Finally taking a few minutes to introduce myself since I've found myself responding to a few posts and people are probably wondering who this glitchy dude is.
My name is Shane and I'm from Central Iowa. I'm just days away from crossing the line where I'm closer to 50 than 40 and am rather :-( about it. I work in IT for a large insurance company (Des Moines is the third largest insurance hub in the entire world). I started my IT career in embedded systems, so I love little tech gadgets. I've been lucky enough to find a bride that has put up with me - and my MCS/NCS - for almost 24 years and we have a 18 year old son and 12 year old daughter.
As far as cooking, after trying bargain charcoal and gas grills soon out of college, I finally bought a Weber Silver A and really thought I was doing BBQ. It grilled a lot of good tasting food for us, but I later wondering what smoking was all about. So I bought another bargain appliance in a propane cabinet smoker from the big blue box store and opened a whole new world. I don't remember exactly when this was, but probably 12-14 years ago. After cooking pork butts, ribs, etc. I realized I had a lot to learn when I tried my first brisket (a 4-5 lb flat) and tried to cook it by time more than temp.
After 3-4 years on that, it was starting to age pretty hard and I was tired of checking it every 30 mins to see what the temps were and if it need more chips. I thought a Smokin Tex was the way to go. Kept learning and cooked a lot of pretty decent meals on it. However, when I ruined a pair of Thanksgiving Turkeys because they were over smoked and had rubbery skin (my Grandma kept trying to say how good they were, bless her heart), I realized I had even more research and learning to do.
Somewhere around this time frame I found the BBQ Central show and have been listening fairly regularly to the podcast since. This is where I learned about Meathead and this site, but not sure why I never looked at the Pitmaster club before now. I moved up to pellet grills and tons of gadgets to play with since. I've gone through 3 Traegers and 1 GMG and have now settled on a Memphis Pro. I've learned that every grill has it's pluses and minuses and am still learning what I like to cook on what.
Before the Fireboard came out, I built a heatermeater just for the Wifi temperature monitoring (and the fun of playing with gadgets). Back then I had no interest in pit control. It was great, but the firmware was a bit flaky with the probes at times, so I backed Fireboard (about the same time as I backed two Kickstarter flops: Seasoning Sticks - still frustrated with this one as 90 percent of the sticks arrived as crumbs and the rest couldn't be pushed into mashed taters without breaking - and Coin - ApplePay/Google Pay destroyed them but it was a good idea).
Today...
My son has played soccer 8-9 months a year for the past 14 years, so a lot of my cooks were one free weekend day to cook as much grub as possible to enjoy fresh and for a few days after. Now that soccer days are over, I've recently removed my last Traeger from the arsenal and purchased a new gasser again to cover easy quick meals. But since there's good potential for more free time, I've been working on setting up my Weber Performer as a secondary/backup smoker. I have dabbled a bit with Sous Vide, but I still thinking it's better on fresh veggies than meat. However, Iowa winters can be long, so sometimes a less flavorful but tender Sous Vide and skillet seared steak has to do.
Current Aresenal (always subject to change, lol):
Memphis Pro
Weber Spirit E-330 (3 burner plus sear and side burners)
Weber Performer - with Pit Viper, Slow 'n Sear and freshly arrived rotisserie
Fireboard
ThermoPop x 2
Maverick wireless probes
Anova Sous Vide x 2 (one for meat and other for veggies simultaneously)
I just got back from vacation and haven't grilled for a while, so tomorrow, I'm hoping to try my first whirly bird ever for lunch and throw a couple chuck roasts on the Memphis for dinner and lunches next week.
My name is Shane and I'm from Central Iowa. I'm just days away from crossing the line where I'm closer to 50 than 40 and am rather :-( about it. I work in IT for a large insurance company (Des Moines is the third largest insurance hub in the entire world). I started my IT career in embedded systems, so I love little tech gadgets. I've been lucky enough to find a bride that has put up with me - and my MCS/NCS - for almost 24 years and we have a 18 year old son and 12 year old daughter.
As far as cooking, after trying bargain charcoal and gas grills soon out of college, I finally bought a Weber Silver A and really thought I was doing BBQ. It grilled a lot of good tasting food for us, but I later wondering what smoking was all about. So I bought another bargain appliance in a propane cabinet smoker from the big blue box store and opened a whole new world. I don't remember exactly when this was, but probably 12-14 years ago. After cooking pork butts, ribs, etc. I realized I had a lot to learn when I tried my first brisket (a 4-5 lb flat) and tried to cook it by time more than temp.
After 3-4 years on that, it was starting to age pretty hard and I was tired of checking it every 30 mins to see what the temps were and if it need more chips. I thought a Smokin Tex was the way to go. Kept learning and cooked a lot of pretty decent meals on it. However, when I ruined a pair of Thanksgiving Turkeys because they were over smoked and had rubbery skin (my Grandma kept trying to say how good they were, bless her heart), I realized I had even more research and learning to do.
Somewhere around this time frame I found the BBQ Central show and have been listening fairly regularly to the podcast since. This is where I learned about Meathead and this site, but not sure why I never looked at the Pitmaster club before now. I moved up to pellet grills and tons of gadgets to play with since. I've gone through 3 Traegers and 1 GMG and have now settled on a Memphis Pro. I've learned that every grill has it's pluses and minuses and am still learning what I like to cook on what.
Before the Fireboard came out, I built a heatermeater just for the Wifi temperature monitoring (and the fun of playing with gadgets). Back then I had no interest in pit control. It was great, but the firmware was a bit flaky with the probes at times, so I backed Fireboard (about the same time as I backed two Kickstarter flops: Seasoning Sticks - still frustrated with this one as 90 percent of the sticks arrived as crumbs and the rest couldn't be pushed into mashed taters without breaking - and Coin - ApplePay/Google Pay destroyed them but it was a good idea).
Today...
My son has played soccer 8-9 months a year for the past 14 years, so a lot of my cooks were one free weekend day to cook as much grub as possible to enjoy fresh and for a few days after. Now that soccer days are over, I've recently removed my last Traeger from the arsenal and purchased a new gasser again to cover easy quick meals. But since there's good potential for more free time, I've been working on setting up my Weber Performer as a secondary/backup smoker. I have dabbled a bit with Sous Vide, but I still thinking it's better on fresh veggies than meat. However, Iowa winters can be long, so sometimes a less flavorful but tender Sous Vide and skillet seared steak has to do.
Current Aresenal (always subject to change, lol):
Memphis Pro
Weber Spirit E-330 (3 burner plus sear and side burners)
Weber Performer - with Pit Viper, Slow 'n Sear and freshly arrived rotisserie
Fireboard
ThermoPop x 2
Maverick wireless probes
Anova Sous Vide x 2 (one for meat and other for veggies simultaneously)
I just got back from vacation and haven't grilled for a while, so tomorrow, I'm hoping to try my first whirly bird ever for lunch and throw a couple chuck roasts on the Memphis for dinner and lunches next week.
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