10 Things That Happen at Every British Barbecue

June is just around the corner, which means summer is sure to be turning up any day now. Not only does this mean possible sunshine, days at the beach and an excuse to wear flip flops, it is also the perfect excuse to brush off your barbecue and get grilling!

There’s nothing like a good barbecue in the sunshine and while this can be a bit of a rare thing in the UK, even in the summer, we don’t let that bother us. In fact, we’re sure many of you attempted just such a thing this Bank Holiday weekend.

Whether you stick to burgers and sausages or get a bit more creative with what you serve up at your barbecue, there are bound to be a few things that always seem to happen. The British barbecue is nothing if not consistent, so we bet you’ll see at least a few of these things occur at your next one:

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1 – After dragging the barbecue out of the shed or garage, giving it a good clean and freeing it of the family of spiders that have called it home for months, you have to light the thing. Of course, this will be easier said than done, causing the men folk to gather around and vie for the position of ‘king of the grill’ as they umm and ahh over the best way to get the barbecue fired up.

2 – Once the barbecue is actually lit and every settles in for some top-notch food, drink and conversation, there will inevitably at least ten minutes of pretending the smoke isn’t getting into your eyes. This will also lead to a couple of weeks of everything in your house smelling like smoke due to forgetting to close the smallest window on the other side of the house.

3 – When you do get to enjoy some food hot off the barbecue, you’ll have to smile graciously as you’re served a blackened burger or charred sausage. The grill master will then be concerned that it’s too burnt, at which point you’ll have to assure them that it’s the best barbecued food you’ve tasted while eating around the worst of it. Alternatively, they’ll insist that that’s how the burger is meant to be served.

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4 – After the initial few bits and pieces come off the grill, bread rolls will start to get scarce, leaving you with the task of trying to fit a burger into one designed for a sausage without burning your fingers or losing half your fried onions.

5 – No matter how well you think you’ve secured your paper plate, there is guaranteed to be a freak gust of wind that sends everyone’s food flying, meaning you need to dodge coleslaw and ask the age of question ‘is it acceptable to eat a chicken leg off the floor?’.

6 – You can be as prepared as possible – or at least think you are – but there will come a point at your barbecue when you realise you’ve forgotten something. If you’re lucky, it will be just be that extra bottle of ketchup. Those who are really unlucky will soon realise they haven’t actually bought any burgers, resulting in a mad dash to the corner shop.

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7 – Speaking of being prepared, there’s bound to be a vegetarian that you’ve forgotten to cater for or who you’ve only bought veggie options that seem reluctant to remain in one piece for. Either way, you’ll find yourself reminding them that you made extra potato salad and that the crisps are vegetarian.

8 – No matter how many or how few people at the barbecue, your drink is sure to vanish. You’ll put it down somewhere specifically so it doesn’t get muddled up with other people’s and yet it will still walk off. Follow this up with a shortage of plastic cups and you’ll be tempted to just start drinking straight from the bottle.

9 – It’s not really a barbecue without a bit of a ketchup disaster. While it might be cute if one of the kids ends up with a dollop down their front, the chances are it will happen to an adult, usually the one who thought a white shirt or sundress was a good idea.

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10 – Of course, the main thing that seems to happen at every single British barbecue is rain. Even if the weatherman predicted bright sunshine and the sky has been completely blue all day, as soon as you light that grill, the heavens are bound to open, causing the mad rush to get everything inside.

Luckily, our OptiGrill can be used to cook all of your barbecue favourites in the comfort of your kitchen, with no black edges and no questions about whether the chicken is cooked all the way through. This means you can still enjoy a barbecue, even if all of the disasters strike at once.