# *sniff*  *sniff*  I smell smoke...



## dangyankee (Mar 1, 2011)

First, a little about me.  I'm middle-aged, bald, have a mostly-grey beard, and could stand to lose some weight.  Yup.  A suburban cliche--I've even been wearing Hawaiian shirts since I was in high school.

I'm also retired and have too much time on my hands.  That's indirectly how I found this website.

The first time I was involved with smoking (meat, etc) was sometime in my teens.  I wouldn't call that "experience," though.

On long weekends, a bunch of friends would pile into my car and drive to Maine.  One of them had a brother who lived there and made a smoker/grill made from an old 55gal drum, a couple hinges, a lawnmower handle, and a bunch of cinder blocks.

The days were spent grilling burgers, dogs, and sausages but, come evening, someone would move the embers to one end, add some wood, throw a butt or two on the grill and close the lid.  Then we'd sit around doing our bit to help solve the country's excess beer and bourbon problem, adding wood here and there, until it was time to check the insides of our eyelids for pinholes (I never found any).

The first two to wake up (come to) had the most important jobs; one would grab the meat out of the smoker and pull it apart, while the other made a bucket of coffee and fried up a mess of eggs and hash browns.  Someone would set up the picnic table with plates, coffee cups, forks, and assorted bottles of hot and BBQ sauces.

Once the bell on the porch rang, the rest of us would drag ourselves out of...wherever we ended up the night before...and kick start the day with heaping plates of deliciousness.

Rinse, lather, repeat...

Fast forward thirty years. I decided to get into smoking.  I was sitting in one of my favorite Q joints last fall when it occurred to me how much I was spending on dinners, and realized a smoker would pay for itself PDQ.

Having spent a bunch of time working as a systems analyst, I found myself over-researching what to get and changing my mind every couple days.  It got ridiculous.

Then, day before yesterday, I was picking up some stuff at Lowes and spotted a couple MES 30" boxes sitting on the racks.  I tossed one on my cart, bought it, and stuffed it into my Jeep.

I opened it up this morning and was surprised that the only real assembly needed was attaching the timer/controls.  Most of the time was spent cutting the protective wraps off the racks.

I just finished seasoning it and will be heading to the butcher shop to pick up tomorrow's lunch (and possibly dinner) shortly.  My 84yo neighbor came over with his eyes lit up when he noticed the smoker puffing away in my driveway--he was like a little kid when I let him know he and his wife would be testing plenty of my experiments this year.

I look forward to asking lots of questions, sharing successes and...most of all...helping to reduce the bovine and porcine populations...  =o)

~Ted


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## smokin relaxin steve (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome to SMF! Glad to have you! and thnks for the Background! Nice to meet ya Ted!


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## eman (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome to the family Ted!!!!

Let me venture a guess and say you might be a jimmy buffet fan also???

This thing we do is alot of fun and usually relaxin.

 I use the mes 40" and it is very easy to create some great smokes on it.


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## fpnmf (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome!

 You will love this place.

Tons of info in the Wikis and searching for stuff is a breeze!!

  Craig


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## tyotrain (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome to SMF its nice to have ya.. lots of grate people here and lots of info.. congrats on your new smoker


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## ellymae (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome to the party!


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## Bearcarver (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome Ted !

You'll love it here, and you can really learn a lot from many helpful Peeps!

The way you wrote your "Bio", I think we're gonna enjoy some well written & explained smokes, coming from your neck-of-the-woods!

What state are you from?---Must be NorthEast of NY, if you used to run to Maine for a weekend!

Glad you're here,

Bear


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## jakerz66 (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome to SMF lots of good ideas and recipes for all skill levels here :grilling_smilie:


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## pocketaces (Mar 1, 2011)

Welcome!  Your post reminded me of a Jack Kerouac novel.  You will love this site and the people on it.  They are all great.


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## bamaboy (Mar 1, 2011)

WELCOME YANK,Great place and great folks


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## fourashleys (Mar 2, 2011)

to the addiction!! I don't know if which I look forward to more.. Your Q-view or your stories. Bet I'll be check out both. Happy smoking my friend!


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## SmokinAl (Mar 2, 2011)

Welcome aboard my friend. Great folks, great recipes, great advice!


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## pit 4 brains (Mar 2, 2011)

Glad to see you got off the fence and jumped in. Practice and patience are traits of a successful smoker. Let's see some qview of your smoker and some food...


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## chef willie (Mar 2, 2011)

Welcome to the SMF and your new hobby, soon to become obsession/addiction. Like the way you just pulled the trigger and threw a MES on the cart...lol...nothing like giving in to a sudden impulse....wait a minute, forget I said that, I think I ended up married once that way


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## dangyankee (Mar 2, 2011)

Thanks for the welcome and encouraging words!


