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Hello from the 80/35 Crossroads

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    Hello from the 80/35 Crossroads

    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.




    #2
    Greetings from South Africa

    Comment


      #3
      Welcome to the Pit from the California Delta.

      Comment


        #4
        Welcome from Maryland

        Comment


          #5
          Glad you’re here. Welcome from south Texas!

          Comment


            #6
            Welcome to The Pit Shane. I hope you give that Performer a good workout.

            Comment


              #7
              Welcome to the pit from Colorado. Looking forward to more of your contributions.

              Comment


                #8
                Welcome from TN. Sounds like you have a pretty good bit of experience to share with us.

                Comment


                • glitchy
                  glitchy commented
                  Editing a comment
                  I hope to keep learning, but will share what I can. I would say I probably have more experience with cookers than food. I've had a lot of different grills, but don't get to use them as much as I'd like. Probably only a couple times a month on average...hoping that changes.

                • klflowers
                  klflowers commented
                  Editing a comment
                  Same here, glitchy, not enough time to cook as much as I want. Plus it is just my wife and I (but I have kids and grandkids that scarf up leftovers). This place will make you want to cook even more!

                #9
                Welcome to the Pit from Arizona!

                Comment


                  #10
                  Greetings from Huntington Beach, CA.

                  Comment


                    #11
                    Welcome from Colorado ...

                    Comment


                      #12
                      Welcome to The Pit from Madison, WI

                      Comment


                        #13
                        Greetings from Ankeny, Shane!

                        Comment


                          #14
                          Seriously balling man. Uses a Weber Performer as "Back Up." Dang!

                          Huntington Beach welcomes you sir. All of those gadgets too.

                          Comment


                          • glitchy
                            glitchy commented
                            Editing a comment
                            LOL, now I feel self conscious. I will use the Performer as a backup smoker, but it's been my featured steak cooker for a couple years. My buddies have been buying a Harley or a boat or golf clubs and I saved up for a while and bought a couple grills instead. Haven't had much time for those other types of hobbies this past decade so it was easier to funnel a little extra cash towards BBQ.

                          • HouseHomey
                            HouseHomey commented
                            Editing a comment
                            glitchy do you have a Slow n Sear? They are life changing for the kettle. A must for me. I have one for the 22 and one for the 26. I think the performer is a low profile right? They have that too. Adrenaline bbq products are first rate in my book.

                          • glitchy
                            glitchy commented
                            Editing a comment
                            I do have the Slow N Sear and Drip N Griddle. It’s definitely a great product. Going to use it tomorrow for my first whirly bird.

                          #15
                          I was just going through a kitchen cabinet this week and found the Seasoning Stix I received as a backer of their kickstarter campaign from back in my naive pre-Pitmaster Club days. Never opened. Expired a year and a half ago. Straight to the trash.

                          Comment


                          • glitchy
                            glitchy commented
                            Editing a comment
                            Yeah, it sounded like such a good idea when they were promoting it. Someone is still doing something with it though as I saw a seasoning stix insertion tool a couple weeks ago when I was Googling to see what ever happened to them. Overall, still looked almost dead though. Even if it did work, the idea that they'd make the right blends for everyone/everything was probably absurd since they'd have had the market to themselves for a while and it would be impossible to make your own.

                          • jumbo7676
                            jumbo7676 commented
                            Editing a comment
                            glitchy If I knew then what I know now, I would have just bought a meat injector to to experiment with instead.

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