The Grill............
Growing up as a kid, I don't recall ever doing any grilling. I mean , as a young 'un, me and my buddies would make some campfires. We do up some hot dogs. Put a can of beanie weenies in the hot ashes until it boiled. Marshmallows on sticks .. .. but . that was about it.
After I'd gone in the military, I learned via the brute force method. Low cost grills, kingsford coals, and lots of steaks, burgers, chicken and dogs/sausages. I was as good as the next guy getting the basics done. I ruined my share of ribs. Burned up and dried up my share of chicken. But overall, I did a fairly good job; good enough that I was tasked with the spatula and tongs usually at get togethers. But when the beer was flowing, I've been know to make more than a few errors?
My first 'real' grill was the classic Weber. I could get the meat off it cooked okay, but in retrospect I never truly understood it; the overall concept. The damned briquets always burned up too quick for me. So we'd put more and more in there. But now you're choking out your bottom air source and trying to work through it all. I didn't understand the concept of keeping the meat off the direct fire. I'd never (and still haven't to this day ) used chunks of charcoal. But, I got through it and to this day I still have one available to use.
Back in the '80s I remember my dad bought a propane grill ( blasphemy!) . I wasn't there that day, but I remember him saying he'd brutally burned up a whole chicken on the rotisserie , and it had to go! That, was when I got my first gas grill. Thanks Dad! Game Changer! I got lazy. Things got simple. I bet I've gone through a 1/2 dozen of them over the years; maybe more. Still have one out there I do most of my grilling on. Hmmm, that reminds me; I need to order some new burners since these are pretty much deteriorated and I'm lucky to get a good piece of meat off it. Historically this is the point where I go get another one; but not this time.....
I remember in the late '90s I got a "R2D2" smoker. A vertical tubular water smoker or something like that. I attempted to cook and /or smoke a few things and pretty much ruined most of whatever was victim to my lack of cooking skills on that thing. It then sat in the corner for years, finally given away to someone that hopefully knew what they were doing with it.
Then I went to the 'big time' . I got a basic smoker/ grill with a side box. I attempted to do some basic smoking but for the life of me, I couldn't keep the heat constant, or the temp up to the point I needed it. I've still got it over by my building, with some rust on it. Problem was the damned thing isn't 'tight' around the lid so smoke is always billowing out of it. It probably needs a seal that I can get from Lowes; and I'm hoping to do that this winter for some experimenting. And as I'd mentioned earlier, I'd never used charcoal; I believe (know?) that is the missing ingredient. A few years ago I attempted a smoked turkey when my parents and sis were visiting. I was nervous as hell about drying it out and ended up pulling it off too early. God knows how many times I opened that door checking on it. Somebody smack me!
At this point I'd pretty much given up on the idea of smoking meat. I didn't have the patience for it. I 'd heard all the horror stories of guys getting up at 2am to get things going. Stories of guys babysitting their smokers for hours and hours and hours..... with a beer in their hand , staring at the enclosure (well.. what else could they be doing?? lol). I was determined that was NOT going to be my fate. So I convinced myself to move on. Forget about this version of manhood I'd failed at miserably. I was done. Me and my gas grill were ..... happy. .. content.. .with each other.
I remember back around '02 time frame I'd been out at a party in Rockwall, TX at a peers home. This guy had made it big during the dot com era. He had the 10,000 sq ft, $2M home. The huge yard. The huge den fit for real mean and stogies and scotch. The pool.. the volleyball court. Well, you get the picture. Oh, I left one part out. The Green Egg. HUH? This was the first time I'd ever seen one. I walked around it. Opened up the heavy lid and saw the small cooking surface. Stared at it. WTF? I couldn't wrap my head around it. The owner told me once he lit it, and closed that lid, it'd stay hot and retain all the heat. I didn't believe it. I've seen how briquets burn out. And, why would one want to have the heat in it all day. I remember he told me he'd gave $3,000 for it. WHAT? No way... He told me he smoked meat with it, but after my R2D2 experience, I was convinced it must come out like crap. So I decided my rich friend was spending his money like a moron and I moved on to the beer drinking with all the other normal guys I was there with. For the next fifteen years every time I saw a Green Egg, I remembered that day and wondered what ... i was missing. Made no sense at the time.
