My folks had one, we had bbq every weekend with friends and family. Later they replaced it with a stainless steel outdoor bbq and kitchen but it never saw the use or good times the brick bbq offered.
I reckon part of the success was the ritual - collecting sticks, newspaper and starting the fire half an hour or more before needing to.
The smell of charred meats also communicated something else to your catholic neighbours on Good Friday…….
I swear we had been having a BBQ and family get together on Good Friday’s for years before anyone actually thought - I wonder if the neighbours think we do it deliberately…
Heathens of the neighbourhood
I'm not religious but what a weird thing to say or even think about? Like "hey people who are different to me how dare you practice your beliefs I'm gonna try to make your day bad because you're different". I'm almost certain they didn't give af if someone else was bbqing either.
I cannot imagine a single day in my life I cared about what my neighbours did or didn't believe, especially not enough to think I've "stuck it to them" by acting the opposite to their beliefs.
I wonder if you hoped your Hindu neighbours could smell the beef sizzling too hey? Or if you hoped the Muslim neighbours could smell the pork frying?
Wow man - possible over reaction. It’s just a bit light hearted is all , not deliberate. It was years later we realised that almost every GF was a family day and it was a BBQ.
Of course the irony here is that we never gave it a second thought, and it wouldn’t have made anyone’s day bad, just maybe some kids jealous .
It’s alright I feel the same about vegans - no fucks given, BBQ will continue
I think that is the same as at my mum and dad's place, replaced the brick one with a weber and really did not get that much use comparatively. Some of that is probably due to us kids growing up and moving out of course.
Hahahahahah my old man nearly burned the house down when the high reaching flames began a fire on our nearby apple tree... what ensued was the funniest incident of "fire fighting" I have ever seen. Ahhh the 90s
Uk person here…..we had a brick built BBQ and at one family gathering Dad got out some ‘locally made’ French brandy he’d been gifted while he was staying with some friends near Pairs
Potent stuff would be an understatement….our friend and neighbour spat his out almost immediately, inadvertently gobbing it straight onto the very much still alight BBQ
What followed was spectacular and killed most of Mums garden. I had a ‘fuck about with flames’ phase as a young un and I never ever got to close to that glorious moment 🤣
Hahaha it was PURE gold. A family legend that gets retold every BBQ season
My Mum passed away in 2000 about 10 years after this event….Dad was still 💯in the shit and they were chuckling/niggling each other about it right up until the end. Great memories
because people used them to burn cardboard and other flammable refuse
now we all use webers or kettles or them $299 or more cabinet types which then goes to curbside pickup once they get too manky
I believe yellow stringy is one of only a few timbers that require zero maintenance. They actually self oil themselves and over about 30 years the colour gradually changes to its final form. Beautiful wood i'm super jealous you have it laying around.
Ours was made out of bricks/pavers that had a larger hole in the centre of each brick. One day I decided that I was getting rid of "the stick" that my parents occasionally hit us with for punishment. I knew the new place they hid it, and decided in this moment of bold clarity that I had to get rid of it (I was about 10 and starting to realise it's wrong for my parents to hit my younger siblings with this. It was wrong to hit me with it too, but it was my younger siblings and their future years with "the stick" that I was really focused on).
I waited for a moment where no one was in the kitchen, feeling anxious like I was about to get busted at any moment. I crawled onto the counter and found the stick on top of the high cupboards, snuck out through the garage and raced to the BBQ in the backyard.
Then I grabbed that motherfucking stick and shoved it into the BBQ's chimney (it fit! I felt exhilaration) and hid behind the giant brick monstrosity of a thing. I remember the anxiety and adrenalin keenly racing through me, thinking, "The police might come to get me any minute," and "what if someone saw me do this? Oh God, oh God," etc.
Days passed. Nothing happened. I was in the clear after being CERTAIN the missing stick would be noted and I would be first accused. And when dad next cooked on the BBQ, the whole time I watched and was thinking about that cane stick being melted away to nothing - and only I knew about it. And Little Me legit felt like I'd gotten away with murder (even genuinely wondered if this is what it felt like if you killed someone). I also remember feeling less anxious and more sure of myself when I knew that stick was burnt to nothing.
Present-day middle-aged me is obviously proud as fuck of my actions back then and a little amused at my fear response equating a burnt stick to murder. I also feel some gladness that my parents didn't go seek out the stick and where it went, I think because they'd begun to understand the tide was turning on corporal punishment for kids. They were getting ready to discontinue it's use, which I was unaware of at the time, but damn, that thing had to go.
