I was directed here say Hi.
I have been a backyard basher for around 20 years, but have done a few competition cooks. All of my pits are home built stuff, mostly based on the vertical water smoker concept. I also have a horizontal offset made from a water heater tank and a propane fired version of the UDS that I used for smoking homemade sausages.
My cooking career started some where around '95 when my wife said she wanted to do a hog roast. My first question was "how in the hell do you roast a hog?". That was back before there were sites like this, the internet was just getting started at that time.
After asking a few old timers, I dug a hole in the yard about the size of a coffin and borrowed a rack made from an old bumper jack. We got a 200#er on the hoof and started the butchering process (not fun). The pig was ready to go and I quickly realized that I needed wood. I searched the hedge rows for any downed limbs. I gathered a good pickup load. Then I proceeded to load the pig on the grate and start the fire (yes, in that order). I had no concept of cooking time or temp. After about 4 hours and 16 beers, a leg pulled off while I tried to turn it.... "WTF??? it must be done... now what the hell do I do?"
You can imagine how that one turned out. It was at that point I decided I either need to quit cooking or learn how to do it right. I built a smoker big enough to cook a whole hog and I still use it today. It is 6 foot tall x 5 1/2 long and 2 1/2 deep.
I have been a backyard basher for around 20 years, but have done a few competition cooks. All of my pits are home built stuff, mostly based on the vertical water smoker concept. I also have a horizontal offset made from a water heater tank and a propane fired version of the UDS that I used for smoking homemade sausages.
My cooking career started some where around '95 when my wife said she wanted to do a hog roast. My first question was "how in the hell do you roast a hog?". That was back before there were sites like this, the internet was just getting started at that time.
After asking a few old timers, I dug a hole in the yard about the size of a coffin and borrowed a rack made from an old bumper jack. We got a 200#er on the hoof and started the butchering process (not fun). The pig was ready to go and I quickly realized that I needed wood. I searched the hedge rows for any downed limbs. I gathered a good pickup load. Then I proceeded to load the pig on the grate and start the fire (yes, in that order). I had no concept of cooking time or temp. After about 4 hours and 16 beers, a leg pulled off while I tried to turn it.... "WTF??? it must be done... now what the hell do I do?"
You can imagine how that one turned out. It was at that point I decided I either need to quit cooking or learn how to do it right. I built a smoker big enough to cook a whole hog and I still use it today. It is 6 foot tall x 5 1/2 long and 2 1/2 deep.
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