Vegas Jeff here

[vegasheatbbq]

Hello everyone,

Sorta newbie living out in the Las Vegas area. Just wanted to say hi and give my reasons for showing up.

I always enjoyed eating BBQ but am a horrible cook. Been to a few cooking classes (not BBQ related) just to learn how to cook a descent dinner.

Never owned a grill before but was on the hunt for one and was torn between a smoker and a regular gas grill. I realized my oven is a gas grill and jumped in a smoker. The next day at Costco, the Kamado Joe was doing a road show there and I bought it.

Cooked on it a few times and I really do enjoy it.

The first time I cooked on it, it was a pork shoulder. I asked my chef instructor about the "secret of bbq" as I had no clue. I always imagined a 24 hour cook. He stated he has never smoked anything for more than 4 or 5 hours and not sure how these tv shows claim 12-24 hour cook times. So I woke up and got my shoulder ready, just a simple mustard coating and my local butcher blend rub. Was on the grill at 9am at 225, will be ready at 3pm.... Well around 11pm, I called it quits. Temp was around 190, or 191 and I was tired and beat. I let it rest for maybe 15 minutes, and tasted a few pieces. Wow, it was pretty darn good.

I wrapped them all up in ziplock bags and squeezed as much air out and gave them all a ice bath to get them out of the danger zone and into the fridge they went, and basically had pull pork everything for a few days.

My main reason for joining here was I realize I have so much to learn and "Meathead" asked another member in a discussion about a year ago about how he goes about the setup and how he is getting it to smoke. I realized I had no rhyme or reason and after a couple of other cooks, I was not happy with my smoke flavor.

So, I'm afraid, your forum is stuck with me for awhile. I really want to master the pork shoulder and baby back ribs. I have done ribs a few times and never am happy with them.

I just bought a shoulder tonight and will salt it tomorrow night and will do Meathead's Pork Shoulder recipe.

Thanks everyone for reading this and hope you all enjoy yourselves. Enjoy your day and the rest of your weekend.

All the best

Jeff

[MBMorgan]

Welcome to the Pit, Jeff! You'll lose the Horrible Cook title shortly after our local kamado gurus get it their (virtual) hands on you.

[Breadhead]

vegasheatbbq ... Welcome to the Pit.👍

You Sir are a very lucky Kamado rookie. A fellow Pit member that goes by the handle CeramicChef - a man with 20 years of Kamado experience, recently started a series of discussions/threads to inform new Kamado owners about ALL of the unique details of how to use your type of cooker. Kamado cooking 101.

This series has been developing over the last couple of weeks and it is going to cover everything you will eventually need to know to tame your new cooker. There are many Kamado owners that are contributing to this series with the single intent to become the most informative collection of Kamado cooking information available anywhere on the Internet.

The intent is to provide rookies like you with enough really valuable information about how to use your new cooker that you will speed through the learning curves much faster than we old guys did that bought them 20 years ago when NOBODY knew much about ceramic cooking.

Cozy up to CeramicChef and he will guide you into Kamado heaven my friend.👍

A side note... Cancel those cooking classes. You now have 13,000 Pit members that are going to give you a PHd in outdoor cooking.👍

[CeramicChef]

Welcome to The Pit and welcome to The Obsession!

You're going to absolutely love that Kamado Joe. It's a great cooker. Join us in the Kamado Section of The Pit … we're having a few discussions that you'll find interesting. We're doing a series of posts on Kamado Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques that will help you get the most out of your KJ. We hope you find it interesting, informative, and we'd love your input.

[fuzzydaddy]

Welcome to The Pit vegasheatbbq. It's great to have you here. Thank you for your support. Here's a link to the Kamado Cookers channel. Fyi, you can find it anytime under: Forums -> Grills and Smokers -> Charcoal -> Kamado Cookers.

Since this is your first post, please check out our homework assignment post for new members. It contains a few how-tos and please-dos. This will help you learn your way around so you can get the best experience from our forum.

Also, it's very important that you add the domain AmazingRibs.com to your email safe list in case you are ever drawn as our monthly Gold Medal Giveaway winner!

See you around The Pit!

[DWCowles]

Welcome vegasheatbbq

[LA Pork Butt]

Welcome to the Pit! I cook on a Big Green Egg and think you are going to love your Kamado Joe once you get the hang of it. I do Boston Butts over night to serve at noon, but it would be easy for you to start them at 11 pm and hold them in a faux cambro until serving time at 5 pm. Anyway at 225 to an internal temp of 200 I would plan on 12-16 hours of cook time. You will learn a lot from CeramicChef and Breadhead

[jharner]

Welcome to the pit, enjoy the Wikipedia of BBQ.

[FireMan]

Welcome a aboard! Just gettin started eh? You must be forewarned that you may be flirting with, as one Dr. Breadhead has determined, "More Cooker Syndrome". You WILL git addicted! Enjoy!

[vegasheatbbq]

Welcome a aboard! Just gettin started eh? You must be forewarned that you may be flirting with, as one Dr. Breadhead has determined, "More Cooker Syndrome". You WILL git addicted! Enjoy!

Already am addicted been searching online for a 1qt dutch oven and looking for the kick ash thing but the 2 sites I found are out of stock.

Anyhoo, just salted up my butt and rewrapped it. Looking forward for my trial run for my cyberQ.... Too soon???? Night all

[Breadhead]

Oh yeah... Your definitely a member of the MCS club already. You will be buying a shed and/or remodeling your deck or patio soon probably. It will only stop when you deplete your discretionary funds or your wife threatens divorce. Enjoy it, go with the flow.

[Huskee]

Welcome to The Pit vegasheatbbq! It's nice to have you here, and that was a very nice intro. Thanks for joining up with us! I had to LOL when I read your statement that your chef instructor said he never understood 12+hr smoke times. There's often a difference in a 'chef' and a 'pitmaster', and most notably there's a definite difference in the cuts of meat each uses. A pork butt smoked unwrapped can take 14-24hrs, depending on its size, your cooker temp, your cooker type, etc. I for one prefer to wrap mine after "the stall", when they get to about 180 or so IT. Then I can get them done in 10-12hrs, with plenty of delicious bark for my tastes.

Anyway, we all look forward to your progression from "horrible cook" to pro pitmaster!