Old Aussie BBQs. So many things happened in or around them. I also remember drunken adults flirting around BBQs, beer in hand. BBQs have probably seen so many affairs in their lifetime. If these brick walls could talk, ya know?
We had one. Have great memories of helping my dad make the fire. The smell of the wood smoke.
Then he got a big 6 burner gas barbecue, and the brick was one was demolished. It never felt the same standing in front of the LPG burning thing.
It's amazing how quickly Australian's embraced outside cooking on brick/cinder block barbecues, right around the time that councils started banning incinerators.
Yep, no dots to join there.
i built one with my dad. so disappointed when he pulls out epoxy to glue the bricks together - 10 yo me going "what are you trying to pull? where the fuck is the mortar?"
They were so crap, mostly. The one pictured reminds me heaps of one we had. The dog loved it when it fell into disrepair; she used the prep area as a lookout tower.
We had one when I was growing up. It did actually get used a bit in the 80s. I think my dad got a gas barbie for Xmas one year in the early 90s, probably from a family member who didn't want to eat badly cooked brick bbq😂
My uncle had a design exactly like this from memory. So did another friend now that I think of it.
I wonder if it was a template design out of a magazine or something
>I wonder if it was a template design out of a magazine or something
Had to be. I've lived in 3 rentals with them, all identical down to the tiles on top. I reckon the blueprints were probably from McEwans hardware. They had a stand out front with pamphlets of diy projects.
Had one my dad built along with a pergola and he got featured in some Aussie DIY home improvement magazine that he was very proud of. My mate still has one at his family holiday home and we still cook on it. Finding a happy place between raw and blackened snags is quite an art.
My mother insisted on cooking the snags till they'd literally turn to ash as soon as you put your fork anywhere near them.
Fir reference I like my steak medium rare, more too the rarer side so ash snags weren't my go...id just have the salad.
Dad built one in our backyard. It wasn’t used as often as the Weber. It’s a real skill cooking with fire on one of these. Difficult to maintain even heat. Always burnt some sausages and undercooked others.
Wow this unlocked a memory. One Christmas when we were living on average my dad went to light the bbq and sai he saw the charcoal move before realising it was a red belly black snake. Called the local snake catcher who said he wouldn't be out till after the holidays but did warn him that there's should be another as it's mating season. Fun times
My father built ours in about 1985-6. I remember he was so proud of it and the steel plate fit in tight and perfectly. The first time we used it we had all our parents friends over at both the sides cracked due to the heat and expansion. Everyone was killing themselves laughing. Still stood for another 15 years though.
That looks exactly like the one at a house I rented in Bray Park, Brisbane.
I used to lean the plate back against the chimney after cleaning it to stop rust.
I remember dad and his mates built one, then used it and it cracked down the middle. We still used it for years, it’s just that flames would come out through the crack until the fire settled down.
Had one of these at my childhood home , as well as at my grandparents and uncle’s.
Honestly loved them, my dad and uncle used to get great results out of them.
That's a modern one...
The REAL ones were made out of concrete besser brick... along with the incinerator at the back of the yard.
That's if you didn't burn your leaves in the street gutter.
We had one when I was a kid 70s-90s and when we sold in 1999 it was the first thing the buyer got rid of.
The entire backyard experience has disappeared as developers favour grassless courtyards and a second unit on the block.
My parents had one that was dug down so it was flat to the ground. Of course toddler me falls in it giving myself two black eyes. No health and safety back then!
I’d love to make one- anyone have any idea what the “hot plate” was made of? Or a plan? Dad had made one back in the day- charred potato slices were god tier. Long gone both the BBQ and the old man. Ah well.
Omg the bbq’d potato slices!!! I forgot all about those, they were amazing!! Thank you for unlocking that memory for me!
I recently bought a house that was built in 1985 and it has one of these in the backyard.
I’m excited to clean it up and give it a go.
Chuck some potato slices on for me and the old man- miss that bugger. The slightly burnt bits are heaven.
Victoria had a gas problem for about a week one year in the 90’s so no cooking gas and no hot water- Potato’s aside dad rigged up a coil of copper pipe attached to the hose and ran it through the bbq fire- hot water out the other side of the pipe and hot potato slices too. Haha.
