Its Quiet on this Board

[Cobblerdave]

Gday
And a merry Christmas back at you. And one for Davo when he gets here
Regards Dave

[Davo]

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

To 12 X 7 & Cobbler, thanks for stopping by every now and then.

Yep, incredibly, the forum still hangs in there for the 15th year,

Not many tourists here anymore

Wishing you and you families a great time and get togethers, great food BBQ'd and lots of cold beverages.

All the best

Davo

[12x7]

Australia Day long weekend. The forum lives on for another month.

ozday.jpg (114.59 KiB) Viewed 1971 times

[beaver]

Happy New year all, from an old friend

[Davo]

Same to you Beaver....how have you been?

Been a long time since the heady days of BBQ wars

Are you still involved with it? As you can see this forum is pretty much a ghost town these days.

Cheers''

Davo

[beaver]

Same to you Beaver....how have you been?

Been a long time since the heady days of BBQ wars

Are you still involved with it? As you can see this forum is pretty much a ghost town these days.

Cheers''

Davo

Yea, still doing things here and there.
Admin on aus low and slow. Training to be available head judge and just trying to promote BBQ in aus

[Davo]

Yep, I joined that forum today actually but i don't do as much low n slow as I used to. Only got the 2 Weber Kettles, a Q3200 and a Jumbo Joe....the slow n sear charcoal basket which is bloody fantastic for low n slow....wished i had one years ago.

I'm living in Albury these days, got out of Shitney but the Mrs wants to move back.....hasn't said it directly but i can tell her subtle hints.....she is not a Country girl.
We had a ABA sanctioned BBQ comp at the Albury Racecourse last year, for a small Comp there certainly was a lot of categories and a lot of samples, it was a good day....needless to say, I didn't need dinner or brekky the next Morning lol.

I heard they want to have it again this year but apparently they are not going to make a Comp out of it, more like a BBQ expo.

Glad you chimed in.....glad to see you're doing ok.

Cheers

Davo

[Grill Pro Australia]

I'll tell the truth that everyone is walking around. This great forum was rooted because the owner of the forum let a mate drown the place pushing his product. This led to faction fights and the place virtually disintegrated because people like me who got sick of the bullshit went to other places where this product wasn't rammed down your throat on every new thread that someone opened. i just drop by now and then to see what is smouldering in the ruins.
Davo is a great bloke and I don't know why he still worries about this place after all the work he put in was ruined by the owner who in all my time on this place never seemed to give a stuff what happened.

Yep Bill44, that's pretty much it and is what had happened.....oh and by the way, that product wasn't Weber it was a Wood Pellet grill called Yoder and the Importer who has also abandoned the place because theres no-one to market to now....but yep...it kind of exploded, members fought and members moved away, 3 separate forums were made from members out of this forum....before facebook came along...but some of those forums not going great either, I'm a member of all of them and one has all but collapsed, even quieter than here, another might have a post on it every couple of days but the last forum has all the members from this forum and that's where they are today, some still come here and I appreciate that, not to rubbish what has gone on here but to help along, members like 12 x7 has been great here helping our new members, Lovey who still helps doing some light moderating work here at times Bill 44 comes here sometimes...all are welcome. We are still getting a healthy list of new memers join up, some post some don't....I practically activate all new memberships so I know whos coming in and keeping the spammers out....I do this by using who-is which tells me where they are posting from....we don't allow those from quite a few countries that just want to spam the forums but a few tricky ones still sneak in...but rare.

As for me....even though I wasn't the owner, it was my baby so to speak, I was the 3rd person to sign up when the owner got me on another forum....During the massive war on here, I tried to walk away many times but couldn't but I think it's getting too hard to re-ignite now, I'm trying to keep it together but theres no-one to help me here....and to be honest, I don't think I have the energy and motivation to go on much longer......I don't BBQ much these days because I've moved around a fair bit the last 10 ears and I've lost a lot of my friend and contact base....so...there you have it.

Should I walk away and let this joint breath it's last breath....or try to rebuild.

BBQ Dad, I've taken on much of what you've written and yeah I do come over to be very Weber fan-boyish but that's mostly the only BBQs I've cooked on, I've always strived to buy the best I can because if you buy quality, it's going to last a long time so when this forum began back in 07, there wasn't the variety like Komados and offsets and Pellet grills etc that's around today, the BBQ product list in Australia has exploded in the past 5 years that it's almost to the point of saturation.

