My second favourite piece of camping gear is my Weber Q barbecue. I’m not quite sure why, it just seems to do everything right. When you are away from home for days or weeks you can get pretty sick of eating sausages on bread or 2 minutes noodles and that’s where the Weber shines. The Weber Q is the medium sized grill in the Q range and is the largest portable bbq in the range. It is essentially just like any other bbq with a hood, in a package that is easy to take off the stand and throw in the boot for a day on the beach or week long trip. Because the Q has a hood and comes with a temperature gauge it can easily be used as an oven to cook anything from roasts to cakes.
Over Easter we ventured down to Forster for 7 days and during 
that time I cooked up bacon and eggs, steak and sausages, a leg of lamb and roast vegetables, and kebabs. All fairly normal fair for a bbq besides the roast lamb. In the past however I’ve cooked pizza and even bread while camping in the Q. Having the freedom to cook a wide variety of foods while away from home is what makes the Weber Q superior to the others camp cooking options like camp stoves.
Eating high quality food when it’s been pouring rain for 3 days and you are sitting in mud is going to put smiles back on your family’s faces – it happened to us last week – and Mum was so impressed by the roast she’s still going on about it.
Oh Baby
There is a smaller model, named the Baby Q which is much smaller and therefore easier to fit in the car. However if you are cooking for more than 2-3 people you will probably wish you got the middle sized Q. Both models use a tiny amount of gas and a 9kg bottle lasts me over 6 months of regular use. 7 days of camping using the Weber 3 times a day used less than 1kg of gas. Weber sell a collapsible stand that would be great for camping and fits both models however I wanted something a little more aesthetically pleasing for my outdoor area at home where the Q spends the majority of it’s time. The more expensive rolling cart I chose is not practical to fit in the car or even truck so I stick to sitting the Q on a folding table or the tailgate of my ute while camping.
Both of their stands are overpriced pieces of plastic though so if you can get away without them you should!
Haven’t spent enough already?
The Q range are damn expensive for the amount of grill space you get. For the same money you could buy a massive 4 burner bbq that would burn hotter and allow you to cook with the hood open – as preferred by 90% of Australians. However you don’t need all that room and the reason I bought the Q is for it’s portability not to feed a crowd. But if you have some change from your Weber purchase then don’t put your wallet away just yet.
Weber sell a huge range of accessories to help make cooking different dishes in the Q easy. From Pizza Stones to Vegetable Baskets – you could spend a fortune buying them all. The necessities are the roasting trivet (you can just see it below the roast vegetables in the picture above) which gets used anytime I use the Q as an oven, the Q utensils that tuck into the side tables, the handle light which turns on and off automatically as you open and close the lid and the wire brush for cleaning. A few other handy items are the pizza stone, vegetable basket, and the kebab rack seen below.
If you like the idea of the Q and want to check them out make sure you go for the specialty model which has a higher lid and temperature gauge. They are more expensive but worth the extra cost if you intend to use it for more than just traditional bbq cooking. These models are the 120 & 220 or more recently 1200 and 2200.
Feel free to comment or message me for advice or techniques and recipes 🙂
Colsha 