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Imagine a world where your hobby turns into your dream career, and you spend your days surrounded by mouthwatering barbecue. Sounds too good to be true? Join us as we chat with Ben Forte, Global Marketing Manager for BBQ bran...
Imagine a world where your hobby turns into your dream career, and you spend your days surrounded by mouthwatering barbecue. Sounds too good to be true? Join us as we chat with Ben Forte, Global Marketing Manager for BBQ brands and a BBQ chef, whose passion for outdoor cooking led him to become one of the top barbecue influencers in the world and land a dream job with Kamado Joe and MasterBuilt.
Get ready to drool as Ben spills the beans on the fascinating world of Kamado grills and the cutting-edge technology behind Masterbuilt Gravity-Fed Charcoal Grills, making charcoal barbecuing as easy as gas or pellet. Discover the secret to cooking the perfect chicken or beef on a high-quality grill, and learn from Ben's own barbecue fails and adventures, including his unforgettable fish mishaps.
As we fire up the conversation, we also discuss our favorite meats and outdoor cooking styles with Ben, who shares his love for the versatility of different techniques, from low and slow to smoking and grilling. So, grab your tongs and apron, and let's get grilling with Ben Forte!
This episode was brought to you by AOS Kitchen creators of bespoke outdoor kitchens perfect to pimp up your bbq area. Visit AOS Kitchens today!
BBQ Bingo is sponsored by LumberjAxe Food Company, who have a fantastic range of rubs & sauces for all your culinary needs! Check out their range.
If you want to get involved and showcase your cooks or fails, join our Facebook Group.
For all of our other episodes you can listen or watch them on our website.
If you want to get involved and showcase your cooks or fails, join our Facebook Group.
For all of our other episodes you can listen or watch them on our website.
Today's episode is brought to you by AOS Kitchens, the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Meet and Greet BBQ podcast. Today we're speaking to Ben Forte, who has a lot to do with Commando Joe and also MasterBuilt, But he'll go through all of that with you very shortly. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe. It just helps us grow the podcast, which is great. That much for the view. Here's Ben. Hello Ben. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. Stay on the podcast. For anyone who doesn't know who you are, please do introduce yourself.
Speaker 3:Thanks guys. Thanks for having me on. It's been a long time waiting. I've been looking forward to getting on with you both. So yeah, my name is Ben Forte, or sometimes known as BBQ Forte on Instagram, but I'm the global marketing manager for a couple of BBQ brands and a BBQ chef, If you want to call it that or not. I don't call myself an influencer. I've just got a few people that follow me on social media, done a few bits on TV, done some book writing, done a little bit of everything really.
Speaker 1:Well, what a great intro. Let's start with how did you land a dream job to work in BBQ all day, every day? That must be a fantastic job to do, right.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's true, guys, I get asked that a lot. So how do I get to do that? It sounds epic and it is. I am lucky And I think when you do a job that you enjoy that much, it doesn't always feel like a job, does it, so it is a lucky place to be. I guess getting into it was a bit like you guys really. I started out with a podcast. I did a few bits before that, but the podcast was a good vehicle for me to really learn a lot about the industry and about the people in the industry. So I started out with my friend, dan, who's from the podcast, and we did a TV show together And off the back of that we just started to pick up a lot of traction around this kind of BBQ world. We created the KCBS BBQ competition that we hosted down in Devon And once we kind of did a few of these things, we got to know a lot of the people in the industry, and my background is in digital technology, marketing, that type of stuff, and BBQ was really just my hobby and what I loved doing. But I at some point managed to get that opportunity to kind of showcase my marketing skills as well as my BBQ skills and bring it together and the rest's history, really, i guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is absolutely fantastic. And yeah, I think we should take a nod to your podcast. You were running that for a while, weren't you? a few years ago? Yeah, And just out of interest, you know, it's probably well documented how me and Dan started it and why we started it. But what about you and your Dan? What kind of made you get into podcasting originally?
Speaker 3:When we first got into it, we both used to sit in an office together and work together And we used to just chat about BBQ all day in our office And we used to always joke about oh, we should probably just record this because it's quite entertaining sometimes. We both listened to a podcast called Man Meet BBQ. I think it was good that I feel bad about Man Meet BBQ. It was a really big one. I think it's still going in the US and it's really awesome podcast And we used to listen to that and we would then come back in and we would start talking about what was on the latest one. So I was like, why don't we just give it a go ourselves? So we actually hired a proper studio. So at the beginning of all our podcasts that was very overproduced for what it was. Me and Dan hired out a full recording studio. We had all these mics on booms around us. We felt like we were on a proper radio show. It had even had one of these lights above the door that says like live. So we were live recording And over the years we gradually got less and less professional. So we gradually not by choice, really, i guess, like I don't. If you followed the journey of the podcast, you'll you'll see that Dan at some point gets a job and moves to Malaysia. So when he moved to Malaysia it was a bit tricky to get in the recording studio. So it then became a bit like this on today, over Zoom, or I think we were using Skype at the time because Skype had a recording section in it. So we were using that to record. But it was logistical nightmare of time zones, as you can imagine. I'm sure you guys have guests from other countries. But so right when you two are in one country and your guests in another. But when you've got me in one country, dan in another country, the guest in another country, the amount of episodes that ended up being recorded at the wrong time was ridiculous. Yeah it was a great, great little platform And it was. It was actually the first barbecue podcast to exist in the UK And I think we were probably in the top three barbecue podcasts in the world for downloads. And it's still crazy, to be honest, it still gets the downloads all the time. It's been about a year since we did anything together now, but still last year the whole podcast had over two million lessons on it, so it's incredible that it still gets those huge numbers now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it something that you ever think? maybe never say never, but something that you think you might go back to at some point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we talk about it a lot and we do and we get so many messages then when you're going to do another one and we just decided we'd do like specials Now. so if we've got a special thing we should do, then we'll bring it back for a special, but not on a not on a weekly basis that you guys dedicate too much time to it.
