Presented by The Age, the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival plays host to a diverse range of exciting food and wine events across 17 delicious days during March 2009.

On Saturday 14th March 2009, Connex Sizzle! - Melbourne’s biggest ‘backyard’ BBQ - is being sponsored by Heat Beads®.

Ben O’Donoghue of “Surfing the Menu” fame (+ much more) will be the MC of  the Connex Sizzle! and will delight the crowd with a demo from his new BBQ recipe book later in the day.

Featured also will be a variety of sizzling barbeque dishes, including five different international recipes - cooked over Heat Beads® Barbeque Briquettes of course! These fabulous recipes will be prepared and cooked by leading Melbourne chefs AND we hope, enjoyed by you!

We hope you can come join in the fun at this great BBQ event on Saturday 14th March 2009, 12-9pm at the Global Chargrill BBQ Plaza on the River Terrace at Fed Square.

A Stress Free BBQ Christmas Meal

It seems like every year Christmas just sneaks up on us, and 2008 is no exception! Shopping centres are clogged with frenzied shoppers trying to find perfect gifts and fresh food for the special day. With this in mind, the Heat Beads® Team have put together some tips and tools to take the stress out of the upcoming holiday, so that you can cook the perfect turkey!

Click here to view our turkey cooking tips.

Bird Cooking Time Calculator

Not cooking a turkey? Never fear, because Heat Beads® turkey cook time calculator will allow you to roast or smoke any bird to perfection, over live coals.

All you have to do is enter the size of the bird and the time you wish to eat. The calculator will tell you what time to light your Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes, how many to use, the total cooking time that is required and how many people you will be able to serve. Click here to use the calculator.

The Heat Beads® Turkey Recipe

Click here to view this very special recipe with mouth-watering stuffing.

Instructional Cooking Video

Cooking the perfect turkey is easy! Just watch the fantastic Heat Beads® instructional video, to see this great recipe in action.

This exclusive premium content video will provide you with all the tips and tricks to cook a succulent turkey and save you time on the special day. Click here to login in to premium content and view the video.

NB: You must be a subscriber to the Heat Beads® Newsletter to access the premium content section. To subscribe, click here.

Well done to all those who participated in Movember this year, particularly to the men from the Heat Beads® Team: Damien, Jason and Malcolm. Congratulations to Jason who was awarded with the best office Mo. All your contributions to this great cause were greatly appreciated, with the men raising nearly $1, 000 for the cause between them!
Australians were by far the greatest supporters of Movember across the globe this year with 124, 206 people banding together to raise a grand total of AUD$12, 277, 200 for men’s health issues! Our closest competitor was the UK with 16, 067 people participating to raise AUD$3, 208, 395.

Why not try our recipe for Glazed Christmas Ham, that will make a fantastic centre piece at your Christmas lunch or dinner?

Any true blue BBQing Australian bloke knows that there are certain things such as health issues and feelings that just aren’t meant to be talked about, right? Well, as they say the times they are a changin’ and many men across the country are doing their bit this month to raise awareness of men’s health issues such as depression and prostate cancer.

Three men from the Heat Beads® Team are doing their best grow a ‘mo’ for Movember. Damien (Sales and Marketing Manager), Malcolm (Finance Manager) and Jason (Systems Administrator) have been brave enough to take part in this fantastic fundraiser that has proved to be quite a bit of fun!

To see their progress so far, take a look at the pics below.

Left to Right: Damien, Jason, Malcolm

In its fifth year, Movember is one of the most successful fundraisers for mens health in the country, having raised over $24 million in total. The money is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyond Blue, the national depression intiative. These are particularly worthy causes when you consider some of the stats:

* 1 in 6 men are affected by depression and most don’t seek help
* In Australia last year, 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of the disease, making it as prevalent in men as breast cancer in women.

To donate, organise your own team or attend the Gala Parté click here.

Next week marks the launch of our brand new website! www.heatbeads.com received a makeover recently, so keep your eyes peeled for the attractive, easy to use design that will be launched next Wednesday, November 5!

