Great sporting events mean a great excuse for a BBQ! The AFL Grand Final this weekend and the NRL Grand Final and Bathurst 1000 just around the corner. Fire up the barbie and enjoy the fun with family and friends. While you’re at it, why not make a video and enter our spring competition?

To celebrate the launch of the new Heat Beads® Entertainer BBQ, to be released in Australia in November 2008, the Heat Beads® team is giving you a special opportunity to win one of these great units, just in time for Summer!

Simply upload a four minute video of you or your friends BBQ’ing your favourite recipe on Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes to YouTube - we’ll be looking for the best footage of your delicious recipes actually cooking over the Heat Beads® briquette’s, lots of fun and good humour, and of course your comment about why you love to cook over Heat Beads®! Then you’ll be in the running to be one of three winners of a Heat Beads® Entertainer BBQ valued at $499.

There will also be three Heat Beads® Prize Packs on offer for the close runners up containing Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes, a Heat Beads® Quickstart Chimney and Heat Beads® Drip Trays!

What you need to do:
Include footage of a bag of Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes in your video. MAKE SURE you tag your video with these keywords so we can find it on YouTube:
* How to BBQ
* BBQ
* Barbecue
* Barbeque
* Grill
* Heat Beads® briquettes

The deadline for entries is Monday October 13. Winners will be notified via their YouTube profiles and the winning entries will be posted to the Heat Beads® Blog, Sizzle.

To be eligible for this competition, you must be a Heat Beads® BBQ News subscriber. Click here to subscribe.

You know what the TAC says, if you drink, drive and grill you’re a…wait, what was that last part?!
Most other portable grills have got nothing on this BBQ VW Golf Trailer (see pic below) and it is all completely street legal!

Owner of the BBQ VW Golf Trailer

Fuelled by briquettes, this sensational grill trailer could provide grill enthusiasts with hours of entertainment and could be used while camping, in a friend’s backyard or just as a talking point for a grand final day BBQ!

So what are you waiting for? Get down to your local wreckers and start building yourself a portable grill with some grunt!

Camp-oven cooking was taken to another level last weekend with 30-odd teams competing in the Redesdale Tavern Camp Oven Cook-Off producing dishes that could be considered gourmet coming from a professional kitchen.

Mim Ward, the event organiser described the day as something that, ‘lends itself really well’ to a country and community feel as teams come together and practice up to five weeks before the event and usually go through about three or four different recipes in that time. When asked why camp oven cooking, Mim states that ‘people have a fascination with [it], they are really passionate about it’.

The day kicked off at 9am with the contestants registering and collecting their four compulsory ingredients: meat (beef or lamb), carrots, onions and potatoes. The camp ovens were fired up with Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes and the cooking creations began at 11am - with contestants vying for prizes such as $700 cash and hampers.

As well as all of the camp-oven festivities there was a produce market featuring local delight and the local CFA boys were present throughout the day in order to raise funds for the local brigade.

At 3pm the first round of judging with the expert judges panel began, based on the categories of taste, aroma, texture, presentation, innovation and imagination.

When it came time to announce the winners, the tension in the air was palpable. The $700 prizes for first place best beef went to ‘The Old Manse’ and first place best lamb went to ‘The three stooges’. The best-decorated campsite went to ‘Cast Iron Chefs’, best damper went to ‘The Black Sheep’ and the best cake went to ‘The Delectable dames and the dandy’.

Check out our video of the event highlights, below!

In case you have forgotten (who - you?!) Father’s Day is this Sunday September 7. It is a time to thank our Dad’s for all that they have done for us, so instead of buying him yet another pair of socks or a DVD, why not embrace the beautiful spring weather and cook your Dad a BBQ lunch over live coals? (Parental supervision may be required for young children). Prepare your favourite recipe, fire up the barbie, and to top it off, give him a bag of Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes - very affordable and he’ll love it!

Here is a perfect Sunday lunch recipe from Asian grill guru Julian Wu that you can use to test your grill skills, if it’s been a while!

Asian Style Lemon Grass Chicken
Julian Wu
Ingredients:
* 1 free-range chicken approx 1.6 kg
* Approx 1 cup of coriander leaves
* Small bunch (about 5-6 stalks) of spring onions
* Thumb sized knob of ginger, chopped
* 1/2 stalk of lemon grass chopped
* 1/2 cup olive oil
* Juice of 3 lemons/limes/seville oranges
* 1/4 cup soy
* 4-5 cloves chopped garlic (about 1 heaped tablespoon)
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp cumin
* 1/2 tsp curry powder (or more to taste)
* 1 Throne (a beer can, any type will do!)
Method:
Put ingredients in a blender and blend to a paste. Taste and then adjust seasonings to your taste.
Marinate chicken in rub for at least 2-3 hours and barbecue “on a throne” (an open beer can) till done.

For more recipes and inspiration for your Fathers’ day BBQ, click here.

If you’re not sure how to light your BBQ using Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes, click here for our instructional video.

The Heat Beads® team wishes a Happy father’s day to all those Dad’s out there, and happy grilling to all their kids!

The National Packaging Covenant has been working towards decreasing the impact of consumer packaging on the environment since its inception in 1999.

According to its website, the National Packaging Covenant is an:
‘initiative by Government and Industry, to reduce the environmental effects of packaging on the Environment. It is designed to minimise the environmental impacts arising from the disposal of used packaging, conserve resources through better design and production processes and facilitate the re-use and recycling of used packaging materials.’

As a current signatory, we are committed to the work of the National Packaging Covenant. The Covenant is achieving some great results with the consumer packaging that was recycled with their help in 2007 being equivalent to:

Camp-oven cooking was taken to another level last weekend with 30-odd teams competing in the Redesdale Tavern Camp Oven Cook-Off, producing dishes that could put gourmet cooking from a professional kitchen to shame.

At 9am the contestants queued to collect the four compulsory ingredients: meat (beef or lamb), carrots, onions and potatoes. Heat Beads^® BBQ Briquettes ensured the camp ovens were the perfect temperature and the cooking creations began at 11am - with contestants vying for prizes such as $700 cash and hampers.At 3pm the first round of judging began, based on the categories of taste, aroma, texture, presentation, innovation and imagination.

When it came time to announce the winners, the tension in the air was palpable. The $700 prize for first place ‘best beef’ went to ‘The Old Manse’ and first place ‘best lamb’ went to ‘The Three Stooges’. The best-decorated campsite went to ‘Cast Iron Chefs’, best damper went to ‘The Black Sheep’ and the best cake went to ‘The Delectable Dames and the Dandy’.