Speaker 2:What we've been doing is just batch recording get as many done in a short space as possible And then, once you can no longer work your brain anymore, put them out and take a breather, because it does take a lot of time and organising and everything, and particularly, like you say, if you're speaking to overseas people, what we tend to try and do is do two in a day, because we get someone done early, so we're then in the flow for one or two in the morning, because otherwise Owen falls asleep after 11.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Yeah, that was the same for us. Okay, I think the best we ever did was four in one day And by the time we got to the last one, like our question and chat wasn't great. I wouldn't have liked to be that last person we had to record with, because we were both like ready to go like two hours ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you said that, like barbecue was a hobby for you before you started getting to the podcast. Was that something that was like brought into you when you were young? Was it was a family barbecueers, or how did that come about?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, i've kind of referenced it a few times, but I think it stems from my dad, to be honest, and like he's still still barbecues a lot today, he's never been like the one that's creating these extravagant crazy things or doing like low and slow American brisket. He's not that guy. He just cooked our dinner outside. Do you know what that was? It wasn't anything that we didn't even really think of it as barbecue. It was just like in the summer we'd eat our dinner outside every day And that was that. But then he would also be the one like if there was ever the rugby club or the rowing club or anything like that, he was always the guy doing the barbecue for all these events And I just think I remember it as a kid being like the hub of where the action and where the fun was. You always knew the community and the laughs and the drinks and the food was all around the barbecue And I think that's what I just loved about it. So, as I like moved away from home and got my own place, then got my first barbecue and just started to recreate that same scenario And just probably went a bit more crazy with it, because I just I loved cooking in general, but I was trying to find like a niche to get into with my cooking And I was doing like my own little blog and because of my web background, those sort of things were quite easy for me. So I could just knock up a food blog and have my own website overnight in a way I go. But it was just the same, like it was just food stuff and it was just on a blog and it was nothing that exciting. So I was trying to find something that was different. So I just thought I wonder if I just cook everything on the barbecue, then that'll be quite different, because not everyone's baking a cake on a barbecue And these days it to us, like in our community, that doesn't sound that crazy, but at those times it was pretty crazy. People weren't baking cakes on barbecues, they were grilling sausages and burgers and that was about it. So the more I got into it, the more adventurous I got and the more it became a thing. And yeah, you just got known as barbecue burn. You know the crazy one that bakes cakes on barbecues.
Speaker 1:Whilst it's snowing outside. Yeah, exactly Yeah weather.
Speaker 3:that's not a thing, And I've grown out of that a little bit now. I've become a bit more of a fair weather barbecueer, but I should shouldn't admit that probably.
Speaker 1:To be fair, I actually haven't done that much barbecue over the last couple of weeks I've looked out oh, that's raining. So what was your first barbecue then? I mean interesting.
Speaker 3:I guess like my very first two different journeys, i guess my first everyone was just this really cheap and nasty kettle from B&Q that cost about 30 quid probably. It was red, it had no vents on it, it was just a grill. That was that, and I had it for about a year because I was like I don't want to use disposable barbecues They're disgusting. So I just use this cheap thing I've got And then then I've just started watching. It's funny. Funny enough, I've just recorded a video yesterday outside and hopefully you guys have seen them before. But there's these it's a burger where you stick your beer can in it and you like hollow it out, And it's like a beer can burger where you like stuff it full of food inside. And I said that I watched the barbecue pit boys years ago on YouTube.
Speaker 2:There's like rednecks the big and they were doing some.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it was that one, but like they did a load of videos and I just thought this is cool when they were cooking everything on the Weber kettle And I just thought, well, that I need to get one of these because look all this amazing stuff you can do on it. So I'd say my first proper getting leveled up in barbecue was probably when I got a Weber kettle.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, and so you mentioned, obviously now, that you're working with Kamado, joe and MasterBuild. So how long have you been their global marketing manager? How long has that journey been for you?
Speaker 3:Yes, i've been doing that job full-time for five years now, i bet that's been a quick five years. Yeah, it's gone really fast, to be honest, and the company's changed so much in that time It's gone from quite a small unknown brand relatively and then grown to be like, probably regardless, the top Kamado brand in the world now. So, yeah, it's been a cool journey to be a part of, to take it from that small thing to this big global sensation. So it's pretty exciting, really Done somewhere right with the marketing, Yeah. I think it's the marketing guy. He's the one we should really probably get him a pay rise or something. I don't know if you can get your listeners on board with voting or something.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we can talk about that.
Speaker 2:The thing with the Kamado as well is you can do so much with it. So if someone's thinking about making that sort of leap, from a beginner's point of view, with using that type of grill, what would you suggest people look at and what can people expect from it, because it's so different than using other types of grills?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is so different and I'll be honest with you, I don't say this that much, but when I first got one, I didn't use it that much because I thought I was cheating. It made everything really easy. All these challenges and difficulties I'd had with my web kettle and I was building little blocks all around the outside and making a snake to burn around. All these things I enjoy doing, but they are a hassle. When I got the Kamado and you just fill it with charcoal, light it and then just set the vent and it does it, I was like, oh God, I don't know. I don't know if this is real barbecue, because it's too easy. So I think, yes, to a beginner it looks daunting, but actually once you get it you actually realise it's probably the easiest barbecue you've ever had to cook on.
