An all-new Outdoor Charcoal Oven by Charlie is reinventing outdoor cooking with its all-in-one charcoal BBQ, pizza oven, smoker, and grill.
This format of upright, charcoal ovens have been used by professional chefs for decades because aside from the delicious smoky flavour it infuses into everything they cook, it can reach far higher temperatures than a domestic oven. Whether it’s seafood, veggies, ribs, smoked brisket, roasts, fish, fruit, pizzas, or homemade sourdough, a charcoal oven elevates the taste and flavour of everything that’s cooked in them.
Richard Turner, award-winning chef, butcher, restaurateur and founder of Meatopia UK said: “Working with Charlie Oven is a pleasure. Having worked on other Spanish charcoal ovens for years, the Charlie makes much more sense to me, both for direct and indirect cooking.”
Charlie’s designers call their oven “the chef maker”, because it helps the everyday cook create restaurant-quality food with almost no effort. Charlie’s magic lies in the simplicity of the design: it’s not about elaborate cooking techniques; it’s actually a very simple piece of kit that’s easy to use, hassle-free and can cook loads of food at the same time.
Tara Quick of Cheeky Charlie Oven Company said: “This all-new product turns the traditional concept of barbecuing on its head.
“We all love the idea of cooking outdoors, but the problem with barbecuing is that it can be a real challenge to do it well. The food itself, sadly, is often a bit of a let down.
“There’s now an answer to all of those problems. It’s not a BBQ, or even an “egg”, it’s an upright, outdoor charcoal oven. The different technology, design, performance and appearance we use all help the Charlie Oven make luxury outdoor cooking effortless, sustainable, stylish, and accessible all year round.”
One of the main innovations that makes Charlie different is that the temperature can be set and will hold steady at anywhere between 100°C and 400°C for hours, which means it’s perfect for making pizzas, BBQing, grilling, roasting, hot or cold smoking, baking bread, or simply going low and slow. Its design means that it works rather like a chimney, where temperature is controlled by the amount of air coming in through the bottom and going out through the top. There are only three positions for the vents: temperature rising, temperature holding, and temperature falling, which makes it incredibly easy to operate.
The vertical format of the oven, with its nine cooking heights (where each rack is big enough to hold a full-sized catering oven tray) means you can cook with both direct heat close to the charcoal for that seared steak moment, and with indirect heat further up the oven for chargrilled veggies all at once.
Tara added: “This new design format makes outdoor cooking as easy as pie. No need to be a BBQ expert. No special techniques. It works just like an indoor oven, in that you cook with the door shut. No prodding, no flipping, no half burnt, half raw sausages or a face-full of smoke. Simply pop the food in, shut the door and leave the charcoal to work its magic, giving you more time to spend with family and friends. It’s designed for “hands-off” cooking.”
One other key aspect of the innovative design is to make it a very simple piece of kit to use. Lighting is very straightforward: build a small pyramid of charcoal over a couple of natural firelighters. Light the firelighters, open the vents, shut the door…and leave it alone. Charlie gets up to temperature in around 20 minutes.
The Charlie Oven is also designed to be very low maintenance. All the ash from the charcoal just falls into the ash drawer. Once it‘s cool, just pull out and empty. The stainless steel racks are easy to clean with a wire brush and the exterior can be cleaned with a sponge and soapy water.
Charlie’s radical construction also makes it an incredibly efficient, sustainable way to cook.
Tara continued: “This new format of oven works in a totally different way to a BBQ grill. With the Charlie Oven, you’re using an amazing, sustainable biofuel and about half the fuel of an open grill.
“Because nearly all its cooking heat is conserved by the thermal mass of steel and its built-in ceramic thermal blanket, not only can Charlie cook for hours and hours on a small load of charcoal, it also cooks from every direction at once, in a controlled, precise, even way.
“The design makes it the total opposite of a conventional, uninsulated BBQ, where the food is blasted with heat from just one side and a huge amount of heat is simply lost to the environment.”
Charlie Oven has also just introduced the Charlie Kitchen Island, a complementary outdoor kitchen unit built to the same high standards as its ovens.
With a stainless steel preparation and dining surface, versatile storage and in the same colour palette, the Charlie Kitchen Island is a new design concept that’s a blend of form and function.
Mounted on castors, it transforms from a preparation area, to an entertaining and dining surface, to a sophisticated bar. The Oven and Island Unit together complete an outdoor kitchen.
Tara concluded: “When combined with the Charlie Oven, the Charlie Kitchen Island creates a brilliant outdoor cooking and entertaining experience: alfresco gatherings just the way you always imagined them.”
For more information about the Charlie Oven and the company’s other products, visit charlieoven.com.
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