The high cost of having a BBQ addiction in Thailand

[scottranda]

Can you find this Thai charcoal over there?

Pok Pok Thaan Thai Style Charcoal Logs, 5 lb https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R8HILG8...mazingribs--20

Of course, I don’t know if it’s truly Thai, but it’s in their name!

[AZ Fogey]

Thanks for the tip. I'll see if I can find some. When I google "hardwood charcoal" over here, a lot of alibaba.com Chinese vendors pop up, but their minimum order is usually over a ton.

[Greygoose]

Sounds like a real fun 6 months.
I have heard good things about the binchotan charcoal that is made over there.
extruded charcoal logs that burn long and clean ,,,,,once you get them going.
Enjoy !

[AZ Fogey]

My wife actually likes it a lot of the time. She also loves hamburgers and french fries, pizza, and good Mexican food. My Thai in-laws, however, probably find it boring, although they're much too polite to say so. I think that any dish without 10 or 12 red Thai chilies and a dollop of fermented fish sauce doesn't even wake up their taste buds. LOL.

[holehogg]

+ 1

[Old Glory]

That's really cool! How do they like your American style of cooking and BBQ?

[Ahumadora]

Great write up. Yes when living in foreign countries you need to adapt and overcome.

[AZ Fogey]

My wife and I left for our annual 6 month sojourn to Thailand on October 1st. For the previous 6 months I had been cooking BBQ at least 4 nights a week on a RecTec Maverick, a PBC or a PK360. So, after a week and a half of not cooking, severe BBQ withdrawals set in and I started searching the internet for places to buy a BBQ near where we live. I found a store that sold Weber grills. Almost everything related to BBQ in Thailand comes from the U.S.. Consequently, almost everything related to BBQ costs double or more because of shipping, taxes and customs duties. Given my addiction to BBQ, I just have to grin and bear it.

I haven't cooked on a Weber Kettle since the late 70's and I was using it then, strictly as a grill. Temp control was a problem until I ran across Kettle Pitmaster's YouTube channel with his very precise advice as to how many briquettes to light for a given target temp. After that, I started enjoying the hell out of the Weber, but every time I'd go back to the BBQ store to buy briquettes, this very beautiful red Kamado Joe Classic II seemed to keep calling my name. I held out for about a month and then one day, when my wife went with me to buy briquettes, I showed her the KJ. To my surprise, she said, "Buy it." It was delivered the next day and the delivery guys unexpectedly assembled it for us out on the covered lanai of our condo.

Prior to buying the KJ, I had done a lot homework watching John Setzler's Kamado Joe YouTube channel. It's a great resource. Anyway, with what I learned there, I had no trouble sneaking up on and nailing down target temps. Once the vents are set correctly, I haven't seen any more than a very occasional +-10° from the desired temp, and that was on a 5 hour cook with several lid openings for spritzing. The 3 level Divide & Conquer system of split grills and heat deflectors makes grilling or 2-zone cooking or all out smoking, very easy to set up.

Two bags of Kamado Joe lump that I ordered from Bangkok arrived today, exorbitantly priced, of course. The good news is that I may not need to order any more because my brother-in-law went to a local outdoor market and got me 4 plastic bags of local-made lump charcoal which is very inexpensive, and it seems to work great. No smoke, low ash production and longevity to last for 2 or 3 more cooks.

Now, if we could only find some prime brisket or heavily marbled ribs or pork butt, I'd be in heaven. In 13 years, I have yet to find a decent cut of Thai beef and even their best looking ribs have very little meat on them. There is no marbling whatsoever and I don't believe they age their meat, at least for the local markets. My wife found a very good grass-fed Australian ribeye at a market that caters to foreigners, so at least it's obtainable, albeit expensive, and pork steaks, pork belly, and local chicken are quite good and readily available.

Two of my wife's sisters come over every day and cook Thai food for lunch for us. It's almost always delicious. I'm trying to learn some of their seasoning recipes and it's been a hoot. I don't speak Thai and they don't speak English so my wife is the intermediary. They don't measure anything, so every time they pick something up to put in the mix, I make them put it in a measuring cup or spoon first, and then I write it down. We all have a lot of fun. My goal is to adapt their recipes to use on common BBQ items to see how well they work, because the flavors are really good on stir-fried and deep-fried stuff. If anything turns out especially good, I'll post it to the recipe section of the forum.