Speaker 1:They last a lifetime as well. I don't know. I think conversations that we have with guests like yourself that either work for barbecue brands or certainly invest in barbecues. It is an investment, but a sound investment, because if you do get something of true quality, they do genuinely last you a lifetime, so you don't have to keep paying out for these cheap and cheerful ones from said supermarkets.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it's the thing I like a lot about working here is that, like I just said, i've worked here for five years with Kamado Joe, but I actually owned a Kamado for 10 years, so I owned a classic one for five years before I even started working for Kamado Joe. I still have that same classic one outside Wooden side shelves. it's all quite retro because it's got all these features that don't exist anymore because we innovated and moved on and created better ones. But I've got my like original out there that's still got the old firebox and still got the wooden side shelves on it. So it's really cool because I come from a place of talking about a brand that I love and work with. but I was a customer first and I had it and invested in it and loved it on that journey as well.
Speaker 2:Plus, they're beautiful. They're a focal point for the garden.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah they are. Yeah, I got often you get people say I don't know red, but it's just such a like bold statement in your garden. I love the look of it And I think it contrasts so well in your garden against different things. So I absolutely love the colour of red and you just see it, and whenever you see that little glisten of red. Anyway, you just know this, Kamado Joe.
Speaker 1:And that must make it easier for you the fact that you were a customer first, so you don't have to do the sales pattern or anything like that You're just talking from your own experience and your own. Yeah, Pash, or suppose you know, it's almost like you're an advocate right First and foremost, before you're an employee. I think that's probably makes your job so much easier.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like I was a bit of a Kamado Joe fanboy, and it does. It has a following in a community like that. People do love the products and love all the innovation and stuff. It sounds well, but it's. It's a cool community as well And I was part of that already before I started. So, like you said, coming in was quite easy. I didn't want, i didn't need to learn or what's this new company of all these new products I know nothing about. I already knew them all and pretty much owned them. So, like that was step one complete. There wasn't any training required in that. In that sense, yeah. And then. Yeah, like you said, like once you've started with that journey, is very easy to sell that dream to someone because it's the dream you already live in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And do you go on. Well, also, you've got so many different accessories that can elevate your cooking skills as well. So, out of the difference out there, which are your favorite ones and which ones have changed? barbecuing for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, i think you're right. Like that is one of the things that sets Kamado Joe apart from the other brands, to be honest, is those innovative accessories, and other brands have like followed along behind now and sort of picked up on some of them and tried to do it, but luckily the brand always stays one step ahead, so it's always up there. But I think my favorite probably still has to be the Joe Tissery. I knew you were going to say that Yeah, it's everyone's favorite And I was going to like pick a different one just because I knew everyone would say it. But it's just true, It's just so cool.
Speaker 1:Who doesn't love road tissery with me? It just seems to taste better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good And I don't know if you've seen it, but you've seen the new Joe Tissery basket kits that they've brought out now.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't seen that We.
Speaker 3:It's really cool, like I've had baskets for years. When I had my Webber Kettle years ago, i had a basket for it that I could put popcorn in it and chicken wings and potatoes and stuff like that, but everyone always kept asking Kamaro Joe to release baskets for it. But we're quite stuck in our ways, in a sense that we only want to release something that's new and different and that's adds a new experience that can't be achieved already. So it took us quite a long time to develop the basket kit because we wanted to make it just different. So instead of it just being a basket, it's it's a full basket kit, so it's made up of It's four parts. So you've got like a framework that the whole basket sits into. You've got a basket which has different adjustable parts on it so you can have it as a tumbler basket or you can have it as a flat basket. You can even use a combination of both of them so you can have it half tumbler and half flat or all of it together. You can put your meat in the middle and then put your potatoes on the outside and have it all kind of cooking together. And the unique thing is it doesn't have the rod running right through the middle of it. So normally all your food is hindered by the fact it's got a rod stuck right through the center of it And Joe doesn't have the rod going through the middle. So it's pretty cool because all your food can just stay as it is meant to stay in the basket without a big rod stuck through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i always find that with chicken. obviously, if you've got a whole chicken, you always have to push it off to one side because of the bone, you know, the breastplate in the middle And it's a fast and then it doesn't look symmetrical. So when I put it back on it's a little bugbear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and like things like a leg of lamb and stuff like that. They're quite tricky sometimes to get the rod through it in the right place where it's not uneven and it's too heavy one side and not the other side. Yeah, it's just just a really cool way. I know when we first showed it to chef Eric, who's our like head of culinary, he did this cool recipe idea where he got some stock and put some herbs and stuff in it and then he froze it in ice cube trays. So then he had like a frozen stock and then he put like all his seafood and basically everything to like make a kind of seafood chowdery broiled type thing into the basket and then put all these frozen ice cube stocks inside it. So then, as it cooked, all those ice cubes melted and steamed and added infusion into the flavoring and it was just a really, really cool idea and I've yet to try it. He sent me the video. Like stupidly it was like two years ago because it took us that long to get the baskets out there, but now that video is so cool and I still haven't got around to trying it. I need to go back and try it. You've reminded me.
Speaker 1:That does sound awesome. Masterbilt is another brand that you work with and I think, dan, you're going to probably be particularly interested to pick Ben's brains on this, because me and Dan were having a conversation recently. Dan's got a different type of commando and you're potentially looking at upping your barbecue collection. You're looking at a Masterbilt, aren't you, dan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the gravity built like the way that it feeds in as well, fascinating. When you look at other kind of type of grills, you don't see anything like that and quite often the different type of barbecues in that sort of style are more like pellet related, whereas I don't want to go down that road. And yeah, you don't see anything else like it.
