Several folks on the forum have expressed interest in the Lone Star Grillz here in the Houston area. After having visited their website I was curious and decided to take the one hour ride north of Houston to Willis to have a look see for myself.
On an editorial note, when I moved to Houston in the mid-1970s I was working as a structural and pipe welder/fabricator at the time and thus I have fairly keen eye for detail as to fit and finish on large barbecue smokers. Back then it seemed that everyone had some form of smoker or grill since it was a Texan’s God given birthright seemingly ingrained into their DNA. The large stick burners were mostly seen in the competition cook offs with most backyard hacks having kettles or grills or what we used to call barrel cookers. You took a 55 gallon drum, cut a door in it, stuck some legs on it and threw in some grates. Some mighty good que came out of those old barrels but they rusted and fell apart as fast as they could be made.
Fast forward to the present, barbequing has exploded into the national and international phenomenon that it’s currently experiencing. With that has come the need for more as well as innovative ways to cook it. Here in Houston we had a pent up demand to begin with but with the changes to the oil and gas industry from mostly blue collar to a more engineering and exploration white collar one, a lot of local fab shops had to adjust to other means of survival. Thus the growing surge of pit makers all over the city. You can Goggle in bbq pits for sale locally and easily find a dozen shops selling all manner of stick burners in every configuration imaginable. We also see a surge of other types of cooker like pellets and cabinets being offered as well. It’s a bit overwhelming and hard to tell who in the crowd actually has the best product, after all it’s a welded hunk of plate and pipe with a fire box attached, how much better can it be?
I had a quiet Friday afternoon so I made the trek up to Lone Star Grillz and met with the owner and his wife, Chris and Amber Goodlander. They had a real nice fabrication facility and a dedicated show room building full of their wears. Along with stick burners they carry a line of pellet grills, Big Green Eggs and a variety of propane gassers. But I was there to see the stick burners.
The thing that struck me immediately was the fabrication quality. The fit and finish was excellent on all the units in his showroom. They custom bend and roll their corners, for instance, avoiding having to weld end plates to the barrels. Saves on labor time but also allows for better fit and finish holding tighter tolerances. His cook chamber lids fit up against the barrel as tight as I have seen with no gaps what-so-ever. Obviously this makes for a very tight cooking chamber helping to avoid heat and smoke loss. Chris mentioned that he prides himself in that detail saying it takes them nearly as long to fit up the lid as it does to assemble the rest of the cooker!
I was especially impressed with his fire boxes. He does a standard ¼†plate fire box with an optional upgrade to ½â€. Not only would that ½â€ option increase and provide greater heat retention and longer burn times, it would probably last several lifetimes! The top has a hinged lid that is closed when the fire box is only feeding the cooker, but also opens to a griddle plate and a finally a grill grate. This is certainly not a unique feature but very well done, again the fit and finish were excellent.
The actual burn grate was unlike anything I’ve seen before. Unlike conventional expanded metal grates or baskets, they take a ½â€ plate and CNC cut out grooves and shape it to slide into and out of the fire box either at the bottom for large fires or adjustable upwards to use the upper grate as a bbq grill over direct heat.
He also employs a set of horizontal moving plates within the cook chamber that works to channel the heat across the box instead of fixed baffles or reverse channeling. This gives you an infinite amount of choices as to how you want your heat at various points along the cook. Chris claims he can control heat this way better than even the reverse channeling employed by other pit designs.
Finally I noticed the heavy duty casters and the sexy off-road big tire package. Both are capable of 1000 pounds each and if anything a bit of over kill but certainly of excellent quality. I asked if the off-road package made it capable of being pulled behind a vehicle and he said it was not. Mainly used in rough terrain where bbq cook offs may be held. That package, by the way, was an additional $750 !
The thing that really peaked my curiosity was some of the other offerings he had. He had these really nice custom grills that had stainless roll tops and grill grates, again cut out on his CNC machine.
He had nice heavy duty propane burner plates, and especially nice insulated vertical smokers (oh yea daddy likes!) that come in three sizes. The large unit was capable of 4550 sq in of cooking space, with the "mini" (my favorite) having nearly 1500 sq in and the "pee wee" having about 1125 sq in with three grates. These units are very well made and very well insulated. Throw in a bag of charcoal and they run for days.
