Whole chicken on the €40 Aldi fire pit with a lid liberated from the local scrapyard

Got this cheap fire pit in Aldi last year and cooked on it a couple of times, mostly standard grill fare like skewers, burgers, etc. At some point I spotted an old kettle that was being tossed and reckoned the lid would cover the fire pit well enough, so I went back around to the dump with a set of spanners and a screwdriver and took it home, and it was a great fit after a serious clean.

Lo and behold it works, I had the coals offset with some tin foil under the chicken to catch the drips and it held at about 150-170C for 90 minutes (I just had the oven thermometer to go off, don't have probes yet), 1.6kg bird came up to about 70C on the instant-read, then finished some boiled new potatoes with garlic, butter, and thyme on what was left of the coals while it was wrapped and resting. Ended up being seriously juicy and one of the best chickens I've ever made even with the rudimentary setup.

The rub for anyone who's interested was just salt, black pepper, msg, smoked paprika, herbs de provence, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, kashmiri chili powder, and brown sugar – eyeballed quantities and blitzed together in a spice grinder.

Might try some ribs or a pork shoulder before the summer's out now that I've seen this work. Who knows, someday maybe even a brisket.