About the only place I read about folk's backgrounds in smoking meat is when they join on Roll Call. Those posts are great fun to read. I'm sure I shared mine when I joined, too. I'm also sure people have a varied background and experience that is more interesting than mine. So, if so motivated, share yours.
Personally, I grew up in SoCal thinking grilling was barbeque. Steaks, burgers, hot dogs, and chicken pretty much defined my exposure to outdoor cooking.
As a teen we moved to TN. That's when I had my first taste of wood-fired barbeque, exclusively chicken and pork. My dad didn't eat chicken and my mom didn't like pork so it wasn't high on their list of eat'n out places. Dad was a traveling salesman, though, and he'd occasionally take us to the most backwoods places to eat Q and fried catfish. He'd eat pork. Mom would eat chicken, and I ate anything and everything.
I went to university in Nashville. Around midnight, when we got the munchies (don't ask), we'd walk to a place that was a gas station during the day. Late at night though, two black gentlemen set up steam tables and sold pulled pork. I was always pretty loaded, but seems I remember them behind garage doors that had windows changed to sliders. There was always a huge line, even at 2 AM. You could get mild, hot, and hell-fire. Sauces were the same. One side and a pickle spear. That was the BEST friggin' Q, but my distorted perspective on the world might have had a bit to do with it.
During Navy flight training in south Texas I tasted mesquite and post oak smoked beef brisket, beef ribs, sausage, chicken, and pork for the first time. Always served on butcher papper with sides and sliced white bread, plastic utensils. I was hooked. We wouldn't think twice about driving 50 miles one way to get good Q.
A bar on Friday nights in the local town had a HUGE vertical smoker loaded with briskets. They didn't have much room on their lot and had to use a ladder to move briskets down from the top. Sandwich and a side was $5, and you had to get there early.
Once stationed back in California, good Q was only a memory. About the closest I found was tri tip grilled over a red oak fire, Santa Maria style. A Navy buddy from Santa Maria introduced me to the true SM style Q. We survived on grilled tri tip for decades because it was cheap meat. Wow. No longer.
Flash forward to 2013. I'd been using a gas grill for several years. I tried a bunch of ways to get good smoke flavor out of that beast but always came up short. That's when I decided to train myself to smoke meat on an old Weber Kettle Performer gathering dust on the side of the house. I realize now I was doing it bass-ackwards using the top vent to control temps, but at the time I was getting flavors that reminded my wife and me a lot of the Q in Texas. After 6 months I upgraded to a 22.5" WSM and truly learned how to charcoal/wood smoke meat.
I love that bullet, but a cabinet smoker out there somewhere is calling my name. I hear it in the wee hours when I'm reading SMF and thinking about what I want to smoke next. Plus, that 300-500 year-old white oak tree in my back yard it beginning to look like fuel more and more each day. Unfortunately, it's protected, so, no. Trimmings sure make yummy Q, though.
That's my journey with Q. Please share yours if so inclined.
Stay safe.
Ray
Personally, I grew up in SoCal thinking grilling was barbeque. Steaks, burgers, hot dogs, and chicken pretty much defined my exposure to outdoor cooking.
As a teen we moved to TN. That's when I had my first taste of wood-fired barbeque, exclusively chicken and pork. My dad didn't eat chicken and my mom didn't like pork so it wasn't high on their list of eat'n out places. Dad was a traveling salesman, though, and he'd occasionally take us to the most backwoods places to eat Q and fried catfish. He'd eat pork. Mom would eat chicken, and I ate anything and everything.
I went to university in Nashville. Around midnight, when we got the munchies (don't ask), we'd walk to a place that was a gas station during the day. Late at night though, two black gentlemen set up steam tables and sold pulled pork. I was always pretty loaded, but seems I remember them behind garage doors that had windows changed to sliders. There was always a huge line, even at 2 AM. You could get mild, hot, and hell-fire. Sauces were the same. One side and a pickle spear. That was the BEST friggin' Q, but my distorted perspective on the world might have had a bit to do with it.
During Navy flight training in south Texas I tasted mesquite and post oak smoked beef brisket, beef ribs, sausage, chicken, and pork for the first time. Always served on butcher papper with sides and sliced white bread, plastic utensils. I was hooked. We wouldn't think twice about driving 50 miles one way to get good Q.
A bar on Friday nights in the local town had a HUGE vertical smoker loaded with briskets. They didn't have much room on their lot and had to use a ladder to move briskets down from the top. Sandwich and a side was $5, and you had to get there early.
Once stationed back in California, good Q was only a memory. About the closest I found was tri tip grilled over a red oak fire, Santa Maria style. A Navy buddy from Santa Maria introduced me to the true SM style Q. We survived on grilled tri tip for decades because it was cheap meat. Wow. No longer.
Flash forward to 2013. I'd been using a gas grill for several years. I tried a bunch of ways to get good smoke flavor out of that beast but always came up short. That's when I decided to train myself to smoke meat on an old Weber Kettle Performer gathering dust on the side of the house. I realize now I was doing it bass-ackwards using the top vent to control temps, but at the time I was getting flavors that reminded my wife and me a lot of the Q in Texas. After 6 months I upgraded to a 22.5" WSM and truly learned how to charcoal/wood smoke meat.
I love that bullet, but a cabinet smoker out there somewhere is calling my name. I hear it in the wee hours when I'm reading SMF and thinking about what I want to smoke next. Plus, that 300-500 year-old white oak tree in my back yard it beginning to look like fuel more and more each day. Unfortunately, it's protected, so, no. Trimmings sure make yummy Q, though.
That's my journey with Q. Please share yours if so inclined.
Stay safe.
Ray
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