Embers, Errors, and Extraordinary Barbecues

A Somerset Grill transforms a backyard into a theatre of flames, smoke, and sizzle. Owen's new Argentine Asado-style cooker became the centerpiece of an unforgettable five-hour cooking session where we lost ourselves watching flames dance across carefully prepared meats. The adjustable grates allow precise temperature control as wood burns down to perfect cooking embers – a dramatic departure from standard charcoal grilling that connects you to cooking's primal roots.

We put Brewdog's new barbecue rubs and sauces to the test on chicken wings, finding their Punk IPA-inspired sauce deliciously fruity while their hot sauce proved disappointingly vinegary. The Somerset Grill showed its versatility as we moved from homemade sausages to gammon joint and even a whole pineapple that caramelized beautifully when placed directly on glowing embers.

Cooking mishaps make for the best stories, and Dan's work barbecue disaster didn't disappoint. Despite careful planning and budgeting for 40 hungry colleagues, he somehow managed to leave the burger shop without actually purchasing any burgers – leaving 48 buns but zero patties! Thankfully, his backup sausages saved the day.

The UK barbecue community continues growing with festivals like Smoke and Fire Ascot drawing crowds, while barbecue tourism gains momentum as enthusiasts organize Texas tours to experience authentic pit cooking at its source. Looking ahead, we're excited about the Big Barbecue Community Cookout this October – a bring-your-own-everything gathering where passionate grillers will share knowledge, techniques and undoubtedly a few cooking failures.

We'd love to connect with small businesses and innovators in the barbecue space – reach out through our website or social media to share what you're seeing in this vibrant community. Until next time, keep those fires burning and don't forget to actually buy your burgers!

Sponsored by AOS Kitchens
AOS Kitchens are a leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists based in Hampshire

Thermapen Electronic Temperature Probes
Thermapen thermometers are designed to take the guesswork out of cooking perfect for your BBQ

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Somerset Grill Adventures

Dan 0:00

Today's episode of the Meat and Greet Barbecue Podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens. They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.

Owen 0:19

Welcome back to another episode of the Meat and Greet Barbecue Podcast. Me and dan again hey back to uh chatting rubbish I I cannot wait.

Dan 0:32

I cannot wait to chat today. Oh, because we've had a barbecue together since we last spoke. We've got plenty of juicy nuggets to talk about have we?

Owen 0:40

okay, we will have some guests soon, dan. What are we talking about today?

Dan 0:48

Well, the first thing I want to talk about, particularly after your apology your national apology to everyone is that fantastic grill that you picked up. Can you walk us through what you got, why you picked it, and then we can talk about the funds and joys of barbecuing on it?

Owen 1:08

Yeah, so I bought a Somerset grill. So well, obviously I'm sure a lot of people know what that is or who they are, but a company based in somerset and they do the kind of argentine asado style grills, so wood fired cooking, that you basically obviously create a big fire and it's got grates where, as the the wood kind of burns through and turns into embers, it slips down over the cooking area. But you can change the height of the cooking area, um, by wheeling it up and down, so obviously, therefore, you can control temperature. Uh, so a lot of theater, which is really cool. It burns bloody hot, as you, as you know, um, but all in all, just, yeah, it's been fun to just play with a new grill. Obviously, you came round and we used it for the first time together. It was good fun, wasn't it?

Dan 2:16

Absolutely loved it. Like you said, I enjoyed the theatre of it. We haven't or at least I definitely haven't done much proper live fire cooking like that before. It's very different than using like lumpwood charcoal or anything in a grill that's got like a thermometer on it. It takes a lot more, but I feel you get a lot more out of it, particularly from an experience point of view. We were discussing the fact that we could both have just sat there staring at the flames, licking up the top part of the grill for hours and hours on end and just lost ourselves in it. How did you find the for want of a better word satellite purchases around a grill like that? I mean, I don't know if you had to buy different types of woods. If you've looked at different types of woods, uh, were there any other kind of accessories or anything else that you you bought for it?

Owen 3:13

uh well, so ben who, who um runs somerset grill, um he, they've got some really good resources on their website and one of them is around the wood, and he gave some recommendations on which suppliers you know to use. I think there's about four or five different suppliers that he recommends. So I well, I literally just read that blog post with the links, had a look through. I can't remember which one I went for in the end. I think it was Love Logs, but they do like an Asado, like an Asado kit. Yeah, so it comes with like thinner splits and then also the wood as well. Love Logs, yeah, it was Love Logs.

