$60

ingredients

tools

MAKE IT

1. Find a suitably flat spot measuring at least 2’ x 2’. A poured concrete patio is flat enough. A brick patio may be flat enough. A grassy area of your lawn is not flat enough. To flatten a spot on the lawn, tear up the turf and dig down into the soil a few inches. Smooth the loosened soil with a board, then pound it with the wide face of a brick until it’s compact. Don’t skimp on the flattening. Without it, your BBQ will shimmy like a drunk until it falls.

2. Mark a 2’ x 2’ square on your flat surface. Gather your bricks around you like a prodigious brood. Make sure they’re clean, smooth, and flat faced. Set a pair of bricks about 3/8” apart in each corner, all facing the same way. Set another pair on top of each of those pairs, turned 90°. Keep it up until you have four legs, each 10 bricks high.

3. Place the plywood atop the four brick legs so that it’s flush at one side and overhangs the other. This is the shelf. You put your plate of meat here.

4. Begin the firebox with a single brick in one corner. Place a brick next to it, end to end. When you have three bricks in a row, turn the corner. Lay two bricks along this side. Turn again, place three more bricks, then close the circuit with another row of two. Build three more layers in this fashion, staggering the bricks as you go so the joints don’t line up.

5. Lightly jostle the construction. If it’s too wobbly, disassemble it and make the base flatter. There’s no bright side to falling coal and brick.

6. Lay the fire bed by covering the exposed plywood inside the box with a layer of bricks. (You’ll need to space these out slightly to fill the area.) Fill any brickless gaps with sand and lay your grill on top of the firebox. Now lift up the grill, pour in a pyramid of briquettes, and fire it up!