On an editorial note, when I moved to Houston in the mid-1970s I was working as a structural and pipe welder/fabricator at the time and thus I have fairly keen eye for detail as to fit and finish on large barbecue smokers. Back then it seemed that everyone had some form of smoker or grill since it was a Texan’s God given birthright seemingly ingrained into their DNA. The large stick burners were mostly seen in the competition cook offs with most backyard hacks having kettles or grills or what we used to call barrel cookers. You took a 55 gallon drum, cut a door in it, stuck some legs on it and threw in some grates. Some mighty good que came out of those old barrels but they rusted and fell apart as fast as they could be made.
Fast forward to the present, barbequing has exploded into the national and international phenomenon that it’s currently experiencing. With that has come the need for more as well as innovative ways to cook it. Here in Houston we had a pent up demand to begin with but with the changes to the oil and gas industry from mostly blue collar to a more engineering and exploration white collar one, a lot of local fab shops had to adjust to other means of survival. Thus the growing surge of pit makers all over the city. You can Goggle in bbq pits for sale locally and easily find a dozen shops selling all manner of stick burners in every configuration imaginable. We also see a surge of other types of cooker like pellets and cabinets being offered as well. It’s a bit overwhelming and hard to tell who in the crowd actually has the best product, after all it’s a welded hunk of plate and pipe with a fire box attached, how much better can it be?
I had a quiet Friday afternoon so I made the trek up to Lone Star Grillz and met with the owner and his wife, Chris and Amber Goodlander. They had a real nice fabrication facility and a dedicated show room building full of their wears. Along with stick burners they carry a line of pellet grills, Big Green Eggs and a variety of propane gassers. But I was there to see the stick burners.
The thing that struck me immediately was the fabrication quality. The fit and finish was excellent on all the units in his showroom. They custom bend and roll their corners, for instance, avoiding having to weld end plates to the barrels. Saves on labor time but also allows for better fit and finish holding tighter tolerances. His cook chamber lids fit up against the barrel as tight as I have seen with no gaps what-so-ever. Obviously this makes for a very tight cooking chamber helping to avoid heat and smoke loss. Chris mentioned that he prides himself in that detail saying it takes them nearly as long to fit up the lid as it does to assemble the rest of the cooker!
I was especially impressed with his fire boxes. He does a standard ¼†plate fire box with an optional upgrade to ½â€. Not only would that ½â€ option increase and provide greater heat retention and longer burn times, it would probably last several lifetimes! The top has a hinged lid that is closed when the fire box is only feeding the cooker, but also opens to a griddle plate and a finally a grill grate. This is certainly not a unique feature but very well done, again the fit and finish were excellent.
The actual burn grate was unlike anything I’ve seen before. Unlike conventional expanded metal grates or baskets, they take a ½â€ plate and CNC cut out grooves and shape it to slide into and out of the fire box either at the bottom for large fires or adjustable upwards to use the upper grate as a bbq grill over direct heat.
He also employs a set of horizontal moving plates within the cook chamber that works to channel the heat across the box instead of fixed baffles or reverse channeling. This gives you an infinite amount of choices as to how you want your heat at various points along the cook. Chris claims he can control heat this way better than even the reverse channeling employed by other pit designs.
Finally I noticed the heavy duty casters and the sexy off-road big tire package. Both are capable of 1000 pounds each and if anything a bit of over kill but certainly of excellent quality. I asked if the off-road package made it capable of being pulled behind a vehicle and he said it was not. Mainly used in rough terrain where bbq cook offs may be held. That package, by the way, was an additional $750 !
The thing that really peaked my curiosity was some of the other offerings he had. He had these really nice custom grills that had stainless roll tops and grill grates, again cut out on his CNC machine.
He had nice heavy duty propane burner plates, and especially nice insulated vertical smokers (oh yea daddy likes!) that come in three sizes. The large unit was capable of 4550 sq in of cooking space, with the "mini" (my favorite) having nearly 1500 sq in and the "pee wee" having about 1125 sq in with three grates. These units are very well made and very well insulated. Throw in a bag of charcoal and they run for days.
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