I went to my butcher shop yesterday afternoon to get some meat.  Unfortunately, it was late in the day and pickings were a little slim, so I opted for 3 half slabs of baby backs--I was hoping to walk out with a slab or two of spares and some Flintstone-approved beef ribs.  That's OK...the weekend's drawing near, and I'll hit the shop early on Friday to stock up.


While running some errands this morning, I stopped off at a Home Despot for an unglazed tile to stick in the back, right corner of the MES.  The only unglazed ceramic they had was 6x6, so I grabbed an 8x12 glazed and an 8x12 piece of slate.


This might be of interest to other MES 30" owner: When I got home, I slid the glazed tile in and found the new(?) MES 30" boxes are deep enough for a 12x12.  As shown below, there's almost an inch clearance between the front edge of the tile and the door (the racks extend further than a 12x12 tile):











In the meantime, I'll use the 8x12, but have it in sideways so the entire length of the smoker box is covered:







I was hoping to get the ribs smoked up for dinner, but it just got mighty windy and it looks like rain might be moving in.  I've encountered one of the drawbacks of having an electric smoker before even having a chance to smoke anything.  D'oh!

Ah well...  When I first started thinking about getting a smoker, I quickly decided to run a vent through my garage roof so I can smoke indoors on rainy/snowy/frigid days.  I know what project's just been bumped up to the top of my list.

Tomorrow's another day...

~Ted
 

P.S.  FWIW, Jimmy Buffet is one of the few things you won't find on my ipod, eman.  You will, however, see a lot of symphonies/opera, traditional blues (Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sonny Boy Williamson), Frank Zappa, Grateful Dead, Allman Bros, Neil Young, and a whole mess of late 70s-mid 80s punk.  =o)


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## justpassingthru (Mar 2, 2011)

Hey Yank,

Welcome to SMF, I enjoyed the intro and I'm looking forward to your future "colorful" Q-view posts, looks like we we have several things in common, I too wear Hawaiian print shirts.  LOL

Now that the preliminaries and nicety's are over, do a search for ABT's, Fatties, Moink Balls, Stufz Burgers, heh, heh, ...let the addiction begin!

Gene


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## dangyankee (Mar 2, 2011)

Bearcarver said:


> What state are you from?---Must be NorthEast of NY, if you used to run to Maine for a weekend!



Whoops...  I meant to add that I'm from MA (~10 miles north of Boston) in my previous reply.

Bangor's roughly a 3-1/2 to 4 hour drive from here, depending on age and vehicle.  My drive times were significantly shorter when I was in my teens and driving a land yacht.  Now that I need regular breaks to stretch my legs and back, I figure it'd be much closer to the 4 hour mark in my Jeep...


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## oldschoolbbq (Mar 2, 2011)

and have a great time here
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





There is always someone on the line for questions
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Now you need to get some toys to go with your smoker ,things you see you just have to have, but watch out for O.S.D.


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## reardenreturns (Mar 2, 2011)

Welcome to the forums!! :biggrin:


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## beer-b-q (Mar 2, 2011)

Welcome to SMF, Glad to have you with us.
 

This is the place to learn, lots of good info and helpful friendly Members.
 

For those of you new to Smoking, be sure to check out *Jeff's 5 Day Smoking Basics eCourse*.

Click Here it's *"FREE"* ... 5 Day eCourseE


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## meateater (Mar 3, 2011)

Welcome to the SMF. Glad to have you here. Lots of good folks, great recipes and knowledge. Looking forward to your first qview.


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## retread (Mar 3, 2011)

Where is that, Yank, Malden?  I'm in Methuen.
 


DangYankee said:


> Whoops...  I meant to add that I'm from MA (~10 miles north of Boston) in my previous reply.
> 
> Bangor's roughly a 3-1/2 to 4 hour drive from here, depending on age and vehicle.  My drive times were significantly shorter when I was in my teens and driving a land yacht.  Now that I need regular breaks to stretch my legs and back, I figure it'd be much closer to the 4 hour mark in my Jeep...


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## Bearcarver (Mar 3, 2011)

DangYankee said:


> Whoops...  I meant to add that I'm from MA (~10 miles north of Boston) in my previous reply.
> 
> Bangor's roughly a *3-1/2 to 4 hour drive from here, depending on age and vehicle*.  My drive times were significantly shorter when I was in my teens and driving a land yacht.  Now that I need regular breaks to stretch my legs and back, I figure it'd be much closer to the 4 hour mark in my Jeep...




LOL---Exactly !


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## dangyankee (Mar 3, 2011)

Retread said:


> Where is that, Yank, Malden?  I'm in Methuen.


I hang my hat in Stoneham.


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