Hey y'all! My name is Rick, I live in Wilmington, NC and have been cooking on charcoal and/or wood grills and smokers of some sort for about 34 of my 45 years - learned grilling from my father, grandfather and uncle from 11 years old until my late teens when my best friend's dad introduced my to pork shoulder and then whole hawg cooking on a 1200-acre farm in Bertie County, NC. I never was much of a deer hunter since I didn't eat deer meat - well, that's what most of the guys on the farm did. So I would hang back at the camp and smoke big hunks of pork with my buddy's dad. We would shovel coals from a fire burning on the ground underneath a grate that was semi-covered by an old hunk of tin roofing. Man those were the days...
Fast forward to today - smoking low and slow - I bought my first WSM during college and ran her through the ringer. Eventually I picked up a second one for extra capacity finally selling both and buying my first whole hawg cooker made out of an old flat top oil drum. Eventually replaced that cooker with a larger pig cooker made out of new steel that had a gas burner going through the middle and an offset firebox on it. I would burn charcoal and wood for about the first 6 hours of a cook and then turn the gas on to put her on cruise control while preparing the rest of the food and setting up for whatever shindig was about to happen. I'm now out of the trailer mounted rigs completely but you never know...I love some of the new trailer mounted offsets I have seen - Horizon, Lang, Yoder...man so many sweet "small-ish" trailers.
From a grilling perspective it was all about Weber Kettles. From the time my kin taught me when I was 10 and 11 years old until just a few years back, there was always a kettle or three in the arsenal. It was about 5 years ago when I couldn't resist the deal I got on a large BGE - and have now added to that the Mega Max for some portability in camping and tailgating. I love my ceramic cookers.
And then to what brought me here in the first place - the quest for the offset smoker. I first found this site when I was looking for a COS - even got in on the deal at WalMart for one of the $148 Longhorns - or whatever the price was almost 50% off. I brought it home and all I could think of was the folks back in my WSM days and the way they ALL said, hell, I said, find a way to buy the WSM - don't waste your time and money on the ECB. So I returned the Longhorn to Wal Mart unopened and waited.
And finally it happened. It wasn't that I was looking for specifically this - I was looking for a deal on a good/great offset. I just recently found that and purchased an original Oklahoma Joe - pre-Char Broil buyout. It is a 16" diameter model - serial number 68584. So far I have had 3 good fires/cooks and am enjoying it as much as I thought I would. Still a learning curve associated with it, but that is the fun of getting a new toy!
Look forward to talking all things grilling/smoking/eating with you all and posting up some pics along the way!
Fast forward to today - smoking low and slow - I bought my first WSM during college and ran her through the ringer. Eventually I picked up a second one for extra capacity finally selling both and buying my first whole hawg cooker made out of an old flat top oil drum. Eventually replaced that cooker with a larger pig cooker made out of new steel that had a gas burner going through the middle and an offset firebox on it. I would burn charcoal and wood for about the first 6 hours of a cook and then turn the gas on to put her on cruise control while preparing the rest of the food and setting up for whatever shindig was about to happen. I'm now out of the trailer mounted rigs completely but you never know...I love some of the new trailer mounted offsets I have seen - Horizon, Lang, Yoder...man so many sweet "small-ish" trailers.
From a grilling perspective it was all about Weber Kettles. From the time my kin taught me when I was 10 and 11 years old until just a few years back, there was always a kettle or three in the arsenal. It was about 5 years ago when I couldn't resist the deal I got on a large BGE - and have now added to that the Mega Max for some portability in camping and tailgating. I love my ceramic cookers.
And then to what brought me here in the first place - the quest for the offset smoker. I first found this site when I was looking for a COS - even got in on the deal at WalMart for one of the $148 Longhorns - or whatever the price was almost 50% off. I brought it home and all I could think of was the folks back in my WSM days and the way they ALL said, hell, I said, find a way to buy the WSM - don't waste your time and money on the ECB. So I returned the Longhorn to Wal Mart unopened and waited.
And finally it happened. It wasn't that I was looking for specifically this - I was looking for a deal on a good/great offset. I just recently found that and purchased an original Oklahoma Joe - pre-Char Broil buyout. It is a 16" diameter model - serial number 68584. So far I have had 3 good fires/cooks and am enjoying it as much as I thought I would. Still a learning curve associated with it, but that is the fun of getting a new toy!
Look forward to talking all things grilling/smoking/eating with you all and posting up some pics along the way!
