind of things like that.

Dan - Host: 1:16:35

I love of ice beer love of ice bits so soulful cuts through anything really fatty as well which is exactly what you want.

Unknown: 1:16:42

Exactly, yeah.

Owen - Host: 1:16:46

To see more content on our social media channels follow the hashtag meat & Greet BBQ podcast. And for our cooking challenges we set our guests each week hashtag barbecue being

Dan - Host: 1:16:59

one of the things we also like to ask all of our guests is we've been speaking to you for an hour or so. Do you have any questions for us at all?

Unknown: 1:17:09

Look, I'd I guess my my biggest question for you would be so here here in Australia we've we've put our our spin on this this traditionally American low and slow barbecue by including lamb in our in our competition hand in categories. What do you think would be a quintessentially British add on or contribution to the barbecue scene that that the that the UK could offer to the wider barbecue community?

Dan - Host: 1:17:40

Very good question my guts straight away because I'm Welsh says Welsh lamb. That's kind of what was our country's famous for. But well Welsh lamb from an eating point of view is absolutely phenomenal. A quintessentially British though. The other thing that just spot like pops into my head is just roast beef. Now obviously beef is a huge, huge part of the barbecuing community but the flavours are so much different of what we're doing from a normal Sunday in the UK. I don't know. What do you think yourself maybe apples as well. Bramley Apple,

Owen - Host: 1:18:18

it is a difficult one and I think roast dinner has to be up there. I mean most both of us and I know a lot of people that we socialise with you know through the Instagram community cook roast and it's on their barbecue and suppose a competition we we've never done competition barbecue ourselves. So it's kind of a world that we've not entered yet. Yet. I think that would be a good thing for us to do, but I don't know, because I suppose the things that we do is, you know, English breakfast. That's a pretty famous thing. roast dinner, that's also a pretty famous thing. So, curry. Actually, we do. I think curry is quite big in the UK. tikka masala is particularly one that is, you know, born out of out of the UK. I'm not 100% Sure, Ben is the is the answer to that. Because if anything, we're we're trying to probably, as I said to you earlier trying to become more than burgers and sausages is in our barbecue scene. So we will a lot of people in Britain at the moment are obviously trying to learn more about the kind of low and slow so we're just learning at the learning stage at the moment. So

Dan - Host: 1:19:32

the only other thing actually and I don't know if it would work from a competition aspect, but something very very British would be Yorkshire puddings. Ah, there you go. Now, I don't even know if that kind of translates across to America and Australia if it's something that that you've heard of or you've seen before, but for anyone who doesn't know, you create a batter effectively. Leave it to us In a fridge for maybe half an hour to bring the temperature down. And then what you would normally do is you get almost like cupcake or I suppose you'd call muffin moulds that would stick in the oven, the metal ones with some oil in normally rapeseed oil or sunflower oil, and get them to hot heat, maybe 210 degrees Celsius. And then you would pour the batter directly in to the different cupcake moulds, stick it back in the oven, do not touch it for 1015 or 17 minutes, and these things will puff up beautifully. You'd normally serve them with roast beef with gravy, and other trimmings. Now more more people seem to be doing it on a barbecue. And it's a lot harder to do because you have to keep the temperature as constant and as strong as possible. And if you attempted to lift the kettle, the wrong part point at all, it will just drop. So I don't know how it would work from a competition point of view. But, I mean, they've been on the Great British Bake Off as a competition. So why not from a barbecue perspective, I suppose.

Unknown: 1:21:06

Sounds to me, like they would make a great ancillary category for for an SCA competition, the state cookoff Association. I don't know if you've got them in the in the UK or yet or not yet. If you haven't, they will be there soon. The obviously steak is the is the main category, and then they promoted choice for the ancillary categories. So I could see some of those things that you guys are talking about what makes them beautiful, ancillary categories there.