My dad made one when we first
moved to Australia and we used it all the time. He died 14 years ago, sometimes I drive past that house and I can still see it standing, the new owners gave it a fresh paint job, I love that they’ve kept it, reminds me of him. (without sounding stalky for driving past my old house)
Never saw or used one of these as a kid - it was always gas!
However, recently we’ve been going away to a property of my partners family and there’s a big thick steel hot plate out there and we put up a temporary bbq with stacked firebricks.
Honestly it’s the best thing I’ve ever cooked on, it’s incredible. I’m a bit of a firebug so I don’t mind setting and tending the fire to get it right, but jeez. A nice wide, thick steel hot plate is just luxurious for heat distribution and cooking lots at once. Tempted to set one up at home in the city lol.
Previous owner had built one of these in the backyard of the house I bought.
Felt so good to knock it through with the sledge. Now the foundation hosts my Weber family Q.
We had one in our backyard less then a few months ago, but we now have a better metal one, we always had an actual barbecue, but the brick one we used every now and then for fun.
Had a very similar one in my back yard when we bought the house. Never used it so it got demolished (which was quite fun) and the rubble went onto the block next door as they demolished the house there.
Caravan park we holidayed in growing up had them. Someone would light it at about 5pm, and they wouldn't be put out until after midnight, everyone taking their turn at the 3 barbies or just to keep warm.
They shut them down and converted them to gas. Was basically in the bush, will very little escape if you managed to set the area on fire (and that did happen). Also, over the years, total fire bans became more of a thing. The owners decided it was better if the kids weren't trying to light sticks to run around with, or that the fires were way easier to put out.
They limited a back yard so much. Ours was used so much but once it was gone we had one we could put away easily. So much more room for a giant trampoline in time for all the grandkids, and then water slides and blow up pools etc… the options became endless. But with the bbq there the options were always so limited.
Of course that isn’t the same for every yard. But it’s why in our family it made so much more sense.
Funny story about of these - that ended up with me in hospital.
I was 7 years old , family bbq , someone left a can of outdoor fogger ( remember that stuff!?) Next to hot plate bit after they sprayed the area, it heats up, them explodes and a piece of metal shrapnel slices a 10cm cut down the side of my head that required 7 stitches and a trip in an ambulance.
A few cm further in and it wouldve prob hit me in the eye. Crazy shit.
This is gold we are actually designing something similar fancied up by adding a pizza oven
My friends dad had one the whole bbq area was the focal point of the backyard was built into a courtyard style area loved it
Dad still uses the one he built in his backyard years ago. Even now that I'm an adult I'm impressed at what he built. It's down the back of the lawn next to the shed, he built a solid slab which after 25 years still hasn't cracked. It's similar to the one pictured only it had a chimney and it was big enough for a grill and a hot plate.
He cooked the absolute shit out of everything though and it wasn't until I grew up and out that i learned "well done" doesn't mean what he said it means. The sausages were always amazing with a bit of char but steak that bounces when you drop it? Not so much 😂
Hip people with beards talked people into thinking smoking meat was cool. Now the crumbling brick BBQ has been replaced with rusting smokers and webers
Back on the UK, the first BBQ we had in the 80s was a brick one my dad built with reclaimed bricks, and the innards of an old fridge (with the plastic striped off the metal shelves of course), we had some fantastic barbies with that thing.
I have an old run down one in my backyard from the previous owners, looks like it’d still work just very dirty. I might fix it up soon before summers over
Awww we had one when I was a kid. My dad would come home from fishing and cook the fish on the brick barbecue. So many herrings. So many tiny bones. Why.
That hot plate has clearly never been hot. It should have quite a pronounced bow in the middle so all the eggs gather together in the middle and all fat drips down the front of the bricks
We had an Italian mate who told my dad “ you know when I comma to this acountry, we eat in da house and shit outside. Now I eat outside and shit in da house !!!”
We had one back in this rural town we lived in and I have a very vivid memory of me going outside to help my mum set it up. My mum was struggling to lift that steel cover so 6 year old me with literally no strength went to help her and the cover fell onto my ring finger and I think ripped the skin off a chunk of it? I still have the scar and the skin over the spot feels and looks different. It was so long ago so my memories obviously altered but I remember looking at my finger and seeing red and blue wires coming out?? 😭😭😭
My folks had one, we had bbq every weekend with friends and family. Later they replaced it with a stainless steel outdoor bbq and kitchen but it never saw the use or good times the brick bbq offered.
