My first experience with real barbecue was in 2015. Prior to that all I had experience was my parents boiling ribs then throwing them on the grill with sauce or really bad Dickey's BBQ. I visited Austin with some friends and we went to Franklins; it was very good. When I got back to Oregon, I wanted more, but there was no commercial route for getting a fix. Being the self reliant type, I set about finding a way to make my own. Luckily I found AR and quickly learned the old hand-me-down Weber I had been lugging around for the last four years was able to make BBQ! Woohoo! From there it was learning, burning, and trying lots of restaurants as BBQ became popular in the NW and when I came to visit friends in Austin. Then in 2018 I decided I should support the site I had been using; so I bought Meatheads book. That led to a free trial of the Pitmaster club...and then here I am 🤷🼠ðŸ¤
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I’m in category #4. Bein a northerner didn’t know much about Q. Started cookin about 15-16 years ago. Cut my teeth on Chinese with a start from Matin Yan. Had a grill but traditionally just burnt the crap out of everthing especially chicken, wow on the chicken. I mean cardboard delight. Started watching Raichlen & then bought a couple of his books & changed my life. Then I stumbled on another book in 2013 by Myron Mixon & I was hooked big time. Needed to devour everything I could on BBQ. I googled best books on BBQ & this guy had a list & I bought 7 of em. Merrily on my way I was cookin Q, cool! Went to look up "this guy" who had this top ten list and he had a web site so I checked it out & hesitatingly joined, it was Meathead & Amazing Ribs. Now I are a rill good cook, yessir!Last edited by FireMan; June 7, 2021, 09:42 PM.Comment
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Growing up, those metal things in peoples' backyards were *grills*, you cooked hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken on them, and you were a good "barbecuer" if you didn't incinerate the chicken. (I'd heard of people "barbecuing" steaks, but that was for the rich people, which we weren't.) It wasn't till I moved to Albuquerque in the late 90's that I discovered Rudy's BBQ -- and real brisket and pork ribs. I was gobsmacked to find out that brisket didn't have to be dry and grey-brown, and that pork ribs are amazing. But of course you had to have a truck-sized smoker and piles of wood to do all that, right? I went back to Rudy's every chance I got. Pulled pork, hot sausage, chicken, turkey, prime rib -- I was absolutely hooked. And I never imagined you could do this yourself.
Then we moved to North Carolina. People actually smoked meat in their back yard and pulled pork was a sacrament. Maybe I could do this! I bought a little Weber, a bag of KBB, a copy of Raichlen's How To Grill, a 7 lb. brisket, and marched out into the back yard. Followed the instructions for Lean and Mean Texas Barbecued Brisket exactly. Soaked the hickory chips in beer, set up a 2-zone fire with a full chimney, put the meat in a foil pan, added 12 fresh (unlit) coals and half a cup of hickory chips every hour, mopped the thing every 15 minutes and expected the brisket to reach 190 in 6 hours (SIX HOURS? was he kidding? NOTHING takes that long to cook!) as the recipe said. No mention of fire temperature. I'll let you imagine the results.
I tried a few more times. I kinda gave up on low-and-slow for several years after that, but never stopped reading and researching *about* food, not simply cookbooks. And then came Amazing Ribs and The Pit. Two new Webers, one kitted up for dedicated smoking. And more understanding of what real barbecue involves. And now, really good food.Last edited by Ann-Marie in the backyard; June 7, 2021, 06:46 AM.Comment
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My dad never cooked anything indoors or out unless at deer camp, but my grandfather got an old fashioned homemade barrel bbq pit. Spray painted silver. Only ever had burnt burgers off of it. My first cooker was a $20 grill from TG&Y. More burnt burgers.
Stepped up to cheap gasser, growing frustration. The journey took a better turn about 1990 with an OK Joe Longhorn offset. (When Oklahoma Joe meant something better than now.) of course I was in over my head, but it was fun. Several very good cookers since then, but finding AR has really upped my game.Last edited by Texas Larry; June 8, 2021, 06:37 AM.Comment
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Sort of #3 for me. growing up, lots of straight-up grilling. My father would TORCH everything, but I loved it especially because he would let me squirt a huge amount of fluid on the charcoal - waaay cool flames! If we had non-grilled, ie. BBQ ribs mostly, it was dine-out at Chris-n-Pitts. I've almost always had a grill, either charcoal or gasser, but never did any smoking or even indirect. In fact, I knew nothing about those techniques. Work and travel for work sort of kept any ideas of long cooks out of my consciousness until after I retired (at 67).