Speaker 3:Now here. Like the Gravity series, it is its original from Masterbilt. There isn't any other grills on the market that have got that technology in them Like Gravity fed. Masterbilt didn't invent like. That did exist in the commercial setting before you could buy these very big, expensive ones to use in a commercial setting, But no one had made that and harness that technology and made it controllable as well. Like this is controllable through an app on your phone and through this control panel. So how do we make that accessible for people at home and how do we make it so it's even easier to control, so you don't have to be like an expert pit master in a kitchen to know how to use it? So yeah, like you said, it's got a hopper on the side. You fill it up with charcoal, you stick a firelighter in the bottom, light it and then set the temperature and it does all the work for you. So if it needs hotter, hotter temperature in the grill, it just blows more air on the charcoal so it gets hotter. If it needs to cool it down, it just starves it with oxygen and makes the temperature drop again. So it really is just making charcoal barbecue and as easy as gas barbecue. Or pellet like you said, pellets is also very easy, but for us it's all about charcoal. We just love the flavour and bun you get out of real charcoal.
Speaker 1:And can you mix wood in with that charcoal as well to burn and give you the smoky flavours?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's two different ways. We always recommend people just put some wood chunks into the ash basket at the bottom, so as the hot coals drop down onto it it'll smolder and then the smoke has to go up and through. So that's how we recommend it. But I've seen a lot of people mix it through the charcoal, so there's a bit of wood and charcoal. Actually I can't recommend it, but I have actually seen someone run it completely on wood as well. I haven't tried it and I wouldn't recommend it, but I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2:It's also like the geek in me loves it. The very first episode we did with two, five, six barbecue and he waxed on for almost two hours about how much he absolutely loves his. And the more that I've got into the community itself, the less excited by pellets I am. But the gravity fed charcoal still keeps turning my head and turning my eye. But, you can get so geeky with that app as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's true And I think that you guys have probably seen it, and we used to say a lot in our podcast before that you meet a lot of geeks in the barbecue world. It does attract that type of person, i think. I think it is the the technicalness of just controlling vents and air flow and this stuff And building your little walls of charcoal these things are what attract that sort of mindset. But this really does put a big tick in the box on the on the geek arm, and so I think, if you can, you can control it via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. It connects. You can leave the house and check the temperature and turn it up, turn it down, but you also don't have to, which is quite cool as well, because you don't. It's like some technology out there where it's like your only choice is you have to use your phone to control it, and then I find that a hassle as well. So I like the fact that this has got both options. You could you could never connect the phone to it ever and you'd still be able to have a great time with it, or it's got that phone connection if you do want it.
Speaker 2:I think what excites me most about it is, firstly, being able to put stuff on and go out to work on days when you're going out. But also, i think it just makes the overnight cook so much safer, so much safer, which is something that I'm kind of looking at more and more and more, because I'm bored of getting up at four in the morning because I still don't 100 percent trust myself. I've done it once or twice. I've not had any problems yet, but I know how many fails I've had in the past and I know that I'm going to come a cropper and it's going to be when I have people coming over Right. That's always when the mess ups happen. So I think that that's a big tick for me, which is really making me more interested in that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think one of our marketing campaigns we said like no more babysitting charcoal, you can go to bed and eat with ease. We did some good fun videos of the guy, a character, we call him Charcoal Man. When he's, he's like seeing his neighbour setting up his tent in the garden ready to babysit his smoker all night and he's he's off to bed. You just check on his phone, it's fine.
Speaker 1:I saw a video that you've done fairly recently where it was like a pop up master built that you almost took to the moors or something, yeah, which was quite a cool little thing and you were making coffee and things on on on there. Is that it was that charcoal fed?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the new master built portable, so it's. It is gravity fed, but very small because the hopper on it's only very tense and me is deep or something like that. So it's quite a shallow hopper. But it's got that same kind of technology where you light it at the bottom, then you set the fan and the fan blows the air and controls your temperature. Doesn't have like connected to your phone and Wi-Fi and stuff, because we imagine that people that are out camping probably don't have Wi-Fi in the middle of the field somewhere, but it's still got the controllability of like set the temperature and it just keeps it there. It can run for about four hours If you set it on like a one 10, like low and slow temperature. You could. You could potentially we've done it in the office smoke a brisket on it. You have to reload. You have to reload it a few times of charcoal, but it can do it.
Speaker 1:I was just about to ask that question, actually how long you actually get. What burns do you get off that? But four hours is pretty impressive.
Speaker 3:Four hours on like a low temperature If you're grilling like hot searing stuff and you probably get 45 minutes to an hour out of it, but if you set it on a low temperature you get a lot longer. You can just keep topping it up as well. Which the beauty is like it's probably something we didn't mention it with the Gravity Series as well is you don't have to put your charcoal underneath your food. Most barbecues if you want to top it up, you've got to take all your food. Yeah, yeah pop up the charcoal, whereas if you've got a hopper on the side, you just top it up. You leave the food as it is. It just carries on going. So you kind of got that same feature in the portable as well that the charcoal is set to one side, so you don't need to remove all of the grills and take everything off, you can just keep topping it up.
Speaker 1:I think even 45 minutes, i suppose. if you're out camping, yeah, you're probably going to be doing hot and fast grills for your coffee, your baking sandwiches or whatever, anyway, aren't you?
Speaker 3:So that's even like if you're a Spatchcock, a chicken or something like, you can cook a Spatchcock chicken in 40 minutes, no worries.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah actually talking about chickens and stuff, just to sort of move away from the barbecues a little bit. when it comes to actual cooking itself, do you what's kind of your favourite things to cook on the barbecue favourites? There's multiple.
Speaker 3:It's tricky, isn't it? It's too many. How do you pick your favourite child?
Speaker 2:I was waiting for you to go dead animals.