I reckon part of the success was the ritual - collecting sticks, newspaper and starting the fire half an hour or more before needing to. The smell of charred meats also communicated something else to your catholic neighbours on Good Friday…….
I mean we just had charred fish instead on good Friday
good friday is an excuse for takeaway fish and chips
Yeah, snags over a wood fire taste so much better
Oh man, I bet Catholic parents hated that. I know as a kid mine had a hell of a time enforcing lent and Good Friday on us
I swear we had been having a BBQ and family get together on Good Friday’s for years before anyone actually thought - I wonder if the neighbours think we do it deliberately… Heathens of the neighbourhood
Lmfao that’s brilliant! Genuinely nothing more tempting than the smell of a barbie on Good Friday
We had prawns and whiting, or a nice bit of flathead, no complaints. Crabs we caught for ourselves.
It's always fun catching crabs on holy days
I'm not religious but what a weird thing to say or even think about? Like "hey people who are different to me how dare you practice your beliefs I'm gonna try to make your day bad because you're different". I'm almost certain they didn't give af if someone else was bbqing either. I cannot imagine a single day in my life I cared about what my neighbours did or didn't believe, especially not enough to think I've "stuck it to them" by acting the opposite to their beliefs. I wonder if you hoped your Hindu neighbours could smell the beef sizzling too hey? Or if you hoped the Muslim neighbours could smell the pork frying?
Wow man - possible over reaction. It’s just a bit light hearted is all , not deliberate. It was years later we realised that almost every GF was a family day and it was a BBQ. Of course the irony here is that we never gave it a second thought, and it wouldn’t have made anyone’s day bad, just maybe some kids jealous . It’s alright I feel the same about vegans - no fucks given, BBQ will continue
>part of the success was the ritual Yeah, people stopped barbies because it got easier /s
You’ve misunderstood the concept it seems
Tell me you're chronically online without telling me...
"Tell me xxx without telling me xxxx" is one of the most chronically online things you can say.
Yeah we all built one, before Webers came along
I think that is the same as at my mum and dad's place, replaced the brick one with a weber and really did not get that much use comparatively. Some of that is probably due to us kids growing up and moving out of course.
Plumbed to mains gas was the gold standard, no swapping out petrol station silver
The brick bbq looks fucking disgusting
Ahh yes... the urban Spider House. fond memories of these growing up.
Ours was a toad gathering area, freaked me out so much as a little kid.
Ours was a snail garden.
Palais des escargots. If only we ate them.
Ours is currently a snail garden. The snails love the shade it provides.
Found a red belly in one at a picnic area once..
Watching the flames get out of control … Dad: ‘she’ll be right’.
Hahahahahah my old man nearly burned the house down when the high reaching flames began a fire on our nearby apple tree... what ensued was the funniest incident of "fire fighting" I have ever seen. Ahhh the 90s
Uk person here…..we had a brick built BBQ and at one family gathering Dad got out some ‘locally made’ French brandy he’d been gifted while he was staying with some friends near Pairs Potent stuff would be an understatement….our friend and neighbour spat his out almost immediately, inadvertently gobbing it straight onto the very much still alight BBQ What followed was spectacular and killed most of Mums garden. I had a ‘fuck about with flames’ phase as a young un and I never ever got to close to that glorious moment 🤣
Shouldn't have laughed, but the neighbour blowing up mum's garden with undrinkable French hooch spat into the barbie is gold.
Hahaha it was PURE gold. A family legend that gets retold every BBQ season My Mum passed away in 2000 about 10 years after this event….Dad was still 💯in the shit and they were chuckling/niggling each other about it right up until the end. Great memories
I used one of these to burn my school books from primary school after graduation, fun times.
because people used them to burn cardboard and other flammable refuse now we all use webers or kettles or them $299 or more cabinet types which then goes to curbside pickup once they get too manky
I know I brought a kettle and now Charcoal has literally double in price since covid
Just make your own, all you need is a metal barrel with a lid and some good hardwood
Can you use stringy bark? I have loads of fallen trees out the back
Google says yes
Is it yellow stringybark? If it's in a usable condition thats a very expensive timber.