Dan 4:05

You logs. You do love logs as well, so it's a nice match there. Do love logs, and you've got wood now too, so yeah.

Owen 4:14

So in answer to your question, um that yeah, they had some good resources in terms of what to buy. Obviously, I've already got loads of firelighters and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I chose at the time just to buy the searing grate to go directly on top of the wood burning. But they have kebab skewers, they do a plancher, they do a rotisserie, because I've got things like blackstone, because I've got rotisseries for the weber and all those. I chose not to purchase those, but we'll see how long it is before I purchase those I can see that's burning a hole in your conscience it's just like the pizza oven, isn't it?

Owen 5:04

you know why have one pizza oven when you can have two?

First Cook Experiences

Owen 5:07

yeah, yeah, why have one rotisserie when you can have two, you know, but anyway. So I I didn't buy those, but you can, um, and yeah, so it's uh, yeah, it's really. I have really enjoyed it. Um, I also have to admit I have used it a couple of times and, to be fair again, they kind of talk about, you know, I think, one in the faqs can you use it with charcoal? And the simple answer is yes.

Owen 5:34

So there is a couple of times where I've done what I'd classify as a quick cook, where I have just used some chart've used it with lumpwood charcoal. So I've still used a chimney starter and then just poured it directly into the fire bed. It's basically got a load of fire bricks, heat bricks, just poured them straight onto there and cooked. And that was mainly because I was cooking for myself, so I didn't want to do like a whole burning, you know, by doing through the wood cooking. Yeah, yeah, of course it does take quite a while to burn through wood, create the embers, so, um, something, yeah, more for you know, for hence why I was saying about that theater barbecue is it's great for, like social occasions. Um, by using the charcoal in it, even though it felt like it was cheating a little bit it. It was easy just to use for a quick cook for me and the first cook, the first cook that we did.

Dan 6:37

So we started out with some of your homemade sausages that were really good, so we went for the brisket ones and the other sausages. Were they kind of your regular blend? I know it was what, was it the guinness sausages? I'm trying to remember. I've slept since then.

Owen 6:53

Uh yeah, no, uh. So I think there was some smoked brisket sausages and uh, yeah, I think it was just some pork, just some standard pork ones.

Dan 7:05

So which was really good. And then we followed that up with, uh, chicken wings. So we were lucky enough to be sent through um some of the new barbecue rubs and also sauces from brew dog, so we tried them out on some chicken wings, didn't we? Which was different, should we say.

Owen 7:29

Yeah, 50-50 for me.

Dan 7:31

Yeah, it was three different flavours, wasn't it? The main kind of barbecue sauce that we had that was like kind of tropical one that was, should we say, packaged up like a punk, wasn't it?

Owen 7:46

Kind of the blue logo and everything yeah.

Dan 7:49

That barbecue sauce was really really nice. We really really enjoyed that. And again, what I'm about to say is subjective. I guess Everyone's flavors are slightly different. But both of us commented that the kind of hot sauce version we both found quite vinegary. I don't know if that's more to cater to a wider audience's flavour, I don't know. I just found it very. But then I feel the same about the Frankie's hot sauce as well.

Owen 8:20

I also find that that's horrible. Yeah, I find that Just horrible.

Dan 8:24

Maybe we're not the right people for that hot sauce as well. I also find that that's horrible. Yeah, I find that just horrible.

Owen 8:25

Maybe we're not the right people for that but yeah, I I really enjoyed the punk ipa. I mean, obviously it was great for brewdog to send, yeah, to send for us to test and, and you know, really appreciate it. But yeah, honest feedback with honest feedback is that the punk ipa I really quite enjoyed. Like you said, it did have that kind of, uh, sort of fruitiness to it like an IPA, right, um, and the rub and also the complementing sauce worked really well. On wings, yeah, just just wasn't quite as uh, quite as nice with the other one, but, um, yeah, I think overall obviously we had a mix of your standard sausages.

Owen 9:05

We did some wings. We kind of slower cooked the gammon joint, didn't we? And some, um, yeah, we, you know, whole pineapple, so we ended up kind of like salmon pineapple. Um, now I could scam and steak and pineapple to me, didn't we? Which was, which was again quite nice because we put the. We kind of had the pineapple going on the grate at a certain level and then kind of ended up putting them directly onto the bed of coals, didn't we? Just to kind of give them that char. But again, I thought it was really tasty. I think lots of people have done pineapple, I think, and it does work pretty well on the embers, doesn't it?