Ok about the Internet offerrings, I'll admit that it's not the same today as back at the time I just wrote about, much of the BBQs sold on ebay weren't of great quality back then, as few earlier members we had bought from ebay only to have major design issues and substandard product, oh they all looked nice, big and shiney but were very questionable. Even some of the Gas BBQs sold from BBQs Galore at the time were of questionable quality but that's all changed now, in a short 5 years, the standards have become very high....but they still can't do what Weber has been able to do and that is to design a BBQ that will safely high heat grill with the lid down and many BBQs due to the way they are ventilated still can't do and it's because of the world wide Patent on design, they are able to get hot because the heat is under the hood, they can vent and can do this on lower comparable gas power and consumption than regular BBQs and that is why I wrote about the Masport I owned a few years ago, being a 6 burner, went through a 9kg gas cylinder like a V8 Supercar....I still maintain that and it's wise to have at least a small standby 4kg at least. The Masport was a well built and solid BBQ, I can't take that away from it but there were a few design issues I still had troubles with like the flame tamers, Upside down V-channel pieces that went over the burners, the problem I found was that the fats used to slide down the Stainless steel V channels and then when it got to the end, used to fold up under the lip of the channel where the damn fire was and then catch on fire.....they flame tamers didn't go down far enough to keep fats away from the fire....things like that.

If I walk into any BBQ shop today, much of it's very specialised now, it had to be and the staff have to be very knowledgeable because of so many different types of BBQ and whilst they all cook food, they all do it differently, not like buying a car, whether it's a ute, SUV or sports, they are still cars with variants but BBQs all have different techniques to use them to get the best out of them. China has also come a long way in it's quality...it had to improve but they are as you've proven a worthwhile consideration these days BBQ Dad. I'll also take on some of your suggestions too BBQ Dad, thankyou for your input.


Cheers

Davo

Yeah not really true & not really fair Davo,... Here is the real truth, I started importing Yoder in early 2012 and we were looking at supplying a Guy who ran a business in Perth WA, selling BBQS and teaching cooking also a member on here. He wanted to sell Yoders all over Australia which was not our business model, so we decided not to supply him, turned out well for us as his business and personal ethics didn’t align to ours. What we didn’t realise was the WA Guy was using this Forum to advertise massively assist his sales and was not happy about me on 'His' Forum, although it wasn’t actually his.
Admittedly I was a bit over zealous to begin with, I was indeed excited to be importing the absolute best quality Pellet Grill & Traditional Offset Smokers from Kansas into Australia and I thought everyone here would also be excited to have it here in Australia, where previously it was unavailable. Now because we refused supply to the WA Guy, he managed to get a band of members together ( mostly customers ) and MASSIVELY BULLY us, these days it would be called out but back then it wasn’t really and it was disgusting. I had multiple phone conversations with Paul, this forums creator and owner at the time and he tried the best he could to stop the bullying.
I didn’t really abandon this forum Davo, I still check in from time to time, unfortunately when Facebook Groups were created, most moved with the times as I did as it was much easier to upload photos etc. I cant help but think if the Aussie BBQ Forum had moved with the times to starting an Aussie BBQ Forum Facebook Group, most members here would have transitioned. Interestingly, a couple of the Bully’s in the WA Guys band ended up buying Yoders from me.
Anyway, that’s the story from my perspective, if I had my time over again I would have been less zealous in my posting, although I think the bullying would have still happened anyway. I have made life long close friends ( including Davo ) from here and I don’t regret joining this forum one bit!
Cheers, Dave

[Grill Pro Australia]

Sry BBQ-Dad about the password thats odd...
I have been prepping the board to go to the latest version, but nothing has changed yet...
Hopefully that was a one off fluke...
Happy BBQ-ing, Paul

Really nice to hear from you Paulr, hope you are doing well and loving life.
Cheers, Dave

[Davo]

Yeah Dave, everyone abandoned this forum because Paulr would not sell it to the fab 4 who wanted to buy it, also Paul didn't want anyone contacting him privately and said he wanted everything to come through me.......so UG got the shits and they all collaborated against the forum and started their own forum.

It all went to shit too Dave when Photobucket canned their photo sharing, I was lucky to hear about this on another forum i was involved with so I signed in and downloaded all the photos from my account back into my computer and then ditched my account. They later asked for me to come back and I told them not so politely to go and F... themselves for doing a Mongrel act like that.

Anyway, I've tried a couple of times to restart this forum and nobody is interested but i do come here and see if anyone is waiting for their membership to be activated......