About five years ago we were riding motorcycles down around Ben Wheeler and stopped in to one of the places for some cold ones and lunch. We were outside on the deck , back in the corner and damned it smelled good! Next to us was a stainless steel smoker and it was cooking away. About every 30 minutes they'd open it up and pull out some meat. I found myself staring at it and analyzing what I was looking at. It had a power cord. Had knobs and gauges. This damned thing was an electric smoker! I asked the guy using it a few questions, I took some pics and headed home to do some research. I believe it was a "Big Tex Smoker." ( after writing this, I think it was actually a SmokinTex) I liked the name and had to have one, except my research showed the damned thing was actually from China but distributed in Texas. Ummmm.. NO. That same research brought me to another option by Cookshack. The reviews on it were awesome. A notch pricey but it was 100% American made! And .. I got one. And I love it. You set the temp. You set the time. And turn it on. It also has a temp probe option that works excellent. Suddenly with a few recipes I'm kicking out awesome ribs. Awesome chicken. Awesome burgers. Awesome Sausage. But, there's a small problem. The electrics don't give you the smoke ring that the wood smokers do. I mean you're using wood chips for smoke, but ..... well.. it's just different. I've gotten where I love to BBQ and Grill and ... I'd like to think I now conceptually 'get it'. I've read too many articles. Watched too many videos... and I feel like I'm cheating (via the electric smoker). Feel like I'm not doing my best. And now I enjoy the process. And I'm not staring at these for hours and hours.
An Indian Motorcycle buddy of mine on FB (Ray Ralph) has been posting pics of his masterpieces for a few years (sorta like I do) and it's obvious he's got it going. And it's obvious to me, you need the right equipment to take it to the next level. Which got me to doing a lil research . Though Ray is using a Kamado style grill, it ain't a Green Egg. He's using a competitive product by "Kamado Joe". I've been debating on getting my side box up and running, but I know it's low quality. And damned it, Ray keeps posting pics and it's obvious all that luscious meat is sitting in a Kamado Grill cooking to perfection. I was over at the Matt and Nichol Pride's home a month or so ago, and Matt was cooking up some delicious steaks via his Green Egg. Damned it; one of them Eggs again! It's got me back to thinking. Back to researching. I've decided to jump in cheap to this concept of cooking and grab one at Lowe's . I mean it's literally a fraction of the cost of the big boys .. but folks have given spotty reviews on it, but the problems they had, did have some home grown fixes, to get them working correct. So I head down to Lowes to buy one .. but .. have you ever been checking out new grills and notice some just feel 'cheap" ? The one next to it for 2 to 3 times the cost feels like a solid tank but the one on sale at a killer price just .. reeks of crap? Well, that was my thought on this; so I passed. It felt... cheap to me.
Last week I saw Ray posting something .. .AGAIN!!!! Damned it Ray! And , I succumbed. I pulled out the keyboard and found a 24" that was calling my name and hit the button in the Checkout Cart. Done. No more excuses. And it has arrived and it's sitting in the driveway, begging me to open it up . Put it together. Break out the high dollar charcoal and BBQ .. Smoke .. Grill .. the way man was supposed to. At least that's what I keep telling myself! I mean that damned thing was expensive. And there is no way in hell, Ray could kill it with all that smoked meat he does with a cheap side box smoker , like the one rusting over by the garage... right? Right? Yep, I'll keep telling myself that!
What I do know is this damned thing is versatile! From Searing steaks, smoking killer BBQ to cooking a pizza... it's going to take my cooking skills to the next level. I'm just hoping next month, I'm not comparing it to that POS R2D2 Smoker? You know the one that I never mastered. Never read up on . Never watched videos on? That one...
After I'd gone in the military, I learned via the brute force method. Low cost grills, kingsford coals, and lots of steaks, burgers, chicken and dogs/sausages. I was as good as the next guy getting the basics done. I ruined my share of ribs. Burned up and dried up my share of chicken. But overall, I did a fairly good job; good enough that I was tasked with the spatula and tongs usually at get togethers. But when the beer was flowing, I've been know to make more than a few errors?
My first 'real' grill was the classic Weber. I could get the meat off it cooked okay, but in retrospect I never truly understood it; the overall concept. The damned briquets always burned up too quick for me. So we'd put more and more in there. But now you're choking out your bottom air source and trying to work through it all. I didn't understand the concept of keeping the meat off the direct fire. I'd never (and still haven't to this day ) used chunks of charcoal. But, I got through it and to this day I still have one available to use.
Back in the '80s I remember my dad bought a propane grill ( blasphemy!) . I wasn't there that day, but I remember him saying he'd brutally burned up a whole chicken on the rotisserie , and it had to go! That, was when I got my first gas grill. Thanks Dad! Game Changer! I got lazy. Things got simple. I bet I've gone through a 1/2 dozen of them over the years; maybe more. Still have one out there I do most of my grilling on. Hmmm, that reminds me; I need to order some new burners since these are pretty much deteriorated and I'm lucky to get a good piece of meat off it. Historically this is the point where I go get another one; but not this time.....
I remember in the late '90s I got a "R2D2" smoker. A vertical tubular water smoker or something like that. I attempted to cook and /or smoke a few things and pretty much ruined most of whatever was victim to my lack of cooking skills on that thing. It then sat in the corner for years, finally given away to someone that hopefully knew what they were doing with it.
