What should you know before buying a campfire grill?

Tripod barbecue is one of the most frequently purchased grills in our company. Let’s find out what to pay attention to before choosing a grill of this type and what solutions prove its quality.

The multitude of offers on the Internet for garden tripods allows us to conclude that this is the most popular barbecue used by Poles in recent years. This is certainly due to its usefulness, stability in any terrain and the fact that you can grill over the fire which gives a unique flavor to the prepared food. Very often it is set in large hearths encased in stone and is a distinguishing point on the map of the garden.

If you have already decided on the choice of this type of barbecue for your garden, then the next step is to choose the right product from among those available on the Polish market. We understand that this is not an easy choice. At every step you see the lowest prices and the “highest” quality, which has no real justification. So let’s take apart, so let’s take apart the tripod and analyze the various solutions and problems we noticed….

Components

Tripod barbecue to work must consist of the following components:

• 3 legs
• the element that attaches the legs and pins them to each other (in our case called the Wreath)
• a sling that will enable the suspension of the grate
• element that allows you to adjust the height of the grate (in our case it is a crank)
• grate, on which we fry food
• optional steel or stone hearth

Legs

Important characteristics of the legs are length, spike and whether they are folded in two parts.

The legs in the tripod form its basic structure. Often solid steel bars of small cross-section are used for their construction, which is not a good solution. Without going into details about the strength of materials, it can be generally stated that the bar has less strength than a closed profile of the same cross section. In a grill, the steel heats up from the fire and the bars get hotter, which makes the steel more ductile and easier to damage.

In our tripods, the leg is a closed profile with a length of 215 cm. It is split in half which makes it easier to transport and store in winter and allows you to spread the legs wide enough for the grill to stand easily in large hearths with a diameter of up to 150 cm! Please note that if the legs are too short and you spread them wide, then at the same time you limit the ability to adjust the height of the grate. It locks against the tapering legs. The campfire can reach the flames high, so it is worth keeping the height adjustment possibility as high as possible.

Our tripods are finished with massive spikes made of a single cast piece of steel. Because of this, after driving them into the ground we don’t have to worry about their possible breaking or bending.

Wreath, sling and crank

The wreath is the piece to which we screw the legs. There is also a block in it, through which we pull the line and direct it down towards the grate. The wreath can take various forms. It is worth noting whether its design allows you to change the angle of the legs. Thus, the tripod can be spread wider or narrower and adjusted to the diameter of the grate and the hearth. The wreath should be rigid enough to ensure the stability of the entire structure. Thanks to the length of the legs, we can apply a large hearth to the tripod.

Our tripods use a crank designed for this purpose to adjust the height of the grate. It has a lock against spontaneous lowering. To raise the grate it is enough to turn the crank, but to lower it you need to lift the special latch. This way we don’t have to touch the hot and usually not very clean chain. Adjustments are made through a nice-to-touch wooden handle.

There is a 3 mm thick stainless steel braided line led to the crank , which can withstand a lot! It allows quiet, smooth adjustment and does not damage the surface of the drum on which it winds like a chain.

To shore…

After reading this article, you should know what to look for before choosing a tripod grill. Nowadays, designers in large companies work under pressure to achieve low product prices in order to remain competitive. Very often they have to give up good design solutions that increase the final cost of the product.

In the following articles, we will try to bring you our perspective on more issues related to barbecue products. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.