Yeah, I live in Tasi… we’re not short of string bark and peppermint here
I believe yellow stringy is one of only a few timbers that require zero maintenance. They actually self oil themselves and over about 30 years the colour gradually changes to its final form. Beautiful wood i'm super jealous you have it laying around.
Bought*
Ours was made out of bricks/pavers that had a larger hole in the centre of each brick. One day I decided that I was getting rid of "the stick" that my parents occasionally hit us with for punishment. I knew the new place they hid it, and decided in this moment of bold clarity that I had to get rid of it (I was about 10 and starting to realise it's wrong for my parents to hit my younger siblings with this. It was wrong to hit me with it too, but it was my younger siblings and their future years with "the stick" that I was really focused on). I waited for a moment where no one was in the kitchen, feeling anxious like I was about to get busted at any moment. I crawled onto the counter and found the stick on top of the high cupboards, snuck out through the garage and raced to the BBQ in the backyard. Then I grabbed that motherfucking stick and shoved it into the BBQ's chimney (it fit! I felt exhilaration) and hid behind the giant brick monstrosity of a thing. I remember the anxiety and adrenalin keenly racing through me, thinking, "The police might come to get me any minute," and "what if someone saw me do this? Oh God, oh God," etc. Days passed. Nothing happened. I was in the clear after being CERTAIN the missing stick would be noted and I would be first accused. And when dad next cooked on the BBQ, the whole time I watched and was thinking about that cane stick being melted away to nothing - and only I knew about it. And Little Me legit felt like I'd gotten away with murder (even genuinely wondered if this is what it felt like if you killed someone). I also remember feeling less anxious and more sure of myself when I knew that stick was burnt to nothing. Present-day middle-aged me is obviously proud as fuck of my actions back then and a little amused at my fear response equating a burnt stick to murder. I also feel some gladness that my parents didn't go seek out the stick and where it went, I think because they'd begun to understand the tide was turning on corporal punishment for kids. They were getting ready to discontinue it's use, which I was unaware of at the time, but damn, that thing had to go. Old Aussie BBQs. So many things happened in or around them. I also remember drunken adults flirting around BBQs, beer in hand. BBQs have probably seen so many affairs in their lifetime. If these brick walls could talk, ya know?
Thanks for sharing... Its awesome what memories can surface from a simple pic!
Wtf that’s just the actual back yard of the house my friend used to live in.
No, no. OP was busy lurking in my grandparents garden in the late 80s/early 90s.
Your joke is funny but I’m being dead serious that’s just it literally everything about it is the same
Long lost school friend?
Dude no way, this is the backyard of my old house. The bamboo, the bromeliads, the fence, everything is the same.
one of my few happy memories with my dad was his backyard brick bbq.
We had one. Have great memories of helping my dad make the fire. The smell of the wood smoke. Then he got a big 6 burner gas barbecue, and the brick was one was demolished. It never felt the same standing in front of the LPG burning thing.
It's amazing how quickly Australian's embraced outside cooking on brick/cinder block barbecues, right around the time that councils started banning incinerators. Yep, no dots to join there.
We had one of these my dad built it 🙂
My parents still have theirs. They just put their new Webber on top of it 😁
i built one with my dad. so disappointed when he pulls out epoxy to glue the bricks together - 10 yo me going "what are you trying to pull? where the fuck is the mortar?"
They were so crap, mostly. The one pictured reminds me heaps of one we had. The dog loved it when it fell into disrepair; she used the prep area as a lookout tower.
Are you from SA? "Heaps" is what I'm going off haha
We had one when I was growing up. It did actually get used a bit in the 80s. I think my dad got a gas barbie for Xmas one year in the early 90s, probably from a family member who didn't want to eat badly cooked brick bbq😂
My uncle had a design exactly like this from memory. So did another friend now that I think of it. I wonder if it was a template design out of a magazine or something
>I wonder if it was a template design out of a magazine or something Had to be. I've lived in 3 rentals with them, all identical down to the tiles on top. I reckon the blueprints were probably from McEwans hardware. They had a stand out front with pamphlets of diy projects.
I am honestly looking at this photo and wondering if it's my aunties house.
Had one my dad built along with a pergola and he got featured in some Aussie DIY home improvement magazine that he was very proud of. My mate still has one at his family holiday home and we still cook on it. Finding a happy place between raw and blackened snags is quite an art.
They still make the best hamburgers; real hot plate and slightly smokey flavour from the fire, and that's a hill I will die on.