Then the local BBQ joint we loved shutdown in a spat with the city. That left nothing close by that had the quality of Rick's ribs (he served them all: BB's, St. Louis, spares and beef dino ribs). That led to my first smoker, a Camp Chef DLX. That led to finding out how to use the dang thing, which led to forums, which led to The Pit. And all that led to the wonders of smoking, SV, indirect cooking, reverse and forward searing, and several increases in pants size.
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My family did not grill or smoke anything for the most part. My first experience was when my Mom was working in downtown Chicago. Sometimes we'd go downtown on the weekends. Often, we'd eat at Ribs & Bibs -- Can't really recall what it was like, but I remember loving it.Comment
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I know growing up that my dad did not make good food on a grill, his dad made a great steak on a grill. Pretty much only grew up only eating "cook out food" hot dogs, brats, and an occasional burger on a small grill on a sandbar while out boating. I did not really grill or cook out much until a few years ago, I still have not been to a proper "bbq". But, mostly just in the past few years after my wife bought me a 22 kettle in fall of 2018. Prior to that I had a really crappy Aussie dual fuel thing that really was not good at either fuel.Comment
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Aaah, "The Steak". The image is still seared in my mind. -
Panhead John, I call b.s. we all know you do not have a functional mind!
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#2 for sure. My mom is from outside Memphis, grew up on a farm. My grandad raised hogs for market, and all my aunts and uncles, all 10 of them (my grandma had 11 kids) could cook over fire. Plus, my great aunt had 9 kids, and they can do the same, they lived down the street from grandma and grandad. My grandad eventually moved his family to Toledo (my Mom kept going and ended up in Detroit), and at every picnic, which was just about every weekend in the summer, something got grilled or smoked. Heck, some of my second cousins that are still outside of Memphis built a smoker out of 2 porcelain covered steel bathtubs stacked on each other. Took 2 people to raise the top of the thing, they told me they could get that thing to run for a couple of days. They used the drains as vents. The Memphis guys also are really good at whole hog in the pit in the ground, the best pork I have ever tasted. As an aside, one of the Memphis clan introduced me to apple shine one night by telling me he had something in the truck to show me. It was real good, real smooth, but the next day was pretty miserable...
I soaked up some of that, and I started on those cheap Brinkmann water smokers. Always kept a kettle. Went through 4 or 5 of those before I found the WSM. Was smoking ribs pretty well and turkeys and butts, but I didn’t try a brisket before I got here. A co-worker told me about you guys, now I am hooked.Comment
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Is that bathtub rig still around? I'd love to see that thing inaction! -
CaptainMike, it has been a couple years since I was there, but next time I'll take a pic. It is a beautiful thing. Old claw foot tubs; probably worth a fortune before they rigged them up. I didn't think to ask them how they got the top one in place.
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I remember a Weber kettle that didn’t get used very often, but the memory I have is Dad with some t-bones seared on it. That smell was distinct. Seared steak fat was amazing too.
smoking meat is a last 15 years thing when we bought our second house and the previous owners left a cheap bullet smoker. The cue wasn’t very good until I bought a real smoker and found this site. I didn’t really like bbq because I wasn’t a fan of meat slathered in sauce when I was younger, but it eventually grew on me and this site made me graduate from "it has to have sauce to be bbq."Comment
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I grew up in Memphis so I think I have always been aware of it. Gridley’s opened when I was in high school and that was when I really started enjoying BBQ. Even had my first date with my wife there.
My cooking started with a friend who was friends with John Willingham (look at the list of members of BBQ Hall of Fame). Through our mutual friend we became acquainted. On the first cook I was involved with, we borrowed Willingham’s rig for a charity cook.Comment
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My first experience was in UK London during the Summer of Love, with a sugar cube.Comment
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Uh-oh, looks like we have another "John" in the club!! Step aside Panhead John
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Growing up in Massachusetts in the late 70's early 80's there was not much real BBQ to be found in our area. At home we grilled burgers, chicken, hot dogs, sausage, and steaks and all kinds of unique foods. My Dad was in the army and lived in Japan for a bit and also the Pacific Northwest. He lived in Florida and went to medical school at the University of Florida on the GI Bill. We ate all kinds of strange food (compared to my friends). We had a hibachi and he made teriyaki chicken on it that was amazing. We did skewers with lamb and onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Steak au poivre. Salmon on cedar planks. We had quail marinated in Italian dressing. No one in suburban Mass was eating quail. Grilled oysters. Looking back I didn't realize how fortunate we were growing up exposed to food like that.