This forum is old hat I know, I kept at Paul to update this and that even to easily post pics but it's no good, it was too late.

I couldn't believe the reaction from the forum against you, I was trying to be fair as you had a unique product when at the time Pellet cookers were new, even Captain Cook went heavily against you with the Yoders, perhaps doing you a favour in the end but not at first but he never went up against GMG, Traegers (coz he had one) etc.

I said what I said about abandoning the forum because everyone including you did, I guess I'm still a little pissed at the way thing had gone. Nothing can be done about it now. Sorry mate if you thought it was a bit unfair but i copped a lot of unfair treatment over that time period too.

Cheers

Davo

[Grill Pro Australia]

Yeah Dave, everyone abandoned this forum because Paulr would not sell it to the fab 4 who wanted to buy it, also Paul didn't want anyone contacting him privately and said he wanted everything to come through me.......so UG got the shits and they all collaborated against the forum and started their own forum.

It all went to shit too Dave when Photobucket canned their photo sharing, I was lucky to hear about this on another forum i was involved with so I signed in and downloaded all the photos from my account back into my computer and then ditched my account. They later asked for me to come back and I told them not so politely to go and F... themselves for doing a Mongrel act like that.

Anyway, I've tried a couple of times to restart this forum and nobody is interested but i do come here and see if anyone is waiting for their membership to be activated......

This forum is old hat I know, I kept at Paul to update this and that even to easily post pics but it's no good, it was too late.

I couldn't believe the reaction from the forum against you, I was trying to be fair as you had a unique product when at the time Pellet cookers were new, even Captain Cook went heavily against you with the Yoders, perhaps doing you a favour in the end but not at first but he never went up against GMG, Traegers (coz he had one) etc.

I said what I said about abandoning the forum because everyone including you did, I guess I'm still a little pissed at the way thing had gone. Nothing can be done about it now. Sorry mate if you thought it was a bit unfair but i copped a lot of unfair treatment over that time period too.

Cheers

Davo

Davo, yeah I get that, this forum should have started a Facebook Group: 'Aussie BBQ Forum' Facebook Group, as I think a lot would have moved to it, as admin you can save posts & recipes in the 'FEATURED' section like I do with the 'Aussie Pellet Smoker BBQ Group' so its not lost.
Its such a shame that UG and his fellow Bullies ruined this forum but it is what it is now, It was a shame that CC and othes felt threatend by me importing better quality products... I kicked UG out of my group so he couldnt start the same BS.
It has been an interesting ride thats for sure, some on here that were hugely significant to Australian BBQ are nowe totally insignificant, so its been intersting to see how everything has changed.
Back in 2012 when I started importing Yoder Smokers from Kansas, for every Yoder Traditional Offset I imported, I imported one Yoder Pellet Grill and 12 years later, for every Yoder Traditional Offset I import, I import around 200 Yoder Pellet Grills so this change has been interesting. Im the longest importer of pellet BBQs and Pellets into Australia, no one has been doing it longer than me. Tim from Hark importing GMG is the next longest and so on with Pellet BBQs now being the fastest growing BBQ type in Australia, the USA and the rest of the world.
I caught up with the Yoder importer in Prague in march and next year hopefully catching up with the Yoder importer in Canada, so American Barbecue has definitely helped me travel the world with now a massive Family.
Lets see what the next 12 years bring

[Davo]

Yes, at the time when you started importing Yoder Pellet grills, there was only Traeger, I had the largest 075 traeger as I bought the same time as CC and so did Commander Cody who bought the sliding lid model....he already had a reverse flow offset "Gordy"

Then came GMG that Bentley so openly endorsed on the forum as he used the GMGs in Comps themselves, interesting that GMG went away from the Historical Daniel Boone, Davey Crocket and there was another famous name that escapes me right now.

Theres now so many Pellet grills on the market these days, some not much more than a Traeger look alike. I thought Louisiana looked ok, my mate Chris had one but they did the dirty on you by allowing other agents and besides, their hoppers were too small, you had to buy an optional extender which is pretty stupid in my mind, it should have come standard.

Of course there after sales service and I've got to hand it to you Dave, you're right on top of it, any issues and you sort it. I think next in line would be the Z-Grills for sales back up as well as Weber.

Wood pellets in my mind are getting quite expensive now, I've seen $40 for a 9 kilo bags, it think it was Traeger, not sure, it would make you not want to boost to grilling temps at those prices as 1kg per hour.