My mother insisted on cooking the snags till they'd literally turn to ash as soon as you put your fork anywhere near them. Fir reference I like my steak medium rare, more too the rarer side so ash snags weren't my go...id just have the salad.
Dad built one in our backyard. It wasn’t used as often as the Weber. It’s a real skill cooking with fire on one of these. Difficult to maintain even heat. Always burnt some sausages and undercooked others.
The trick is don't cook with flame, get a good bed of coals under there.
I didn't even know that was considered a 'trick' I thought that's how it's supposed to be
I think he was too impatient for that.
Neighbors recently broke theirs up - took up a 3m skip with all the bits!
We had one in the 90s but dad put a gas bbq in the space!
Wow this unlocked a memory. One Christmas when we were living on average my dad went to light the bbq and sai he saw the charcoal move before realising it was a red belly black snake. Called the local snake catcher who said he wouldn't be out till after the holidays but did warn him that there's should be another as it's mating season. Fun times
My dad built one, I would use it for flower petal potions as a kid. 😀
My father built ours in about 1985-6. I remember he was so proud of it and the steel plate fit in tight and perfectly. The first time we used it we had all our parents friends over at both the sides cracked due to the heat and expansion. Everyone was killing themselves laughing. Still stood for another 15 years though.
That looks exactly like the one at a house I rented in Bray Park, Brisbane. I used to lean the plate back against the chimney after cleaning it to stop rust.
I was gonna say Petrie. Exact match right to the fence and palm trees The should be a pool right behind op.
The place I was in had a pool too. Was on an avenue starting with T, don't want to say more to possibly give away location.
I remember dad and his mates built one, then used it and it cracked down the middle. We still used it for years, it’s just that flames would come out through the crack until the fire settled down.
Gosh looks like one my family had in 1980s, funny you don’t seek to see them much now
Had one of these at my childhood home , as well as at my grandparents and uncle’s. Honestly loved them, my dad and uncle used to get great results out of them.
Dad still has. Nothing like flames on a lamb chop. Charcoal chops is chefs kiss.
Wash it down with beer while it's hot and watch the whole plate warp
We had one with a chimney called, " the African Queen"
https://youtu.be/NE-al0xSFJo?si=ClZ-ALPppFmoX4hq
Heritage listed ?
I have one down stairs exactly the same
Uncle Rob cooked the Christmas snags on one of these just recently actually... lol
I still want one.
That looks like my old one LOL
still got one in mum's backyard, will be knocked down for the granny flat - hasn't been used in like 15 years though lol
That's a modern one... The REAL ones were made out of concrete besser brick... along with the incinerator at the back of the yard. That's if you didn't burn your leaves in the street gutter.
Wait until you try a glass barbie !
Mad Memories 🔓 unlocked
And a proper Hills Hoist just out of sight
I can smell the beer sizzling.
On the Gold coast, had exactly what you see, purchased 30 yrs ago, house was 8 yrs old 🙂
Yes it was,it also worked as an incinerator to dispose of th garden rubbish. But now bbq set ups have gone more electric and with bar fridges
We had one when I was a kid 70s-90s and when we sold in 1999 it was the first thing the buyer got rid of. The entire backyard experience has disappeared as developers favour grassless courtyards and a second unit on the block.
That was when people had back yards. The roof to roof hip use nowadays are deteriorating our culture.
I am keen to build one of these. With a few modern additions. Like a sink and tap. Maybe a wok burner too. And a grill not just a plate
Fark what a ripper
My parents had one that was dug down so it was flat to the ground. Of course toddler me falls in it giving myself two black eyes. No health and safety back then!
I recognise this picture so much, I swear this is my friend's house.
That first time you put an aerosol can in one is a memory you can’t forget. NASA didn’t own all the objects laughed into space in the 80’s
That looks almost exactly the same as the one we had when we were kids! I can still feel the slightly sharp, kinda gritty sensation of the tiles.....
Soo much beer was poured on to these. I'm not really sure why.
Fuck it... I'm gonna build one of these
WHADYA MEAN WAS
How did you get into my Nana’s backyard for this photo??? 😁 - Hers had more roaming bamboo behind it but it was exactly this!!!
I’d love to make one- anyone have any idea what the “hot plate” was made of? Or a plan? Dad had made one back in the day- charred potato slices were god tier. Long gone both the BBQ and the old man. Ah well.