Living in the South he knew what real BBQ was you just couldn't get it up north. BBQ at that time was grilled meats at Italian joints in East Boston. We had grilled lamb, chicken, and steak tips when we went out for BBQ. No one did low and slow. Then my Dad found a Korean restaurant that actually smoked meat low and slow Southern style as he put it. It was amazing. I think I was 12 or 13 years old when we went there. My first real BBQ. Then a few more places started opening up and true BBQ became more available.
When I bought my first house he gave me a BGE as a house warming present. I tried many times to smoke ribs and failed miserably. I could make great chicken and steaks but no luck with BBQ. This was before the interweb so I had no way to learn. I gave up on it for years. Then I bought Meat Head's book and it led me here.Comment
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My first real experience was with Armenian khorovatz when I was serving there with the US Peace Corps right after college. Large skewers of meat cooked over hot wood coals. Marinated chunks and ground kabobs. Lamb, chicken, beef, and pork. It was something the men did and we'd toast with homemade vodka made from fruit. They also roast potatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes that way and serve with a flat bread (lavash). First time I'd ever really had meat cooked that way. Growing up in Michigan on a dairy farm we'd grill once or twice a year during the summer, and there was the occasional pig roast, but I'd never really experienced BBQ until I went abroad. I circled back to BBQ in my late 20s when I took a class with the 3 Eyz BBQ team in Maryland. Been hooked ever since!Attached FilesLast edited by Beefchop; June 8, 2021, 10:43 AM.Comment
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Trying to catch up on posts and just now found this one. I'm shocked and amazed that no one came clean about their first bbq experience. This is mine, a picture speaks a thousand words....
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i got here to the end of this thread and I don't recall what the choices were except for being around good BBQ and that was certainly not the case for me. We did eat good food in general, however - Dad was from New Orleans and had been eating at Galatoire's and Commander's Palace since he was a young lad - and Mom grew up eating fine dining in Los Angeles and San Fransisco - so there was a lot of eating in fancy restaurants during my childhood.
My earliest BBQ memories are actually from indoor grilling on an electric, counter-top Farberware Open Hearth Broiler - Rotiesserie in the 1970s. I can still remember the smell of fresh-packed hamburger patties grilling away and watching the grease drip from the grill grate. We cooked everything from whole chickens to Christmas prime rib roasts to steaks and pork chops and a whole lot of hamburgers and hotdogs.
As for outdoor barbecue, I was pretty fortunate to see a lot of cool 1970s backyard barbecues. My grandfather owned a nursey and hardware store and seeing the growing trend of backyard swimming pools and patios in southern California he opened a patio store nextdoor to the nursey and hardware in the 1960s. They sold everything backyard related from patio furniture to barbecues to fire pits, etc. As a result, my grandfather usually had the latest and greatest barbecues on the market. Still, they were primarily used for the standard holiday weekend bbq fare such as hamburgers and hotdogs, maybe some chicken now and again. Gramps mostly stocked gas BBQs since it was all the rage at the time but they also had Son of Hibachi and Weber kettles and a few others. I do remember one that looked like the the original PK but I don't remember a name on it (I was only 8-years-old or so at the time).
Around 1989 my parents upgraded their old Char-Broil gasser to a Weber Genesis, which came with a large manual in a white plastic 3-ring binder than instructed the end user on barbecue technique. This is the first time I learned about direct and indirect heat and how to actually use a barbecue other than just lighting it up and letting it rip. It was on that barbecue that I really got my grilling chops - from basic grilling to smoking a turkey on Thanksgiving. I was 18-years-old at the time and going to college and my interest in grilling led me to jobs in restaurants where I've worked pizza, short order, prep, broiler, saute, salad and appetizer, desserts, busser and dishwasher (screw waitstaff f-ers!).
Around 1994 I bought a Weber kettle and continued trying to cook new and different meals. I'm a very big fan of Santa Maria-style BBQ and I've been cooking tri-tip over red oak for some time. I've also traveled throughout Mexico rather extensively most of my life and have tried a lot of regional bbq from the different states and fell in love with the smoky mesquite flavor that is common in Mexican bbq- particularily Ranchera carne asada, mesquite-smoked ribs and chicken, and smoked chiles used for everything from salsas to chile rellenos. I love grilling and smoking meats or whatever sounds tasty. it's been a long, strange trip and i think i'll keep on grilling til I can't no mo. as Mr. Bones might say - "Until the imminent dirt nap!" Cheers!
My earliest memory of "BBQ" on the Farberware Open Hearth Broiler - Rotissoire
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