Dan 9:46

Yeah, and it's not being afraid when you think that it looks burnt because you're going to cut all that off, but if you get it right it almost feels like it's kind of fermented on the inside. It has almost a rum kind of feel to it, in my opinion. Anyway, I absolutely love that flavour, particularly with a gammon. It was good fun doing that on there too. Question for you did you ever find the hooks that you'd misplaced to hang it up on a chain? Because I know initially we were hoping to hang it up on a chain yeah.

Owen 10:14

So again, you can purchase hooks. I didn't purchase the hooks because where I make bacon, obviously I have hooks that I use in my fridge and stuff to hang the bacon for it to dry. I found one of the hooks. It doesn't fit, and I think the other hooks that I do have, although I think they'll fit, I just think what am I trying trying to say? It's almost like the bend where it would wrap over the pole that runs along the grill. I think it's almost not. It wouldn't be tight enough. So, as you, as you put, as soon as you put some weight on it would kind of slip off. So again, I probably should invest into the hooks.

Owen 11:00

Um, to be fair, however, I don't know about you, because it's the perfect barbecue to do it, but fundamentally I, I just I don't know. I know that we, you know everywhere you went, and still now you, you see a lot around Tomahawk steaks. That type of thing would absolutely be perfect. Right, so you drill, you drill a. You drill a hole through it, whack it on a hook. You'd see a lot around tomahawk steaks. That type of thing would absolutely be perfect. Right, so you drill. You drill a hole through it, whack it on a hook, put it onto the asado and, obviously, just let it cook with the embers underneath. It'll be absolutely beautiful. My main problem is that you're paying so much for the bone.

Dan 11:38

Yeah, well, I I quite enjoy that for like a theatre point of view, and I think if you shop around sometimes you can get better. I mean, I've seen the cuts where they've just literally cut the bone off and what they've actually done then is just charge you more for the weight, if that makes sense. So instead of like £19.99 for like a kilo or a pound or whatever, it'll be like £30. So even though you're not paying for the extra weight, they've still charged you more. So I think I understand what you're saying. I think, if you look into it, in a lot of cases it's a false economy. Or maybe that's just where I've purchased them from. Yeah, maybe. What else have you cooked on there? You said you've done a few different cooks on there uh, yeah, what have I done?

Brewdog BBQ Sauce Testing

Owen 12:30

uh, I did sort of I did a breakfast. I did some breakfast in terms of I did sort of sausage, sausage and bacon bagels, just a quick, quick go. Um, I've cooked a spaghetti bolognese on there. So I had the wood going boiling the water and then I had a cast iron dish on the grill, really low to the embers. I probably could have put the actual cast iron in the embers, but I just had it as low as it would go. So that was quite nice. So, again, cook the spaghetti and all that, you know, while it was directly over the um flame. Um, again, we kind of had the in-laws round. Um, and what did we do? Did some kebabs? Um, I've got some like garlic breads out there. Like I've just done a few bits and pieces kind of here and there.

Dan 13:30

Um, yeah, I think it'd be fun to do, use like a big petromax and do like a chili for hours on there and cook other stuff all around it, and whether you serve at the same time or around. I just think that would be nice to have everything cooking. This one big cast iron pot in the middle um, just blipping away.

Owen 13:51

Yeah, I mean like a Dutch oven, right, you could just put it on straight on top of the embers, so as the embers fall through, they'll just obviously go around the thing. I did actually recently cook a chilli. Yeah, I got some braising steak from the butchers, but I used the Weber actually for that. Yeah, this time last week. Um, so I haven't used the somerset grill for something like that, although I did bolognese, but I'd be interested to try something a bit larger. Yeah, um, not necessarily saying like a brisket, although I did pick up a brisket last week, but you know just something, I think what the um, but you know just something, I think what the Essentially what they're saying you can cook anything on it, but you know, no doubt you can cook potatoes or or whatever on there. So, yeah, just got to, just got to play with it a little bit more, but it is good fun for sure.

Owen 14:42

I definitely need more wood, because obviously we ended up cooking on it for what? Four hours? I reckon it have been longer than that, even five hours. Uh, we went, we went through a considerable amount. So, um, yeah, all good, though, um, what about you? What have you been doing recently, in the last couple of weeks?