Speaker 3:How do you pick your favourite dead animal? No, i don't say it that much. I'm sure it got documented in the podcast at some point. But I was a vegetarian for about two years previous to getting really into barbecue. But I find it is good because it's had a heavy influence on the way I cook and the way I eat. So I'm not, i'm not eating meat every single day of the week, but I quite happily can just have a meal without me in it. Yeah, i do love it as well, but it's not. It's not a big thing to me. I do eat, probably four times a week is vegetarian. So, like I'm, i'm into it. I like my veg. It's not just a side for me.
Speaker 1:And you still grill, probably with the grill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the veg, yeah, still use it, and it's the best way to add flavour to a virgin because you can like. Veg can be pretty boring, that's all be honest. Like if you boil or steam a vegetable, it doesn't really do a lot for it, but give it a kiss of fire and flame, a bit of charcoal, and that makes anything taste good.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I wouldn't want to boil an iceberg. Yes whereas trying it up, you know certain restaurants have made a career out of it. You know what?
Speaker 3:I mean Yeah, yeah. So I don't know what my favourite is. I think I usually say probably beef. to be honest, i do think beef is is my favourite and the one I can always go to, and I've got obsessed with meat matters And if you ever see me, i see the X dairy cattle. I love it. I think it's the best beef I've ever eaten. I think it's incredible. So I try to eat that like once a week if I'm lucky to have like a nice treat. And the outside of that, i find chicken can be boring, but it's also very versatile. You can do so much of it and it works with so many different things. I eat quite a lot of chicken because it's quite healthy and versatile, so that's why I love it. Yeah, i stick with beef being my favourite, i think. And yeah probably just some sort of like rib eye steak or something like that. That's simple and good.
Speaker 2:I think like there's so much you can do with beef as well, because chickens versatile and it carries flavour. then get me wrong, But you can have every type of meal with beef, you know, going from thinly cut and raw with like an amazing steak you know right the way through to. Oh, let's cook this for like 16, 18 hours and literally make it so it melts like butter, which I hope nobody's cutting up bits of raw chicken to have as like a star.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think an 18 hour cooked chicken is probably not going to be that great.
Speaker 2:No, exactly, i actually don't like smoked chicken.
Speaker 3:To be honest, i think chicken smoked isn't that great. The skin just goes a bit weird. I don't really like the texture of a smoked chicken skin. So I'm like I'm much more into like grilled chicken. And when I got into cooking with my first webber, that guy used to talk about doing low and slow And I thought I was doing low and slow when I cooked something for like two and a half, three hours because that was like low and slow in those days Where you like where were you done was grill stuff in like 20 minutes. Suddenly, if you cook some on a barbecue for two hours, that seemed like low and slow to me. But yeah, like roasting a chicken, i think it's good, but smoking a chicken is not so good for me. I don't think I'll ever smoke it.
Speaker 2:I really get to do it, My wife I hate smoked chicken because she says it makes it just gives it a different, strange texture compared to what you get.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I think I'm the same. really, i'll eat it, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't choose it.
Speaker 1:I smoked turkey, which I thought was quite pleasant. I don't think.
Speaker 3:I've ever smoked a chicken, yes, turkey, i would say, is fine. Smoked, i do. I don't mind a smoked turkey, but smoked chicken and not into. I think the faintest of a turkey like with the skin and stuff it can hold it and it's own a bit better. I think chicken skin is a bit thinner and it lets it like it doesn't have as much fat about it as it, so I think that's the problem. I think that the turkey can hold its own a bit better against the smoke.
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Speaker 3:You cook much fish and seafood, Yeah yeah, yeah, i think living where I live is a lucky, lucky for me. I can just walk down to Bricson Harbour and I can grab myself some fresh fish from the market that day. So yeah, i'm really lucky. Nearly missed out this week, though. I went down last Friday. I was like it's raining, no one will go down there. I'll leave it until it stops raining. By the time I got there it's queued out the door and there's nearly nothing left. So I just had Pollock last week. But normally I go for like monkfish or something like that. I think monkfish is really good on the grill. It really holds up well, it's almost steak like in its texture. It can you can cook it, you can let it rest, and it comes good after you've let it rest for a bit. And it's another versatile one. If you want it curry flavored, it goes good in curries.
Speaker 2:Love monkfish in a curry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just great Like monkfish curry. Monkfish tacos are amazing. That's something I love to have. And another popular one I get a lot of is skate. I don't know if you've ever had skate wing before, but it's kind of flat, isn't it? Yeah, it's flat, But if you like, when you've cooked it you can scrape it away from the like flat bone and it's got like a stringy texture, almost like pulled pork, So you can get like a pulled skate wing and it's really cool, different thing to do.
Speaker 1:Funny enough, you know. You know, like on your phone I don't know if you've got like an iPhone or whatever. I've got an Android phone And if I sort of swipe to the right on my home screen, google populates sort of web stories related on stuff that I search. I saw an article that come up a couple of days ago and I couldn't believe it. It was five foods you shouldn't cook on a barbecue.
Speaker 3:I can't remember where the sauce was from.
Speaker 1:But they were saying you shouldn't cook bacon on a barbecue. Basically, they were saying because the fat will drip onto the cold. Yeah, yeah, flare up, but everyone cooks. Everyone should cook bacon on a barbecue, everyone should cook everything, but fish was another one. Yeah, I saw that article.
