Best Jumbuck BBQs

Good electric BBQ for the price – Bought the Jumbuck Pulsar to replace an 4 burner gas BBQ that was overkill for a small family. Had previously tried a oval cast aluminium BBQ but it… Read more

just never got and stayed hot enough to complete the Maillard reaction.

The Pulsar instead has a shaped heating element that sits underneath, but separate from the hotplates. Even better, when it is turned up to maximum, it keeps pumping out the heat so you food stays on the sizzle. The cooking area is divided in two with an enamel hotplate and a pressed steel grill. Whilst the hotplate is able to heat up and stay hot, the steel grill seems to thin to capture enough heat to be effective. The only time it seems to be effective is when you are cooking fatty lamb chops and the fat drips onto the heating element to provide a bit of flame grilling action. I am considering ordering another enamel hotplate from the manufacturer to increase the cooking capacity in normal circumstances. Another oddity is that the way the element is shaped causes the back of the cooking area to get much hotter than the front. Useful if you need a 'keep warm' zone, but not much good if you are expecting to use the whole cooking area to actually cook. Cleanup after cooking is easy with the hotplate/grill being small enough to fit in a dishwasher.

The BBQ comes flat packed with a stand cabinet and side wings made out of black (power coated?) mild steel. The main cooker body and kettle lid is brushed stainless. It all feels a bit flimsy when putting it together, but once assembled it is sturdy enough and has a nice look about it.

The convenience of being electric means that you will never run out of gas half way through your BBQ, but be aware there is only so much heat that can come from a 2 kilowatt heating element (interestingly, when I put a metre on it, the consumption only ever just exceeded 1.8 kilowatt). Make sure you follow the directions and pre-heat on maximum for at least 10 minutes. Good for a 3 person family, but might struggle with more people to cook for or even when junior grows up into a hungry teenager.

The good: - Convenience of electricity - Easy to clean grill/hotplate in dishwasher - Looks good

The bad: - Steel grill is not effective in retaining heat

The product itself is a useful little charcoal griller at a good price from Bunnings which comes in a pack for you to assemble. 3 springs make assembly difficult by unless you have 8mm spanner & screwdriver, no forewarning they will be needed.

Has a few issues – !st thing you'll notice is that the instruction manual is a bit vague in respect to identifying the parts as the pictures don't seem to match the… Read more

text I put things together only to have to take them apart and redo them as I had the legs around the wrong way. The most serious and dangerous thing I discovered after using it was that there is very little clearance between the bottom of the cooking pan and the Gas Bottle making it very difficult to turn off the gas when the unit is hot. Thirdly the grease pot under the cooking pan doesn't seem to line up with the outlet and the grease runs down the gas bottle and again can be hazardous if trying to turn off the gas at the bottle after cooking and still hot. The good things are that it heats up relatively fast (Previous model reviews stated it was slow) The cooking surface is capable for a couple and at a stretch 4 persons and I have cooked Beef, Pork and Lamb so far and my BBQ will be getting a real workout during this summer. I am hoping to do a roast and will report on that outcome once achieved. I have found the cleaning to be a lot easier than other BBQ's I have owned. Value for money is assured at $119 from Bunnings it is a good investment for an expected 3-5yrs service.

Poor design – Loses heat quickly, uses huge amounts of fuel to cook a chicken or duck, all up 4hrs then put it in an oven. I would not suggest buying one that does not have a cover. Show details

when you open your new jumbuck and you discover rusted panels before its assembled you get very mad at where the world is headed with quality. To… Read more

discover this bbq passed out to an unsuspecting public is just so utterly disappointing, as the thin powder coat or paint has blistered, it's easy to see there is no preparation of the raw steel sheet and certainly no primer. It tells me that rust and blistering is already endemic over all the metal parts and is so disappointing straight out of the factory where it's made as written on the carton, and particularly so for a component that's on view at the face of the appliance. It makes you wonder what the quality of car grilles are from the same place. Will i take it back. It would be quicker to sand it down, PRIME it, and spray my own black lacquer over it from the car repair i did yesterday. if it all rusts out in a short time, i will just dump it where the rest of this stuff ends up. angry purchaser. at least my sausages will get cooked in the meantime. I'm angrier at myself for buying so cheap. My own experience should have told me. But straight out of the box. it is galling. PS. I decided on principle to take it back. Bunnings gracefully swapped it over no questions asked but when asking a second person in Special Orders, "i suppose im not the only one with this problem?" He said, "It happens all the time with Jumbuck!" Who's at fault then?