Good morning folks!
I'm new to the smoking and BBQ world. Everyone has cooked out in their backyard on a grill and honestly that's all I was ever really interested in. Until February 12, 2016 ... the coldest day of the winter in Dayton, Ohio. My daughter was getting married on the 13th. In January we found out the wedding plans had changed and we were forced to make changes to the food plans. I needed someone to cater the wedding in 3 weeks .... not the 6 months we had planned I asked a friend of mine how smokes and BBQs professionally to do his thing with pulled pork and chicken ... and a side of smoked beans for about 150 people. He agreed and said he would do it with one condition - I had to help. We had a very mild winter until the week before the wedding. Monday started out at 38 by the time we got to Friday we hit 19. We started Friday ... 12 pork butts and 160 pieces of chicken! I learned how to prep the meat, how to run a big rig wood fueled smoker and how to finish the meats. We started at 10 on Friday morning with a temp of 19 and we finished the last of the meats at 4am Saturday and a temp of 11. I went home and slept until 10 and went back to help pull the pork and to get everything put into serving trays. We finished at 12:30, got the food to the church by 1pm, I had time to head home, shower, shave, grab the shotgun and head back to the church for photos and the wedding ... the food was fantastic and I got to brag a little that I cooked the food ...
After all the work to smoke the meats and beans and to get it all done on the COLDEST day of the winter I thought it wasn't all that hard and actually I enjoyed it ... so I tried my hand at smoking baby back ribs on my kamado grill. They turned out great and I was hooked.
I found that when I did smoke ribs I was limited in space and I could only get 3 or 4 racks on the kamado. I spent a little money and got the Oklahoma Joe Highlander and have been using that. My propane grill gets lonely so from time to time I'll cook burgers and hot dogs on it.
After all this talk I think I'm ready to go smoke something....