Dan 15:02

so, um, I did some cooking in the wild, which was a feature that I said I wanted to launch. Um in a previous episode that owen said had no legs in it whatsoever. But I did barbecue for work colleagues, which was nice, and what's really on trend is I could also link a barbecue fail into it as well. So it's a perfect, perfect anecdote for this, although I wish things went better as always. Anecdote for this, although I wish things went better as always. So I work at the University of Essex on campus around the lake, we have a few like built in barbecues, kind of almost like old style brick ones, although what's quite good is they put grooves in so you can raise or lower the grills, and they're large, really large. So that's nice. So we had a budget that was put out and I said, yeah, I'm happy to cook for everyone. So me and my boss went out and we went to buy everything and as we're going around, we're doing scans, you shop to make sure we stayed on budget and we were cooking for 35, 40 people. So I got the sausages, scanned them in, got the buns, went and got the veggie sausages and the veggie burgers while we were there, went across to the burgers. We're like cool, start looking at them. These would be perfect. So let's get these. Are packs of four. Let's get 10 of these packs of four burgers. Discussing it, sort that out. Go around. Do the rest with the leftover money. Buy some refreshments hard and soft for different people depending on what they wanted. Get to Tilpay. Get back on campus. Start setting up an hour later. Where are the burgers? Can't find the burgers? Go back up to the cast to double check. Get the receipt out.

Dan 16:50

We had looked at all of the burgers, discussed that they'd be good and then put them back and hadn't scanned them or paid for them. So we didn't have 40 burgers, but we did have 48 buns, luckily. Luckily, we'd bought enough sausages, 48 buns. Luckily. Luckily, we'd bought enough sausages and veggie sausages to cover everyone. We had 12 veggie burgers and I think only four or five veggies, but we thought we'd give other people meat free option anyway. So we were fine with halloumi and staff. It was all sorted. But just had some people like where's the burgers? Where's the burgers? We were promised burgers, um, and also my boss now has like, after we got through a few like 32 burger buns to try and get through over the next few weeks. Um so I'm not the biggest fan of scanners you shop because I think it opens up to idiots the possibility of missing things.

Outdoor Kitchen Ad Break

Dan 17:55

I've never used it well, so one out of one times that I've used it. Now it's gone, um, so yeah, but but that was really good and I've said before on here and to you, I'm not usually a fan of cooking for people. I find it quite pressurizing normally and I worry, really enjoyed it. I think it's because I knew what I was doing. I had two different grills on the go. I had one for veggies, one for the meat. I had plenty of time, brought the chimney starter along, got everything lit properly, took it slow and it's perfect. I spent the whole time flipping around sausages, looking out over a lake playing games. It was great, really enjoyed it. I think I was barbecuing for probably about three hours, three and a half hours. Really good fun, really enjoyed it.

Owen 18:47

If you've been looking or thinking about an outdoor kitchen, then look no further than AOS Outdoor Kitchens.

Dan 18:52

They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.

Owen 18:57

Their extensive showroom is based just outside Bournemouth, on the Dorset-Hamishore border and, as well as numerous in-store displays, also features a live outdoor kitchen where they cook every week on Kamado grills, pizza ovens, and all filmed and shown on YouTube.

Dan 19:12

They offer a wealth of knowledge on how to transform your patio into the most incredible outdoor dining area, with styles and options to suit every budget, and you can guarantee they will be able to create something perfectly suited to you and your home.

Owen 19:26

They stock and supply everything that you're going to need for outdoor cooking, including barbecues, kamado ovens, pizza ovens, outdoor fridges and every accessory that you would need to become the ultimate outdoor chef.

Cooking for Colleagues

Dan 19:39

So if you want to make yourself the envy of your friends and neighbours, get in touch with them today to arrange a consultation and take the first step in transforming your back garden into the most incredible entertainment space. Visit aoskitchenscouk have you cooked for your colleagues yet? And the vegan challenge that we set you?

Owen 20:03

uh, so I need to. Uh, obviously in the last episode right, we were talking about that vegan challenge, not going to lie completely forgot about it and suddenly realised that I mean, by the time this episode has gone out, the event would have passed, but I'm seeing that person in four days time and realising that I need to actually do it.

