Grill Daddys

So Bubba's smoker was a 500 gallon propane tank that had been cut in half- his boss took one side and Bubba kept one side for himself.  He mounted it on an old jet ski trailer and started a firebox (no door).  Nothing else had been done.   The tires were dry rotted from sitting in the pasture so long.  The inside of the tank was severely rusted.  It had no tow lights.  It only had one tow chain, and it was held together with a padlock.  There wasn't a trailer jack so it took a tractor to lift it to put it on my truck hitch. But Bubba did have some expanded metal that he was going to use for the grill and also a quarter sheet of flat metal he was planning for the door- oh, and a 4" wide chrome plated smoke stack.   He said it was all the materials I would need to finish- which I suspected wasn't true, but I had big dreams and even bigger expectations.  I made the deal and limped down the road at 15mph, grill in tow to buy new tires a...

So I had about $500 saved up from gift money over the last few years and now decided this is how I was going to spend it.  I watched Craigslist for months for someone selling a grill for < $500 that I could work with.  Well Bubba (I'm not making this up) was just the man to help me out.  Bubba had started a project smoker years ago and decided he just wasn't going to be able to finish.  He was selling the whole incomplete mess for $300 as is.  This was the start I had been waiting for.

One of my great joys is making BBQ that others like to eat.  I'll be transparent- I feel a great personal pride when someone says "Dude- that's some seriously good BBQ.  You should open a restaurant.". Now I'm not interested in running a restaurant or a catering business.  I do this for fun- and making money sounds like work. Anyway, I was talking with a friend of mine who loves BBQ so much he *did* make a business of it.  Richard Hill runs Legacy BBQ and catering in Rockwall, TX.  Richard competes in local BBQ competitions to create brand recognition for his catering business.  Anyway, as I was asking him about competing, Richard's advice was strangely simple- just sign up and try it.  You may or may not win your first several competitions, but you'll learn more than talking to me for hours.  This simple advice created a few problems for me though:  I couldn't use my upright smoker in competitions, it was propane powered.  I wasn't goin...

I've loved BBQ as far back as I can remember.  Grilled.  Smoked. Flame broiled.  Over the years, I've had many smokers and grills.  I've used a number of grills ranging from the Weber Smokey Mountain grills, countless gas grills, camp fires, an old propane tank poorly converted to a grill/smoker, and most recently started cooking on the Pit Boss Kimodo 22" ceramic cooker.  Each had had pros and cons- most have had more cons than pros- but the Kimodo is a pretty great cooker and my favorite so far!  I love that I can run it at 225F for 10 hours, or melt metal at 800F- okay, I don't melt metal, but I did run it to 800 just to see how hot I could take it.  I've been entered in some church BBQ competitions and placed well... And family says they like my BBQ... But you never really know for sure just how good you are until you go against others- so begins my journey.