Speaker 3:In every single thing they said not to cook. I thought that's what I do cook all the time. Yes, yeah pretty much So I didn't know if it was just the click baity thing or like that's list, all these things that people do cook or if they just genuinely had someone researching that didn't have a clue what they're talking about. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think that's the shame of it, though, isn't it? Yeah, for people like us that have obviously been barbecuing for quite some time we just know that that's fine, but if you know someone that wants to test barbecue they see this or it's on the internet. it's got to be true. Yeah, So, and it's a shame because actually, the flavors that you can get from fish and bacon and I can't remember what the other couple were but they elevate it so much but they're not going to try it because an article has told them not to. Yeah, it's such a shame.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i mean, bring it to that Camaro Joe. There's two good accessories for Camaro, well, three actually. For fish cooking The soapstone is is a brilliant surface for cooking fish on. It's really like naturally nonstick. So that kind of thing of fish sticking to your grill just doesn't really exist. When you use a soapstone It's like almost I always say it's like an ice skating rink. You could like put your fish on it and it just glides around And so that's perfect for it. We have another service called the fish and veg surface and there's clues in the title there That one's a stainless steel one and it's it's not really indifferent to just a normal stainless steel grill, apart from its flat. So you can easily like get underneath your food with a fish slice if you're trying to pick it up, and it's got kind of tighter tines so the bars are closer together, so it's actually doesn't have bars, they like laser cut holes in a sheet of metal But it means that stuff doesn't fall down through it so easily. So it's perfect for cooking like more delicate, smaller things. And then finally you can you can do fish in the new rotisserie basket kit as well. So if you use the flat basket you can put like whole fish in there and turn them around.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So one of the things that we hold dear on the podcast is our barbecue fails, so we'd love to hear that timing, that is, if you just noticed me like starting to laugh then because, as you said it, i was going to say oh, when's your fails?
Speaker 3:part of this, because I've just thought of mine.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, please tell it, Please tell us your story.
Speaker 3:So it's. I guess I can tell you two stories And they're like you never learn your lessons a type thing, i guess. So there's a one of our sales managers in Germany. He really needed some photos of fish hanging inside a master built electric smoker. So I was like, yeah, no problem, i'll go down the harbor get some fish, I'll come hang them, smoke them, get some shots for you. So I set it all up in my garden, went down, got the fish hung them all from these hooks, put it all in, got some good photos, video, shut the door, set it to go for like an hour of smoking. It's these electric smokers, you just kind of set it and it does it all itself. You don't do anything with it. I came back in an hour but I saw a look, opened it up, every single fish had just dropped off the hooks down to the bottom into just a messy pile of fish. It was just disgusting. So I've got the photos of that. We'll share them with you guys afterwards, but we do. if you look in master built sales materials you'll see the photos of the fish when they were at the beginning, but we just never see them cut to the end because they never made it. Then my second fish story where I didn't learn my lesson is I was trying to come up with something different to do with the rotisserie, because I've said it's my favorite accessory. I want to do different things and it's a personal obsession with me is that I always want to try and come up with new ideas and new recipes and things that people haven't seen before or learned about before. So I thought I wouldn't and this was before the baskets came out. I wonder if I can cook like fish on the rotisserie in that style? You've probably seen I think the Germans do it. It's quite popular where you get a fish and you put a wooden skewer all the way through the middle of the fish and you just cook it on the grill on a wooden skewer, like a chunky wood, not just a thin one, like a chunky bit of wood that you'd cook it on. So I thought if I got some wood, if I drill a hole in each end of these rods, i can put the rotisserie prongs like through these bits of wood. So I'd have like four bits of wood going around the outside, each one with a fish on it, and then it would turn around and I'd cook four fish on the rotisserie at the same time. So got it all loaded up, looked amazing, got photos of it, set it going about 20 minutes later for have a little look how it's going. They were just like flapping around for the heads inside. And then the last, as I opened it, the last one just flapped and snapped off into the fire at the bottom. So that's my second fish fail. My first one, the actual the guy down where I bought my fish from he did tell me he goes oh, you need to cure this a bit first so that it tightens it up, so that if you're going to hang it it doesn't just get hot and fall apart like fish does. I said no, i'm a barbecue expert, i know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:We should listen.
Speaker 1:So how many times since have you done the old wood trick?
Speaker 3:I've got more wood out there. Really It took ages as well because imagine, the prep of it is like step one is I'd get a drill and drill holes in the end of all these wooden skewers. So that took ages of like trying to bounce it and not drill through my hand to get it all made. So by the time I'd finally made it and I drilled it out the first time and if you don't get the depths all the same, like the rods don't line up properly. So it took me probably like an hour of prep just to like get the wood bits right at the beginning. And then, to be honest, they were a bit too thick for the fish that I had, so like puncturing a big, thick, centimeter square bit of wood through the middle of a small fish wasn't that easy either. So I will try again at some point, but I can't say how soon that will be.
Speaker 1:I don't blame you, to be fair.
Speaker 3:We've got the rotisserie basket kit now, so I don't know what that means. So that's the innovation, that's what has solved the problem that people were having. I say people me. It's my problem. I need it to solve.
Speaker 2:I had a mini barbecue fail last weekend, two on different days. But the first one was I got pulled off quite a bit by my wife because I was I don't remember what I was smoking I was reverse-searing a steak, i was quite thick and got a young baby He's what three. He was three months, two days ago or four months, i should say actually. But I was kind of and I was like, oh, i'll just take that I got the baby out, i'll just go out and had him in one of the carrier things. I was against you. So I was just going to open the barbecue, to have a look at the steak, to decide to open it up and smoke. I was like, get that baby away. you're smoking the baby And he stank of smoke even after we bathed.
Speaker 1:Real men smell like barbecue, right? I don't know.
Speaker 2:But also, his eyes were so wide for like maybe half an hour to an hour afterwards, like his life had flashed before his eyes, don't you think So?
Speaker 1:yeah, don't do that if you don't want to watch him show to you.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I did was we've got two cats now. We always used to have one cat and we've kind of adopted one from a neighbor who's had to move away And cats never ever gone up for food left on the side at all. So it was like, right, i'll deliberately cook more chicken than we need. They were going to have on skewers and I'll just put some tinfoil on over it and I'll put it on the side in the living room and we're eating And here, with noise, we don't think anything about it. I would turn around because there's a bang and the new cat has jumped on the sideboard, which I've never seen the cat come before, peeled back the tinfoil and picked up the skewer of fish, fish chicken and tried to run off with it. So yeah, secure your meat as well. So it's been an eventful weekend for me.
