As Promised...

[papacurtis]

I just found this thread and am loving it! Best of luck Jabbo in your new venture. That rig is amazing. Next time i come up to Tally for a visit to my daughter at FSU, i will try a little side road trip to find some of that bbq of yours! All the best and keep this thread alive..

 

[oldschoolbbq]

Cool......

 

[jabbo]

PappaCurtis, you are always welcome here.  I would be honored to share my BBQ with you and any other friends from this site.  Just give me a heads up before your next trip and I will give you directions!  Thanks for your kind words.

 

[ribwizzard]

No problem Jabbo,

Now at festivals, and such, everyone seems to charge about 25% higher than that, probably due to the promoter wanting his share.  Tampa is cheaper than Orlando, and that probably due to more competition there. Tampa has BBQ on almost every corner, even some of the grocery stores have smokers set up out front.  Orlando has no decent BBQ that Ive found so far, somebody could rack up there if they did it right. Like a Cherry ready to be popped!

 

[jarjarchef]

No problem Jabbo,

Now at festivals, and such, everyone seems to charge about 25% higher than that, probably due to the promoter wanting his share.  Tampa is cheaper than Orlando, and that probably due to more competition there. Tampa has BBQ on almost every corner, even some of the grocery stores have smokers set up out front.  Orlando has no decent BBQ that Ive found so far, somebody could rack up there if they did it right. Like a Cherry ready to be popped!

Agree 100%....... 4 Rivers is not as good as some claim it to be in my opinion........

 

[ribwizzard]

First choice in Brandon is good, Alabama John's real pit out on  Hillsborough in Tampa is good, and there are some road shack ones that I like as well.  I heard about one farther North called Jakko's or Jabbo's or something like that, and they are supposed to be good, but I havent made it up there yet.

 

[jabbo]

Rib, the only thing that would get me to a town that size is a competition with serious money on the line.  Other than that, my city days are over. I just can't handle the stress of all the people.  All I see is potential danger everywhere.  Hell, I do that here.  Which is why I live in the woods with my wife, my son, my dogs, my guns, and my 4 wheel drive!!  

 

[ribwizzard]

Gotcha Jabbo,

But I have places in both Tampa and Orlando, both fairly big, populated areas. In Orlando, I have deer that come out every night and drink from the pond across the street, Wild Turkey running around everywhere, more lakes than I can count and wild life everywhere, and any store I could possibly need, I mean ANY MAJOR STORE, with in 10 miles from the house.

In Tampa, my house is right at the mouth of Little Manatee river , right on Tampa Bay. Literally I can fish right from my dock and catch snook, reds, trout, or just run 2 miles out into the bay and snag a nice gag and be back before the day heats up. I throw my oranges from my tree into the water and Manatees come in to eat them.

Just saying, I know what you mean about all the people, and craziness, but just like you build your own smoker, you have to build your own world and find your own ways of getting away from all the craziness. I have to make money, and I have to be near people that have it in order to do that.

 

[jabbo]

Rib, that sounds like a really nice place.  I envy you for it.  I live about 30 minutes from PC Beach and 20 minutes form PC.  I can make all of the money my family needs off of either one of them.  Most of the places on the beach close up shop in the fall because they have made enough money off of the spring a summer tourists they don't need to stay open.  I like that about Florida though.  You can be near a large town or city and as soon as you pass the city limit sign, the scenery completely changes.  There aren't too many states that you can do that in.  

Oh and FYI, me and my welder, Lex, have started talking about a prototype competition cooker.  It will be RF, because I am so fond of them, and fully insulated.  Basically a pipe within a pipe kind of thing.  I think it will be the coolest thing since sliced bread.  Do you know of anybody that has made one already?  I have it pictured clearly in my mind, but why reinvent the wheel when you can learn from someone else.  

 

[JckDanls 07]

Gotcha Jabbo,

But I have places in both Tampa and Orlando, both fairly big, populated areas. In Orlando, I have deer that come out every night and drink from the pond across the street, Wild Turkey running around everywhere, more lakes than I can count and wild life everywhere, and any store I could possibly need, I mean ANY MAJOR STORE, with in 10 miles from the house.

