BBQ Tonight?

But First ....... you've got to make the charcoal.

Once a month staff from the Wildlife Trust office where I am based are invited to BBQ at one of the trusts reserves Mere Sands. The Centre is closed to visitors on Friday. To build relationships between satellite offices I go along and spend a morning helping out doing the odd job. This morning was re-cooking a charcoal burn miss fire. Some of the wood had failed to bake in the previous burn. The wood was a mix of silver birch and rhododendron from tree thinning and management on the reserve. Charcoal burning is a bit of a black art you watch for the colour of the smoke before shutting off the air to the fire to let the wood bake. This shot is the early stage of firing when plenty of smoke is generated. As soon as the lid is lowered you have to work quickly to seal the air holes and get the chimneys in then it settles down. Not sure that the Trust Health and safety officer would have been too happy with two of us doing it in shorts and the reserves manager wearing sandals.

We had a great lunch time BBQ heated with some charcoal that had been made earlier. The charcoal is sold from centre and good quality sustainable stuff it is too.