Dan 20:33

So, yeah, that's a tomorrow's problem. That, very much knowing you as I do, sounds like a that ain't gonna happen.

Owen 20:37

I'm gonna do something else, probably, but I can't see it needs to be done because he'll definitely call me out on it oh, and owen is not one to be called out on something.

Dan 20:46

He stays true to his word. Yeah, I'm intrigued to see how that goes. I'm looking forward to it going up on our Instagram, no matter how it goes. If it goes well, if it doesn't go well, yeah, I'm really intrigued. I've also heard that it's quite interesting to get the flavour levels right, depending what spices and bits and pieces you put on there.

Owen 21:14

So it'll be interesting to see if you go in dry or if you're gonna lube it up with some flavour for them?

Dan 21:18

no, not sure yet. That's tomorrow's problem. Um, back back to normal cooks. So I've also had brother and sister-in-law come over and the father mother-in-law come over and did a big barbecue and for the first time in ages I reckon possibly a year, if not close to a year I did a full-blown brisket, which was really, really good. It went well. It was grass-fed brisket as well. Um, that I'd got from um jonathan davidson. Um, I also did some pork ribs too, um, and I got away with it.

Briskets and Pork Ribs

Dan 21:56

But I did the really ballsy thing that sometimes ceramic egg owners do once you've got the timings and temperature down lit it at seven, got it up and running, got the brisket on there, left the brisket on for a few hours, kept an eye on it, worked out roughly my head timings, got the pork ribs I had and thought they'll probably take maybe three, three and a half hours and then resting. So put them on and immediately went out. Went out for three hours, went to Wiveno, which is like a village about half an hour drive from us, went around a little garage sale, took my daughter into where I work because she wanted to have a look around, and we played pool and stuff. Got back brisket absolutely perfect. It was ready to be wrapped at that point for another few hours of cooking the pork ribs I thought I was going to get in and it was going to need like a bit of wrapping or whatever. No, no, no, no. Perfectly at temperature, absolutely perfect. So pulled them off and they were like falling off the bone.

Dan 23:03

Some people would say that's overdone, but I much prefer my pork ribs to be like that in my head. I love a pork rib where, if you wanted to, you could just pull the bone and it slices out or just falls out by itself again. I know competition rules, you want a bit of bite on there and you want it to stick, but you cook for what you want, right? But yeah, I think it was. It was at about 93 or 94 when I checked them and I was like that is lovely and juicy, so much bends.

Dan 23:29

They pretty much almost snapped into their own weight when I took it off, so I let them rest for longer than I normally would. My idea was to start serving some food at like five, half five, um, and then the main events, the brisket and possibly the ribs, coming out at like 6ish instead, when people arrived at half 4 I was like here's some ribs, eat them as you come in and walk around. They've already been resting for like an hour, hour and a half. But yeah, there were 1.5 kilos of pork ribs cooked at 1.05 and they were done in 3 hours. I'm just surprised.

Owen 24:07

I thought they at least would have had another hour and a half in them yeah, I've done it before though, where I've had some racks that I think I've probably mentioned to you before. I haven't done ribs for ages, although I have two small baby backs in the freezer. Um, and you know I was going to do the four-footer Three, two, one, thank you, three, two, one. And I did three and I was like, oh crap, they're cooked. Three, eat, eat. Yeah, exactly. So I hadn't done any sauce or anything, but anyway, I had the frustrating thing I don't know if you've had this before, I'm not sure if it's a fail, but so I was cooking.

Owen 24:50

I was cooking breakfast out a couple of weekends ago, and usually most Saturday, saturdays and Sunday mornings we have to go out and do various kids sports clubs or whatever, but this particular day we didn't. So I was like right, I'm going to cook breakfast outside, I'm going to use a broil king anyway. So I poured the last of the charcoal in the bag into the, into the thing, put the fire lighters under two fire lighters and I was like, after about 25 minutes I was like, jesus, this is not getting hot at all. And then I was like, ah, you know, like when you the bottom of the charcoal, it's literally like soot, isn't it, it's just, yes, and I think that then just stops any airflow going through. I I just could not get it hot like this charcoal. So then I thought, right, well, I'll put one on top, try and burn the soot kind of from the top. That didn't take, and then put another one in. Honest to God, it nearly took me nearly an hour to get the charcoal lit. What?

Dan 25:53

did you put it down to?