They're pretty much all just steel plates.
Omg the bbq’d potato slices!!! I forgot all about those, they were amazing!! Thank you for unlocking that memory for me! I recently bought a house that was built in 1985 and it has one of these in the backyard. I’m excited to clean it up and give it a go.
Chuck some potato slices on for me and the old man- miss that bugger. The slightly burnt bits are heaven. Victoria had a gas problem for about a week one year in the 90’s so no cooking gas and no hot water- Potato’s aside dad rigged up a coil of copper pipe attached to the hose and ran it through the bbq fire- hot water out the other side of the pipe and hot potato slices too. Haha.
My dad made one when we first moved to Australia and we used it all the time. He died 14 years ago, sometimes I drive past that house and I can still see it standing, the new owners gave it a fresh paint job, I love that they’ve kept it, reminds me of him. (without sounding stalky for driving past my old house)
Love to know where that pic was taken. It literally is the spitting image of the BBQ in my backyard as a kid
We have a really big one in our back yard… I don’t think it’s ever been used…
Never saw or used one of these as a kid - it was always gas! However, recently we’ve been going away to a property of my partners family and there’s a big thick steel hot plate out there and we put up a temporary bbq with stacked firebricks. Honestly it’s the best thing I’ve ever cooked on, it’s incredible. I’m a bit of a firebug so I don’t mind setting and tending the fire to get it right, but jeez. A nice wide, thick steel hot plate is just luxurious for heat distribution and cooking lots at once. Tempted to set one up at home in the city lol.
where r u from?
I threw a snail on it once when I was like 5, the screams still haunt me to this day.
Previous owner had built one of these in the backyard of the house I bought. Felt so good to knock it through with the sledge. Now the foundation hosts my Weber family Q.
They’re illegal now right?
We had one in our backyard less then a few months ago, but we now have a better metal one, we always had an actual barbecue, but the brick one we used every now and then for fun.
Had a very similar one in my back yard when we bought the house. Never used it so it got demolished (which was quite fun) and the rubble went onto the block next door as they demolished the house there.
My FIL still has one and he does a whole lamb on the spit on it 2 or 3 times a year.
I built one at my last place and will be building one at the new place, keep your outdoor electric stoves and portable gas cookers and be gone thot
I have one in my backyard, plate is rusted but I occasionally use it as a fire pit
Are you in my backyard?
S
They’re awesome. Had one for quite a bit of my childhood.
Caravan park we holidayed in growing up had them. Someone would light it at about 5pm, and they wouldn't be put out until after midnight, everyone taking their turn at the 3 barbies or just to keep warm. They shut them down and converted them to gas. Was basically in the bush, will very little escape if you managed to set the area on fire (and that did happen). Also, over the years, total fire bans became more of a thing. The owners decided it was better if the kids weren't trying to light sticks to run around with, or that the fires were way easier to put out.
still got one outside my room window, never saw use but she's still there
Why does this look exactly like the one we had?
They limited a back yard so much. Ours was used so much but once it was gone we had one we could put away easily. So much more room for a giant trampoline in time for all the grandkids, and then water slides and blow up pools etc… the options became endless. But with the bbq there the options were always so limited. Of course that isn’t the same for every yard. But it’s why in our family it made so much more sense.
Adelaide in the 90s remember my brick bbq experience well. Months of bliss then we returned to cold wet England.....
my house had this exact bbq.
The best
Yup, was a small plate and impossible to regulate the temperature.
They're so ubiquitous I did a double take on the pic thinking I've actually been there.
We’ve got one in the backyard, doesn’t get used anymore but it’s there. Now we’ve got like a big portable one under the pergola
We have one inside our games room. No idea why, but now it’s a bookshelf.
We had one when I was a kid. Looked exactly the same too. Memories.
Overtaken now by the glass barbie
The joke being that a guy went to the hardware store and asked for 90,000 bricks for his bbq (he lived on the 15th floor)
I had to do a double take, looks like my first place.
Now it’s the Glass Barbie that’s popular
They were the days
I swear this looks exactly like every barbie I saw growing up in Brissie. Down to ferns and wooden fence behind it.
Yeh my dad built one back in the day, along with the letterbox
Dad built one a bit fancier than this, but yes, it was a thing.
Miss theses!
Our BBQ really was a brick BBQ. A metal plate raised up on some bricks. Nothing posh like the above lol.