Weber has just launched the new Weber® Char Q® BBQ in the US. This very portable and slightly cute new unit is a new addition to Weber’s extremely popular ‘Q range’ of BBQ’s, which was until now exclusively fuelled by gas. Paired together with a bag of Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes, the Weber® Char Q® BBQ provides the ideal time for BBQing, whether camping in the great outdoors or celebrating over the Melbourne Cup Weekend!

With the Spring Racing Carnival in full bloom and Melbourne Cup Day only around the corner, it is an ideal time to enjoy a few drinks, a sweep or two and a BBQ. Char grilling everyone’s favourite BBQ recipes is sure to keep them happy during the race that stops the nation!

Source: Left, Right

If you have any special Cup Day traditions or BBQ recipes, why not leave us a comment?

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’.

Lee Gilmour, Managing Director of Auschar, has done his bit to fine tune his grill skills with the master himself, Steven Raichlen. Lee attended the Steven Raichlen BBQ University in Colorado Springs on June 1-4. The class prepared at least 8 dishes each day, on a variety of BBQs, with Lee providing some Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes to keep the coals running a little longer!

After the three days of intensive training (with a little relaxation at the Broadmoor Hotel thrown in) they all completed Steven’s infamous final exam, which everyone passed!

It is an ill wind that blows no good… or so they say! After a false start to this year’s Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show when gale force winds lasted five hours and forced closure on the first day, it was business as usual on day two at the Royal Exhibition Buildings and Carlton Gardens in Melbourne.

From today until Sunday April 6 Heat Beads® BBQ briquettes will be keeping the hoards happy with delicious, mouth watering char grill recipes from Stavros Tavern. I had the Lamb Souvlaki, which really did just melt in my mouth. Meet the man with the moustache and the biggest smile in town, at Stavros Tavern Catering beside the entrance to the Exhibition Buildings. Just follow your nose - yum…does it smell good - and look for the Heat Beads® barriers.

It is no secret to us that Heat Beads® solid BBQ fuel is the best around and we are so pleased that so many of our wonderful subscribers feel the same way! Here’s what one of the three runner-up entrants in the Steve Raichlen Book Competition had to say:

That char taste is hard to replicate,
But with Heat Bead Briquettes I can create!
A BBQ that all envy and cheer,
Everyone’s welcome - but don’t forget the Beer!!
Peta Booker

Ominous warnings from the weather bureau were prophetic, when world leading BBQ identity Steven Raichlen, joined thirty fellow char-grill enthusiasts for a unique tasting indulgence at the Gasworks Art Park in Albert Park last week. Not even a torrential downpour could mar the ten course Degustation Char Grill BBQ tasting organised on Steven’s behalf by the Heat Beads® Company.

Five of Melbourne’s best char-grillers whipped up a storm (no pun intended!) on the grill, professionals and backyard enthusiasts alike. Thanks and accolades to Stavros, renowned for his superb Greek char grilling Australian style and his famous Stavros Tavern in Albert Park; Julian Wu, who specialises in Asian fusion BBQ cuisine; John Ryan, a serious competitor in world championship BBQ competitions representing Australia; Kerry Tait, winner of the 2006 annual Triple R Best Char Grill recipe competition and Eve-Lynne Fairhall whose Beef Teriyaki wowed the judges in last year’s contest.

Despite the biting wind and rain and a very hasty retreat indoors to eat, the appreciation of good food, talented chefs and enhanced with a glass of Pizzini wine won the day, as we sampled our way through dish upon dish. The succulent dishes were cooked to perfection over the hot coals on a variety of barbecues supplied by Barbecues Galore and the sleek Viking Grill, the Big Green Egg and the Texan Smoker BBQ were given the thumbs up by our ‘char grillers’ extraordinaire!

Steven was given an outstanding introduction to Australian barbecuing culture and remarked that wherever you go in the world, a shared interest in barbecuing is a brilliant entree card, opening doors, and bringing together some fantastic people!

For your chance to have the recipes used to create the mouthwatering dishes on the day sent to you, subscribe to the Heat Beads® newsletter by clicking here.