Owen 25:57

What did you put it down to? Stupidity, I suppose I just could not get the bloody thing going. So luckily we didn't have anywhere to go because it literally took me you know the best part of you know the best part of about an hour and 20 minutes to cook some sausages, bacon and a couple of eggs. So I just couldn't get this bloody charcoal hot and I've used the charcoal loads of times before, but yeah, it was interesting, but if you again, by the time this goes out, of course the weekend would have passed.

Owen 26:32

but there's a couple of barbecue festivals have gone on this weekend, isn't there? There's smoke and fire ascot. Yeah, I was sort of having a look at the community over the last sort of day or so and it seems there's a lot of people there and having a having a good time.

Dan 26:49

There is. I'm very jealous because at the moment I'm struggling to get any of the barbecue festivals to work in my diary for this year I've got. I've got a 90 birthday party to go to, um, got the kids over the summer with limited bits and pieces. I've got a wedding to go to Um, got the kids over the summer with limited bits and pieces. I've got a wedding to go to as well, which clashes with another and I'm struggling to see if slash where I'm going to be able to go, which is making it all the more painful to go and see Um and in fact, my dad's um last minute. So I think smoking for our ascot was the fifth and sixth or fourth and fifth of july, something like that. On the second, my dad was like, literally, yeah, yeah. So my dad on the second was like um, I might be able to get leave so I don't have to work on the saturday. I could potentially come down if you and steph want to, but we'd already agreed to do bits and pieces. It's just not possible. Thank you, obviously, but yeah, it's really weird this year how everything seems to clash with everything else. But I suppose that has to happen occasionally when you've got children and holidays and work and everything children and holidays and work and everything.

Barbecue Festivals and Events

Dan 28:12

However, I would say I went to an event, uh, with work. Uh, it's an agricultural show called groundswell and there was loads of barbecue. Well, I'll say loads. There's a few barbecue stalls there and one in particular was fantastic. Um, once this goes out, as long as I remember, I'll put up the pictures that I took then so it makes more sense for people so I don't have to kind of go back. But there was a stand there called the Roaming Smokers and this offset smoker they had was absolutely huge and they let me go around, have a look around the back, take some photos, take some videos. I think they said it was homemade, the smoker, and I think he said that might have even been an oil drum or fuel drum, even from a boat. That's absolutely massive.

Dan 28:56

This, this thing was. It looked like the size of an extension, of one story extension, and they showed me they had loads of briskets on which is opening. They've done Thor hammers in there, and then, over the actual fire box that they'd created, they had a flat surface as well, so they were frying off eggs on the flat surface. Glorious stuff, and what they did really smartly, I think, was when it came to what you could order. It was smoked beef, they didn't say if it was brisket, they didn't say if it was Thor hammer, and then they served with it quinoa Interesting choice, but it worked well A red vinegary slaw which cut through it really, really well, and then you could pay an extra pound for an egg on top too, and it was so good.

Dan 29:40

So all the branding they had was Roaming Smokers. But looking into it and going on to kind of their site and stuff they're part of king's clear estates, but it was so good and the fact they let me have a look around underneath the hood looked what they were doing. They gave me loads of like burnt ends and different bits. They'd also been um, cooking steaks just for themselves on the flat top for something for them to eat, so they gave me some of that too. It's really really good and it made me feel like I'd been at an actual barbecue festival, which was fun when you're actually working.

Owen 30:19

Yeah, I saw that Fume barbecue festival had been going on this weekend as well. I think that's up in Manchester, barbecue festival had been going on this weekend as well, I think that's up in manchester, although I saw a couple of posts that were um, I don't know, I think there was long queues and there was. I think I think some people enjoyed it, but I think there was some downsides to. Obviously we've not been to to fume, but, um, yeah, so I think there's a few bits that have gone on uh, this weekend, which was, which is quite interesting. I don't know if you've also noticed, I don't know. There seems to be a lot going on around. Obviously we're into barbecue season, festival season, which is great, but I've also noticed, um, uh, things are kind of happening now in terms of like tours. So I don't know if you've seen that. So, uh, obviously, shropshire lad that, um, we've had on before, yeah, um, he's kind of like partnered up with barbecue barbecue travel club.

Dan 31:22

I don't know if you've yeah, I've seen some of the pictures that he's been putting up on.

