Finally getting serious

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bunny

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 3, 2017
14
29
Way North Idaho
Hello and Greetings from Far North Idaho!
I've been on this forum since 2017 but I haven't posted, just basically lurked because I was so overwhelmed. I was raised with Southern parents so I have a deep love for good BBQ and remember visits back to the family in Tennessee where they had "don't spit in the pit" signs at the good BBQ places. When I got my first BBQ grill, I was a very broke, single mom living in an apartment and someone threw out their Weber gas grill. The gas portion didn't work and it was old, so I cleaned it up, gutted it and painted it with high heat paint and charcoal grilled on it for years. My Friday night BBQ's I threw was actually how I met the love of my life!
Fast forward 25 years and now I've owned several nice grills. Hubby even bought me a new Weber Genesis II when my last grill was finally rusting away. All my friends have been smoking for years now and I've loved their meals, but I wanted to try my hand at smoking. I finally broke down and bought a vertical propane smoker just to see if I liked it. Nope. I loved it! Getting that perfect smoke and the deep ring became a challenge to me. I got my steaks down perfect, to the point my husband was getting sick of me smoking everything! LOL!
Did I mention we live in Far North Idaho????? You can smell Canada from here and the snow averages 9-11 feet a year. I think I used every foul word out there ( I married a Marine and I've been in construction my whole life, so forgive me) as I tried to make a simple smoked chicken for dinner one night. I was so over adjusting the temp to try to hold temp that I went out shopping for a new investment.
I started with my friends. The best BBQ cook has a RecTec RT700. He literally puts out some of the best BBQ here. Another friend has a Smokin' Brother's Premier 30. I like his food, but I think he hasn't dialed in his technique yet. My future son in law comes from a serious smoking family and they gave him a Green Mountain for Christmas last year. My daughter talks all the time about the great food (since the smoker quit catching on fire - another story) that comes off it but I have yet to taste any. She's a brat.
I watched videos, read reviews, messaged people back and forth and narrowed my search down to the RecTec and the Smokin' Brother's over the many other brands I was looking at.
I hate buying anything from China. My toaster is from the 1930's when they were still made in America and it still works and is a piece of art on my counter. As much as I liked the features of the RecTec, I couldn't get over the Made in China label. I started saving my teaching money and was getting ready to buy a Smokin' Brother's. Along comes Christmas and the amazing man I married almost 25 years ago surprised me with my new grill! As luck would have it, I got the only one that our dealer has ever had a issue with. My auger motor was broken. Christmas day smoking never happened but I did get an email from the owner on some things to troubleshoot and the next day, the manager from our local dealer called me personally on his vacation time to tear apart his machine with mine as we walked through all that could be wrong. Figured it out and sent me to the store to get the replacement part and $60.00 worth of free Smokin' Brother's accessories to say sorry. Yep. I didn't choose poorly when it came to manufactures.
As I'm typing, I have my first smoke going on some candy bacon that was supposed to be done with some deviled eggs. Those eggs never made it past yesterday, so we are going to have to just deal with the bacon for bloody Mary's. I already started pulling out and forecasting from my freezer the next few meals and I'm so excited to finally feel like I can participate on the forum! I look forward to interacting with you all!
Bunny
 
Welcome aboard! Looking forward to your cooks. Glad your pit is working out for you. I pellet on a Yoder 640 and do my serious work in my smokehouse. Best of luck and post up those pics.
 
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Welcome to SMF. Some great peeps here. Winter is my favorite smoking season too. Cold Michigan winters are perfect for a cold smoke place.
 
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