Yes the world of BBQ are very expensive, sometimes I think it encourages people to eat too much meat (glutony) I know when I used to Judge at Port Macquarie, I was meat comatose to a huge extent, the first time I had to go and lay down for 2 hours after hahaha.
Last year I judged at a BBQ Comp in Albury and it was fun, had plenty of categories and brought back memories of meat comatose but at least there were reserve judges there who stepped in for someone who wanted to sit out on a category.

Yes I'm glad we're all finally rid of the likes of UG, he's caused a lot of upheaval and if anyone brings up his username to me, I won't hesitate to tell them what an arsehole he was and that he was instrumental and destroying the best Forum in Australia.

I don't post much at all on SF&F, keep my distance from there even though I directed some up coming new members there only because i didn't have the actual cooking and ingredient knowledge as some had and couldn't possible direct anyone on the actual food, but technique and BBQ types I could, but i could not do it on my own.....so sent people over there but if some had stuck with me, then I'd have built the forum back up again. Alas...it wasn't to be.

Facebook forums only win because it's more instant, but good luck trying to find archive posts and topics that are anymore than 3 weeks old....that is the downside unless people keep feeding posts into that topic, it just fades into the never never!!

Schuey has filled a niche, has a good and funny character, keeps it interesting, sometimes over the top, I cringe when he throws the food grate at the kettle....far out...that part i hate....i'm not a fan of disrespecting great equipment.

Anyway, I better get my arse into gear and do some stuff.......Thanks for the chat mate, wishing you well with your Yoders over the next 12 years. I wish I could afford a YS640

Davo

[Cobblerdave]

Gday
That was an interesting read. I had just joined the forum when everything “blow up”. Didn’t understand what had happened. Belonged to all the forums so I knew enough just to let sleeping dogs lie over the years. Glad I did wasn’t my place to judge anyway.
It’s been long enough now I think so I’m glad you filled in the little I knew.
Me going forward. I’m a cook who tinkers with BBQs so if someone gets some information out of the stuff that I write that will do me.
Glad to follow in wake of Phil (RIP) and many others. I’ve been lucky to learn from some of the best.
Regards Dave

[Davo]

Gday
That was an interesting read. I had just joined the forum when everything “blow up”. Didn’t understand what had happened. Belonged to all the forums so I knew enough just to let sleeping dogs lie over the years. Glad I did wasn’t my place to judge anyway.
It’s been long enough now I think so I’m glad you filled in the little I knew.
Me going forward. I’m a cook who tinkers with BBQs so if someone gets some information out of the stuff that I write that will do me.
Glad to follow in wake of Phil (RIP) and many others. I’ve been lucky to learn from some of the best.
Regards Dave

Yeah it was anything but Quiet going back around 2013-4 when the forum started imploding, there were so many players, playing up, had to sin bin a few including Smokey Mick quite a few times when he used to go on the attack, there was Capt Cook vs Beaver and UG & Capt Cook vs Grill Pro and many on the sideline going WTF is going on here.
Early 2013 when the fighting was really taking shape, both myself and Paulr were out of the Country, I was in Japan as my FIL passed away and the internet there was quite primitive and I had to try and find an internet cafe (very difficult) and when i did find one, it had a totally different keyboard on them, lucky it still had Romanised letters on it so i eventually worked out how to get on the forum from there and try to sort stuff out.....worse than trying to control a juvenile detention centre.
The Mrs got cranky at me because i was always hunting for an internet cafe......i was half expecting when i got back to Australia, the forum would be done. But....there are many things as an admin that I wished i did better or totally different, may have had entire different outcome.

As they say in Japanese "shigatta ga nai ne"!! = Couldn't be helped!!

Davo

[Grill Pro Australia]

Yes, at the time when you started importing Yoder Pellet grills, there was only Traeger, I had the largest 075 traeger as I bought the same time as CC and so did Commander Cody who bought the sliding lid model....

Davo

Davo, in 2011 when we first started looking at importing a Pellet Smoker, you are correct Traeger was here in Australia. In 2012 we started importing Yoder Smokers into Australia and then the company importing Traeger into Australia weny bust mainly because they did not import spare parts, so Im now the longest importer of Pellet BBQs into Australia. Then was GMG and so on and So on.
Myself the Australian Importer of Yoder Smokers and Michael the Australian Importer of Z-Grills are the ONLY two importers that actively give out their personal mobile numbers and will happily answer after hours and weekends, so yes you are 100% correct about Z-Grills.