Dan - Host: 1:21:34

It's just something that I don't know if it translates or even if there's versions of it in other areas of the world, because it's called a Yorkshire pudding, it feels like maybe it's just something we've got,

Unknown: 1:21:45

I think it would be sort of similar to to the biscuits that they serve in Texas with the barbecue over there. You know, it's a it's a flour based baked goods that gets served alongside with, with with the barbecue. I mean, we don't scones here. And here, in Australia typically sweeter than a than a biscuit. So we tend to serve them more as desserts than we do as sides of a main. But I think that that your Yorkshire puddings are probably the equivalent of what a biscuit would be in Texas style, I think you're on to something,

Dan - Host: 1:22:18

it's so much lighter and different as well that it's not, if it's not something that you've seen or heard of, it's worth a look afterwards, they're just so different. And also we do different types of meals with them as well. You have the individual ones, or you can cook like toad in the hole where you'd make a larger batter and do sausages in there as well. So I suppose that would be for me, Welsh, lamb and Yorkshire puddings, the two quintessential British things that maybe we can push forward to barbecue.

Unknown: 1:22:46

Sounds good to me.

Owen - Host: 1:22:48

All about English breakfast.

Dan - Host: 1:22:50

Well, yeah, full English,

Owen - Host: 1:22:52

full English on the barbie

Unknown: 1:22:53

uniform. I do love a bacon and egg roll.

Dan - Host: 1:22:59

Fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak to us. I know you've got a cook on as well. And the last thing we want to do is be the reason that something goes wrong with that cook. But it's it's great to speak to someone who's also passionate about it. And you're definitely someone that we'd love to learn from not only from a cooking perspective, but what we are doing day in and day out with this podcast. So it's fantastic for us that you found the time to speak to us, thank you so much.

Unknown: 1:23:25

It's no problem at all mate. And you don't need to worry about my leg or lamb because my little app on my on my phone here tells me that my wife pulled the leg of lamb off about 25 minutes ago. So I know that it's now sitting wrapped in foil in the oven waiting for me to go outside and slice it up. Beautiful. Look, I just want to say thanks for having me on board. It's always great to, to speak to other barbecue folk. It's, it's nice, especially to being able to be connected with people from you know, literally other continents around the world. I mean, you know, like I'm, I'm 42 soon as I said, I used to play guitar in bars and the technology difference between the late 90s When I was playing guitar. And you know, the best I could hope to do was, you know, put my voice in front of 50 people in a pub. And now, you know, you're in England, I'm in Australia, and this is going to go broadcast around the world is just wild. And it really it's a good analogy for what we're talking about earlier about barbecue really uniting people and bringing people together. And, you know, that's what it's all about. And I just want to say thanks for giving me the opportunity to come in and chew the year off of both of yourselves and, and your your audience.

Dan - Host: 1:24:46

Thank you and hopefully it won't be too long until we can actually see each other in person in some kind of form. And guys, so to that day, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.

Owen - Host: 1:24:58

That's it for another episode. The meat & Greet BBQ podcast and that actually concludes the first series of the & Greet BBQ podcast. So I just want to say thank you to all of our guests and Ben from smoking hot confessions, who you've just heard from we are going to take a short break and then we'll be back bigger and better for series two with a fantastic lineup of guests. And also we'll be launching a video based podcast as well so you'll actually be able to see our guests as well as hearing from them. So if you'd like to get in touch with us and kind of put some ideas of things that you would like to hear on the podcast please contact us through our social media channels, meat & Greet BBQ podcast, our website meat & Greet BBQ podcast on Comm or directly email us at meat & Greet BBQ podcast@gmail.com. To hear more and see more from Ben, please go check out his website smoking confessions. He's also available on social media with a Facebook group and also on Instagram. If you liked this podcast and you would like to give us a review, that'd be fantastic. Please like, subscribe through your podcast apps

Dan - Host: 1:26:11

and leave a review that'd be amazing. And I just like to say thank you to the listeners as well anyone who's listened it's been fantastic doing this first series and we have so much planned for the next series. Thank you until we meet again keep on rolling