Speaker 1:Did you smoke the cat as a punishment? I?
Speaker 3:was going to say when you said we used to have two cats. I don't know this is good.
Speaker 2:It's a dark one. I'm not skinning that. Do you know what I mean? I don't appeal a cat. I'm not trained to appeal a cat.
Speaker 3:You know Could have been one of those ones with no hair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well without being easier. Ben, you mentioned that you're a barbecue chef as well, obviously, and you do barbecue recipes and things as a hobby and for your job. Do you go out demoing and do events and festivals and things like that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i have done a lot. These days I do less. I do a lot of travel, where I don't do as much cooking at events as I used to. I'm bringing a lot more people with me now that do a lot more of the cooking and I just stand back and take the glory, really, but I do. I get to go to a few, but, yeah, less than I used to. When I first started it was pretty much every weekend. I would be at a different event, a different retailer all over the country or a food festival or any sort of demo, and then I'd be traveling all over Europe doing the same thing in all different countries. So I got to travel a lot and I've traveled the world with this job. To be honest, i've been to the US, i've been to Australia, i've been all over Europe and Scandinavia. So I've done a lot of cool cooking in cool places. But these days I do a lot more just talking about the brand and talking about how great it is and how we should all buy one and leave the cooking to the real chefs. I call myself, sometimes call myself a chef, but I often like to just say I'm just an enthusiastic home cook, to be honest because I have no proper chef training, but I have cooked for thousands and thousands of people around the world, so I think it kind of qualifies? you sort of as a chef, but only by default, that if you can cook food and people eat it, then I think suddenly you're a chef.
Speaker 1:We're talking about that. I think this is probably a nice segue into our barbecue bingo.
Speaker 3:Talking about cooking lots of people. Yeah, i'm quite nervous about this, but No yeah, i hope cats not on it.
Speaker 2:No, because I did that last week. Yeah, i'm taking off now.
Speaker 1:Barbecue bingo is brought to you by Lumberjack Food Company. Your ticket to Flavortown. Okay, so hopefully you can see the screen. It's really high tech. Ben, We've spent a lot of money on this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, this is impressive guys.
Speaker 1:So basically a load of ingredients there. Whatever it lands on, we'd love for you to cook for us. If it lands on my signature dish, which would be your signature dish. What are you most known for?
Speaker 3:Don't know. It's like what am I most known for and what do I want to be most known for? Probably two different things.
Speaker 1:What do you want to be?
Speaker 3:known for? Yeah, I don't know. My most popular video that I did on TikTok was when I dipped a massive steak into butter and it was a maple mousse butter. So I dunked this steak into the butter and then seared it on the flame And it's had about 12 million something views, i think, on TikTok, jesus, jesus. So I've become quite known for that, but it's not like my finest moment, and previous to that I was quite well known for waffles. I absolutely love cooking waffles and I cook waffles for breakfast nearly every weekend. So I'm always cooking waffles on my cast iron grills and then making big stacks of them up with all sorts of delights on them.
Speaker 1:Well, we've never had waffles, so that should. If it lands on that, that would be quite a good one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice. Have you had steak dunked in maple mousse butter before?
Speaker 1:No, no, we've had steak, but certainly not in maple mousse butter. Okay, let's give it a spin and see what you get. And also we'd like you to leave an ingredient for a guest. So if you could have a little think, i mean actually fillet steak's on here, so right, this is when it lands on fillet steak, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got one of those in the freezer. Oh, it's a good one.
Speaker 1:Beef shin, that is a good one.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you do much shin?
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually did. probably cooked it a couple of weeks ago actually. Yeah, it's really good, love it.
Speaker 2:There you go, you got lucky.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The last episode we did. We got home, we pulled off for the answer you got. So it's nice to have a happy person, Yeah.
Speaker 3:I like it. It's good for me, it's just. I guess the challenge for me with this is because I cooked it quite recently, like I'm obsessed with always coming up with something new, so that's the challenge for me is how do I come up with something that I haven't done with beef shin?
Speaker 2:Again Beef shin waffles. Make it taste like chicken Beef shin waffles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, during during COVID time, I invented the waffle burger, where I got the minced meat and put it in the waffle iron and pressed it And then I made that to be the actual burger. So then imagine, like normally when you put a burger and you squirt your sauce on, the sauce can just like slide off the sides. But if you've got a waffle it's got these holes so you can like put sauce in it, your cheese goes in it and it's like ultimate condiment containment.
Speaker 1:I love it. You can even do different sauces.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can Little sauce in each hole, it's genius. Even if I do say so myself.
Speaker 1:What, what, what ingredient would you like, or dish or something? Would you like to leave for the next guest?
Speaker 3:Does it like? are these ones that are on here? Is it does it matter if I say something that's been on it in the past, or is it?
Speaker 1:No, mainly because we can't remember all of those Stuff that's been on here in the past.
Speaker 3:So yeah, goats on here before.
Speaker 1:I don't think we have, but I'll put it on. It's really good like very underrated and any particular kind of a goat or just go in general.
Speaker 3:No, I think we'll let someone choose which cut they want to go for. They can have the category and go for it.
Speaker 2:Let them keep themselves here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's one of them, isn't he? See why you joined up with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shit, pun specialist. Yeah, Oh no, what was it? We used to call him the cunning punter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Yeah, you nearly got that wrong then, didn't you? I did? yeah, The family show.
Speaker 1:It's a family show.