In Tampa, my house is right at the mouth of Little Manatee river , right on Tampa Bay. Literally I can fish right from my dock and catch snook, reds, trout, or just run 2 miles out into the bay and snag a nice gag and be back before the day heats up. I throw my oranges from my tree into the water and Manatees come in to eat them.

Just saying, I know what you mean about all the people, and craziness, but just like you build your own smoker, you have to build your own world and find your own ways of getting away from all the craziness. I have to make money, and I have to be near people that have it in order to do that.

Rib.. your Tampa house is only a couple miles from me.... I'm just across the Manatee county line... near Port Manatee on hwy 41.. we should have a beer sometime

 

[jabbo]

Hey I think all of us Florida boys should meet up sometime and have smokin' good time!!  What do ya'll think?

 

[ribwizzard]

We should put something together, maybe we can find a festival or competitition somewhere central to everyone and try to meet up. It would be fun.

Jabbo, I really have not messed much with insulated cookers other than small box style cabinets.  I really could not say if it would be worth the effort here in Florida. Usually , Im more worried about heat spikes than keeping temp. I like the ideal of insulating the top of the firebox though, and next big pit I build will include that.

How big a cooker are you thinking for a competition cooker?

 

[JckDanls 07]

We do a get together twice a year here in Fl.

One is in North Florida (Tallahassee area in the spring)... http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/134103/official-2013-n-fl-gathering-april-5th-6th-and-7th

The other is in South Florida (actually more central this year... Sebring in the fall).. http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/138307/2013-south-florida-gathering-3rd-annual-nov-8-10th

We would be more than glad to have both of y'all. including families and friends. come and join us... even if it's just a day trip.... come on out and have some fun and good eats...

 

[dougmays]

Jabbo and RibWizard...come on down to our South Florida gathering, we have a great time!

 

[jabbo]

Guys that sounds like a good thing.  The logistics of it may not be as easy.  I'm sure we can work it out eventually.  There is a contest up above Jacksonville where we could go and woop up on some Georgia boys.....twice a year!!

Rib, I was thinking of 4 small cookers.  Each one would be dedicated to it's own meat an no bigger than it must be to cook the required items.  I was thinking of putting 2 on each side of the trailer and end to end with the fireboxes at opposite ends.  I have never seen one like it so it will have the unique factor.  Essentially it would be 2 cookers, fully insulated and sharing a outer shell.  Then mirror it on the other side of the trailer.  Does any of that make sense or is it as clear as mud??

 

[ribwizzard]

Jacksonville sounds good.

Four cookers, Holly Cow.    Now, you don't think the competition circuit is a good place to make some revenue, where as you might want to cooking bigger quantities?  The ones Ive been to around here have people lined up to pay way to much money for a plate of food.

 

[jabbo]

It will be four cookers but they will all be fairly small.  Like I said only big enough for what is needed.  The rig will be light due to the thinner metal that I can use, so it can be pulled by the 4 runner leaving my truck available to pull the big cooker.  This way I can take advantage of those hungry crowds as well!!  This is the vision in my head and it ends with Myron Mixon kissing my championship trophy!!!

 

[bigboysmokehous]

Before I built my smoker I had a vision of something similar to what your wanting to do Jabbo. My idea was one smoker but four cooking chambers that allowed heat and smoke control by valves inside piping.

Imagine looking at a wall that had four oven doors up tight to each other. The interior walls would be insulated to keep residual heat to a minimum to upper chambers. The flow system would work like a pool valve system with each chamber getting heat pulled in from the exhaust chimney and you could control the amount of heat flow by ball valves. This would take some pipe bending work but I think all four pipes would have to sit on the top of the fire box to make sure enough smoke and heat went into each pipe.

This could very well be a complete madness in my mind and I have started to work it out on paper. But imagination and reality can be a thin but expessive line!

 

[ribwizzard]

You know guys, this conversation needs to be happening while we are sitting next to our pits in Jacksonville,

 

[ribwizzard]

The more I think about it, we really need to try to do that.  There is probably at least 10 guys on here that I would really enjoy sitting around and doing some BBQ with, ... somebody with some organization skills needs to come forward and make this happen.