Owen 31:26

Yeah, so they do like a heart of Texas tour. And then they've got so they've got a couple of tours coming up. I mean, we'll definitely it's on my bucket list to do a Texas tour. We've spoken about it before, so that would be really great. But I also noticed that smoking elk um, uh, smoking elk is also doing a tour as well. I don't know if you've seen that no, I haven't.

Dan 31:55

I've seen him put some really cool for want of a better word um pictures and videos up just of his shack and talking about the fact that, like who would have thought that his dream shack would become his permanent business? And it felt like a very nice full circle kind of story and reflection piece he put up.

Owen 32:15

I've not seen the tour stuff he's been doing yeah, so him and him and only slagging jim from only slagging have kind of partnered up and they're doing a tour next year, um, so they're doing, they're taking them. Basically they're taking people out there, um, doing everything from pub crawls to restaurants to master classes. So, yeah, it looks like it's sold out as well. You know, I think there's about 20, 20 spaces or whatever. So there seems to be a lot more going on now with that kind of barbecue tourism and I've just noticed it kind of picking up with with those couple kind of just just mentioned. But it seems, it seems logical right in in there as the community grows here in the uk, it I suppose a good business idea is take all of these UK people that love barbecue Enthusiasts.

Dan 33:07

That's the word you're looking for.

Owen 33:08

Oh, yeah, I was thinking, did I say pitmasters? Yeah, we're all pitmasters right, we're all pitmasters in our own right and go stateside and see what that's about. So it's quite good to sort of see that that kind of market is opening up.

BBQ Community and Future Plans

Dan 33:24

And on that point as well, it'd be great to hear from any small businesses or anyone who's seen something a bit different out there in the community, because owen and I are constantly looking at different ideas and different things that we could be doing linked to the podcast. Um, we're hoping to do some sort of visit up north at some point later in this year as well, so any kind of small businesses or anything different you see in the community, please do send it to us. You can find us on the socials of the medias. You can go find our website. If you just type Meat and Greet BBQ Podcast into Google, you'll find us. But send anything like that in because we'd love to have a look at more news, new organisations, new companies, different bits and pieces. We're hungry for anything like that. So please do send it through and give us an excuse at very least to spend more of our hard earned money on stuff that we probably shouldn't be. But we'll have a good time doing it right.

Owen 34:16

Yeah, I think just on that point, right, I think obviously Steve from Child Food Co that we've again sort of interviewed before. You know he seems to be doing lots and lots of things. Obviously, you know he's got his own podcast, cookery school, and a lot's happened since we actually sort of met up with him. But he's doing the. There's the big barbecue community cookout in October, isn't there? Yeah, so something that I'm also trying to push you for so that we go up there, just you need to kind of get yourself free for that particular weekend. It's at the full fourth of october at millington hall farm, um, but tickets are now available as well. So I think essentially it's like a bring your own barbecue, bring your own meat, bring your own beer, bring your own tent, and and it's just a bit of a cookout, right. So that should be good.

Owen 35:12

But yeah so again, it's kind of nice to see that there's lots going on in the community and just I think generally this looks like people have helped back cooking again. We're certainly cooking lots. We're even recording again, talking about it. So it's um yeah, it's always yeah I feel like I found my happy place again yay and a happy owen means a contented me, so that's good, that's it, but I'm, uh, I'm going to pub in the park.

Owen 35:43

I know that that's what I've also been pushing you for. We've not tried pub in the park but, uh, I'm meeting up with jody from aos kitchens, you know, friend of the show, uh, sponsor of the podcast, for I think, since sort of season two now I think it is basically this would be season seven. So, um, that's, that should be really good, not not sort of you've been to one of their. You know they do a few events, don't they? Across the country. So, really looking forward to that one in September, yeah, and then seeing what's about there. So, yeah, again, it's great to be back. We will have some guests, for sure. We will be lining up some guests. Try and get some people on. As much as I'm talking to you, dan, it's always nice to talk to someone else you say that I'm already bored, so yeah, let's get them on well, to be fair, we've been trying to book this in for a week and, uh, it's mainly been me going.

Dan 36:40

Oh sorry, someone's come up and washing my hair yeah, but you're allowed to do that if I'm struggling to get available at all for any things that we want to do over the summer and autumn. So I think that's tit for tat. And being able to say tit towards the end of a podcast has always been my dream. So there you go. I've titillated you for long enough. I think it's time we bid these wonderful listeners adieu. But yeah, thank you so much for listening again and until next time, owen, keep on grilling.