At this point I'd pretty much given up on the idea of smoking meat. I didn't have the patience for it. I 'd heard all the horror stories of guys getting up at 2am to get things going. Stories of guys babysitting their smokers for hours and hours and hours..... with a beer in their hand , staring at the enclosure (well.. what else could they be doing?? lol). I was determined that was NOT going to be my fate. So I convinced myself to move on. Forget about this version of manhood I'd failed at miserably. I was done. Me and my gas grill were ..... happy. .. content.. .with each other.
I remember back around '02 time frame I'd been out at a party in Rockwall, TX at a peers home. This guy had made it big during the dot com era. He had the 10,000 sq ft, $2M home. The huge yard. The huge den fit for real mean and stogies and scotch. The pool.. the volleyball court. Well, you get the picture. Oh, I left one part out. The Green Egg. HUH? This was the first time I'd ever seen one. I walked around it. Opened up the heavy lid and saw the small cooking surface. Stared at it. WTF? I couldn't wrap my head around it. The owner told me once he lit it, and closed that lid, it'd stay hot and retain all the heat. I didn't believe it. I've seen how briquets burn out. And, why would one want to have the heat in it all day. I remember he told me he'd gave $3,000 for it. WHAT? No way... He told me he smoked meat with it, but after my R2D2 experience, I was convinced it must come out like crap. So I decided my rich friend was spending his money like a moron and I moved on to the beer drinking with all the other normal guys I was there with. For the next fifteen years every time I saw a Green Egg, I remembered that day and wondered what ... i was missing. Made no sense at the time.
About five years ago we were riding motorcycles down around Ben Wheeler and stopped in to one of the places for some cold ones and lunch. We were outside on the deck , back in the corner and damned it smelled good! Next to us was a stainless steel smoker and it was cooking away. About every 30 minutes they'd open it up and pull out some meat. I found myself staring at it and analyzing what I was looking at. It had a power cord. Had knobs and gauges. This damned thing was an electric smoker! I asked the guy using it a few questions, I took some pics and headed home to do some research. I believe it was a "Big Tex Smoker." ( after writing this, I think it was actually a SmokinTex) I liked the name and had to have one, except my research showed the damned thing was actually from China but distributed in Texas. Ummmm.. NO. That same research brought me to another option by Cookshack. The reviews on it were awesome. A notch pricey but it was 100% American made! And .. I got one. And I love it. You set the temp. You set the time. And turn it on. It also has a temp probe option that works excellent. Suddenly with a few recipes I'm kicking out awesome ribs. Awesome chicken. Awesome burgers. Awesome Sausage. But, there's a small problem. The electrics don't give you the smoke ring that the wood smokers do. I mean you're using wood chips for smoke, but ..... well.. it's just different. I've gotten where I love to BBQ and Grill and ... I'd like to think I now conceptually 'get it'. I've read too many articles. Watched too many videos... and I feel like I'm cheating (via the electric smoker). Feel like I'm not doing my best. And now I enjoy the process. And I'm not staring at these for hours and hours.
An Indian Motorcycle buddy of mine on FB (Ray Ralph) has been posting pics of his masterpieces for a few years (sorta like I do) and it's obvious he's got it going. And it's obvious to me, you need the right equipment to take it to the next level. Which got me to doing a lil research . Though Ray is using a Kamado style grill, it ain't a Green Egg. He's using a competitive product by "Kamado Joe". I've been debating on getting my side box up and running, but I know it's low quality. And damned it, Ray keeps posting pics and it's obvious all that luscious meat is sitting in a Kamado Grill cooking to perfection. I was over at the Matt and Nichol Pride's home a month or so ago, and Matt was cooking up some delicious steaks via his Green Egg. Damned it; one of them Eggs again! It's got me back to thinking. Back to researching. I've decided to jump in cheap to this concept of cooking and grab one at Lowe's . I mean it's literally a fraction of the cost of the big boys .. but folks have given spotty reviews on it, but the problems they had, did have some home grown fixes, to get them working correct. So I head down to Lowes to buy one .. but .. have you ever been checking out new grills and notice some just feel 'cheap" ? The one next to it for 2 to 3 times the cost feels like a solid tank but the one on sale at a killer price just .. reeks of crap? Well, that was my thought on this; so I passed. It felt... cheap to me.
Last week I saw Ray posting something .. .AGAIN!!!! Damned it Ray! And , I succumbed. I pulled out the keyboard and found a 24" that was calling my name and hit the
What I do know is this damned thing is versatile! From Searing steaks, smoking killer BBQ to cooking a pizza... it's going to take my cooking skills to the next level. I'm just hoping next month, I'm not comparing it to that POS R2D2 Smoker? You know the one that I never mastered. Never read up on . Never watched videos on? That one...
Comments