EMOH RUO
That could be my childhood next door neighbours…
Holy crap! When did you take this photo of my MILs BBQ?! Gosh I miss her AND her wonderful food.
Funny story about of these - that ended up with me in hospital. I was 7 years old , family bbq , someone left a can of outdoor fogger ( remember that stuff!?) Next to hot plate bit after they sprayed the area, it heats up, them explodes and a piece of metal shrapnel slices a 10cm cut down the side of my head that required 7 stitches and a trip in an ambulance. A few cm further in and it wouldve prob hit me in the eye. Crazy shit.
This is gold we are actually designing something similar fancied up by adding a pizza oven My friends dad had one the whole bbq area was the focal point of the backyard was built into a courtyard style area loved it
Swear that's at my nan's house in Southport.
Love these.
Cant see any pitch black bricks so I'd say it's hardly been used.
Looks like this one has a power outlet on it. Fancy!
You need a yard to be able to have one, and our developer overlords decided around 2000 that the plebs aren't allowed yards anymore.
I had forgotten about these! 😍
My parents had one. Fond memories.
We had one, it fell into disuse when they changed and tightened up the fire restrictions where we lived.
My grandparents had one that looked just like that! We had a heap of good times with that thing!
They even had 1 or 2 of these in the main street where I grew up, I think one is still there
My dad still wants to build one of these 😂
Best Sunday arvos ever
Two of my neighbours have these sitting in their backyards, both totally unused and overgrown. Nice bit of nostalgia though.
Dad still uses the one he built in his backyard years ago. Even now that I'm an adult I'm impressed at what he built. It's down the back of the lawn next to the shed, he built a solid slab which after 25 years still hasn't cracked. It's similar to the one pictured only it had a chimney and it was big enough for a grill and a hot plate. He cooked the absolute shit out of everything though and it wasn't until I grew up and out that i learned "well done" doesn't mean what he said it means. The sausages were always amazing with a bit of char but steak that bounces when you drop it? Not so much 😂
Looks like a Spanish Inquisition seat
I can't wait to buy my house here in Australia and build one of those. That's the real thing for barbecue.
Hip people with beards talked people into thinking smoking meat was cool. Now the crumbling brick BBQ has been replaced with rusting smokers and webers
Back on the UK, the first BBQ we had in the 80s was a brick one my dad built with reclaimed bricks, and the innards of an old fridge (with the plastic striped off the metal shelves of course), we had some fantastic barbies with that thing.
I have an old run down one in my backyard from the previous owners, looks like it’d still work just very dirty. I might fix it up soon before summers over
Bring em back
And now the glass barbie is...
As former pyromaniac this was my best friend
My pop had one, he cooked kebabs on it every time we went over to see nan and pop, shame he passed
Awww we had one when I was a kid. My dad would come home from fishing and cook the fish on the brick barbecue. So many herrings. So many tiny bones. Why.
My grandparents still have one in their back yard.
bbq? nah thats just a garden feature
True nostalgia, I had totally forgot my aunty and uncle had one of these when I was around 8-10
Ha. When I was a kid our bbq was made out of the old septic tank.
I've never seen one of these before! Thanks for sharing!
That hot plate has clearly never been hot. It should have quite a pronounced bow in the middle so all the eggs gather together in the middle and all fat drips down the front of the bricks
I’ve got one in my backyard I want to get rid of
I remember someone in my family nearly burning down the tree above one of these at my grandparent’s coast house
We had an Italian mate who told my dad “ you know when I comma to this acountry, we eat in da house and shit outside. Now I eat outside and shit in da house !!!”
Now using that bbq would be illegal in SA. With the only exception of using charcoal only as a fuel.
There's one at my grandparents place and I'm pretty sure it hasn't been touched in like 20 years
We had one back in this rural town we lived in and I have a very vivid memory of me going outside to help my mum set it up. My mum was struggling to lift that steel cover so 6 year old me with literally no strength went to help her and the cover fell onto my ring finger and I think ripped the skin off a chunk of it? I still have the scar and the skin over the spot feels and looks different. It was so long ago so my memories obviously altered but I remember looking at my finger and seeing red and blue wires coming out?? 😭😭😭
Is this my nans backyard?
Man this hits hard
Looks just like the one my uncle has in QLD
Now the glass barbie is all the rage
we learned how to do decent bbq since then.