Southern BBQ in the Northwest

[tongatim]

New member to this forum, living in Bellingham, WA, between Seattle and Vancouver, BC.  

As a kid growing up in Georgia, our family feasted once a year around Christmas time on pork butts smoked in an old backyard smokehouse by an old guy who pitched a pup tent next to his stack of hickory and kept the fire going for 3 days.  I've been trying to duplicate this, along with Texas-style brisket, for most of my adult life.  Did pretty good stuff on a Weber and then a cheap offset smoker, but don't want to stay up all night anymore tending the fire.  So now cook on a Rec Tec, which I very much like for many reasons, but even with trying all the tricks, a variety of pellets, and making a few mods, I can't get the degree of smokiness I crave.  Considering a Pit Barrel Cooker, and saving up for something like a Backwoods Chubby with Auber (or similar) temp controller or similar.  

Fairly experienced at backyard cooking, but consider myself forever a student and always looking for new ideas and information.

Recently retired. Travel the country with my wife (who also controls the budget for big items like new BBQ['s) in our RV, and play trombone.

Life is good.

Tim

 

[joe black]

Welcome from SC, Tim. It's good to have you on this great site. Cooking, Traveling with the wife in an RV, and playing trombone....man, your life IS good.

 

[bmudd14474]

Welcome from Nor Cal.

 

[siege]

This might help get you the old time smoke house flavor you crave. The guy who ran the local BBQ here had a portable smoker trailer that he often took to events to vend some Q. I hung out with him long enough to catch a few tips. His best flavor secret was using a goodly amount of hickory bark on top of the hickory wood in the fire box. It went in dry, never soaked, in pieces stripped off the logs. There was plenty of air flow, and the bark produced a good thin, blue smoke. I hope you get the flavor you remember. Keep us posted !