Speaker 2:He likes it when he gets it wrong, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Any excuse So Ben it's when we did our put. I don't know if this is. I didn't even ask that question at the beginning. Is this a clean podcast? Because me and Dan started ours off as a clean podcast originally and we used to have to do that. At the beginning We'd have to say to people please do not swear, and we'll cut it out if you do. And we would have to go back through and cut out anyone that's swore by accident, and most people never did. But the one where we forgot to say it was DJ BBQ. like we were really excited because we had him on and it was like awesome, what a great guest to get on. We were so excited we forgot to tell him it was a no swear in podcast and he just swore like all the way through it. It was like the worst editing job I ever had to do. So after that episode we then went should we stop doing a clean one? Should we just let it be explicit from now on?
Speaker 1:I'd say probably 90, what 95% of the guests mainly keep it clean, Because it's so few and far between, and every now and again it's a shit or a fuck. It's not too too you know, we would edit C words out. For sure Like fish Yeah.
Speaker 3:God, he's good, isn't he? I might steal him when I want to start my podcast back up again.
Speaker 2:Take him then please just take him. The problem is I don't turn off, it gets boring quickly.
Speaker 1:Ben, is there anything else that you'd love to sort of have a chat about that we haven't spoken about yet in regards to barbecue or the brands or partnerships that you do?
Speaker 3:No, i don't think so, guys. I'd probably like to just mention, because it was current and I don't know when this episode's coming out, so maybe it's like a long- way, This will be June, maybe July it will come out. Oh, will it? Okay, cool. Well, we've. We've just released like an amazing barbecue. Yeah, it's cool because we have, like we've just announced now, and obviously by the time this comes out it will be here in the wild. But Kamado Joe has just released its latest barbecue called the Connected Joe. So we've just released, it's been announced the other day and then it's going to be for pre-orders from the 15th of April And then it's the world's first digitally connected Kamado barbecue. So now you just tip your charcoal in, press a button, it lights the charcoal for you, so you don't even need to use a fire lighter And then the fan gets up to temperature and controls it. So it's kind of crossed that bridge that we talked about earlier on of like, oh, this is, this is a different type of barbecue. I'm not sure if I know how to use this, and it's a bit of a learning curve that we've kind of taken that part of it away. So the person that does want to just press a button and set the temperature, they can now have that fun in a Kamado as well.
Speaker 1:Awesome And could you? is that app connected or?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So connected up to the app, Even on the actual display, it's quite like premium in. Look, it's got graphs on the displays. If you've got your probes into your brisket, you can see it growing up and see it go through the stall, and you can watch that same graph on the screen or on your phone. It replicates the same stuff through the Wi-Fi. And if you do want to go back to the classic mode, you can still do that. So if you don't want to use the technology on it, you just want to use it like a normal Kamado. You can just switch it off and you can just use it for what you want to use it for. And it's got key settings for the different modes. So if you want the rotisserie or the dojo for pizzas, then you can press a button and it switches the settings to calibrate it perfectly to do that optimization for that setting.
Speaker 1:That sounds awesome. Talking about geeking out on technology. That is the ultimate Kamado.
Speaker 3:geek out that one Sounds good.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on, Ben, Thanks for talking to us and hopefully we get you say you don't get to go to too many events, cooking and stuff, but hopefully we get to see you at some point. this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Yeah, I'll be at Pub and the Park, but that will have already happened by the time this podcast comes out. I think the Royal Highlands show maybe you'll be around the sort of times that this podcast comes out. So, yeah, i'm at shows, like if my wife had me say I don't do them anymore, she'd be like well, why are you away every single week then? So I'm away a lot. Not as much as I used to be.
Speaker 2:Well, finally, just one more plug for yourself. How can people find you and all the things that you're involved with?
Speaker 3:Well, i'm such a big deal. Everyone already knows who I am and where I am. They already follow me, but no, now I mainly hang out on Instagram at BBQForte, and then obviously you can find the brands at Komodo Joe UK and Masterbill EU. So do you check us out on all those different platforms and be cool here? if you have any questions, anyone like followers or whoever want to ask me stuff about any of the products or food questions in general, or just how to maintain such an awesome hairstyle and beard, then just let me know really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll be in touch.
Speaker 3:I feel like it's the worst time for me to say that, because I shaved it off yesterday. If I'd have been on yesterday, it would have been down here. If I'd have realized and not only checked my calendar this morning to notice this, then I would have kept the beard especially. But now I feel like a fraudster. You can't be a true barbecue without a beard, can you? Fresh new look right. Yeah, this is my summer grill look, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just say it was a barbecue fan. You singed it off by accident, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, luckily that's the only part I haven't done yet. I've lost all the hairs on my arms multiple times but the beard has always managed to dodge that stuff. Lost a bit of my fringe a few times. That's got a few singes on it, but yeah, the hands and arms have gone a lot of times. Just when you open a grill and you just go, what's that smell? They're gone again. Yeah that's my last in piece. Make sure you burp your grill, open it slowly, do not lose that arm. Use your arms, the hairs on your arms, your arms, that'll be bad as well, hell of a flare up right. Yeah, Oh thanks for your time Ben Cool, Thanks guys.
Speaker 2:Have a great one.
Speaker 1:Cheers, bye, bye. That's it for another episode of the Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast. Thanks so much to Ben Forte coming on talking about Kamado Joe, a brand that we haven't spoken a huge amount of, so it was great to talk about that, and also Masterbuilt, for that matter. As ever, we want to hear from you. Please get in contact, tell us what you want us to talk about on the podcast, through Instagram, facebook, at Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast website, meetandgreetbarbecuepodcastcom, and until next time, keep on grilling.
Speaker 2:Today's episode of the Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens. They are the sales leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.
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