Earliest grilling or meat smoking memory

[Sid P]

Yes, really great thread idea. One of my earliest memories is of a block party where some of our neighbors roasted a whole pig, and the skin was incredible. I can also recall my Dad making hockey pucks on a shallow round grill like the one pictured elsewhere in this thread, usually having changed into shorts but still wearing his black dress socks.

I didn’t have real southern BBQ until 2011 when my daughter moved to Durham NC, and I didn’t really catch the bug until 2019 when I retired and started smoking meat myself. That’s when I found Meathead’s book and this wonderful board.

One funny thing: From roughly 2000-2015 I visited a shooting website every day, and every once in awhile guys would discuss smoking meat, and staying up all night tending something called a "Weber Smoky Mountain". Like Jfrosty27 said, better late than never, right?

[jfmorris]

What was with dads in the 70's? Those dress socks with sandals.... hahaha.

[Alan Brice]

Growing up we rarely had food from the grill. We were on a tight budget with four boys. The one thing I remember most was round steak. Did not know it by any other name than that. I think my dad was soo proud we could afford steak. All cooked well done. Prolly Mgr's specials. I was not appreciative nor impressed. I cut back hard on meat consumption in tenth grade. Learned yogurt n squash and finally took a liking to cheese. I did not grill until I met Kim. She had a big ol CharBroil n I cooked whatever she asked me to.
Did not take a liking to Wibs n Q til a place called Burbanks, was called Flo n Eddie's. Burbank was a talk radio jock. The ribs were out of this world as was the sweet tater casserole.
I began lurking around 2016 or 17 then joined late 2018. The thing that got my attn was ComfortablyNumb sunrise/sunsets. This is something Kim always mentions.
I cooked on her CharBroil gasser til I wised up n bought a PBC n joined AR, late 2018. Smoked a full packer on a cheapo elec box smoker in the summer of 18 n it took 40 plus hours. Knew this was not the way and got edumacated here. Have not looked back since. (Afraid to look back for fear of tripping over the now 7 plus grills n smokers that have found their way to my back porch). Thanks Pitmasters n AmazingRibs, knowledge is power and the ability to prepare great food.

[Sweaty Paul]

I vaguely remember one of those very cheap round flat grills that my parents had and my dad cooking on it. Briquettes and lighter fluid and I especially remember the smell of the lighter fluid and freshly lit briquettes. I remember being very impatient while waiting for the coals to get hot. I don’t remember the meal, however, I remember that we didn’t cook outside very often.

That changed when my parents got a John Deere gas grill when I was about 10. It was built like a Sherman Tank, as you might imagine, and had a very heavy lid. Once we got that we cooked out frequently with grilling duties being passed to me at about age 13 or 14 as this was a very good way for my parents to avoid going out-of-doors in the hot Iowa summer sun and humidity. We had lots of steak as we lived in Iowa and bought beef by the 1/2 twice yearly. The net result is I got good cooking out-of-doors. That John Deere grill lasted nearly 20 years living uncovered for its entirety. They ultimately retired it in favor of a Weber gas grill.

[MBMorgan]

Interesting question. My dad (literally ... no joke ... I do mean "literally") couldn't boil water ... and we NEVER owned a grill or anything remotely resembling one. Dear Old Mom could boil water ... but only on an electric stove. Sometime around the age of 12 or 13, I decided to take up outdoor grilling and arranged some concrete blocks in a "U" shape out in the yard, on top of which I set a half-assed grate obtained from a local metal working shop. I learned a few things about grilling pretty quickly ... the most important of which was that gasoline is not a good starter. After that, incinerated steaks and burgers were my bread and butter (I got better eventually ... or so I'm told .

[texastweeter]

Weenies on a sassafras stick over a fire at my Grammys house with all my relatives.

[Sweaty Paul]

I remember cooking the old red hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick over a fire on the sandbar with my grandparents. So many good memories and the smells come rushing back. Thanks for the reminder.

[barelfly]

There are a few I have, camping with my dad and grandfather, using the open fire to cook hot dogs. The other, watching my Dad cook on his new Weber, a red Weber gasser…I’ve commented a few times that we still have that red Weber gasser at the lake, it’s gotta be close to 40 years old. But that thing has sentimental value to me…watching Dad, learning to grill on it, cooking my first steaks (at least steaks for myself and best friend and our girlfriends that both ended up being our wives). Glad we still have it and Dad likes to tinker with things and has replaced all the inner parts over the years.

[Beefchop]

What a great memory to share of your dad! My earliest memory is of my dad cooking steaks on a gas grill for the Fourth of July at my grandpa's cabin near Houghton Lake in Michigan. But my true introduction to BBQ was in the Peace Corps - learning from Armenians how to cook "khorovatz" (skewered meats and vegetables cooked over wood fire coals).

[radiodome21]

I started grilling on my own when I was in junior high. My parents bought a Ducane gas grill. Of course they didn’t really know how to use it and it wasn’t used that much other than me. But I could grill a mean cheeseburger and my dad said my steaks were amazing.

as for smoking meats the first thing I ever smoked was a rack of baby back ribs on my Weber spirit using wood chips in a foil smoke pouch I made. This was at our first house back in 2011. This happened right after I stumbled upon some“Amazing” BBQ website that forever changed my life.

[BFlynn]

I don't ever remember my dad NOT grilling . But it was chicken breast, burgers, steaks, etc not smoking


First smoking memory is my uncle smoking a turkey he'd shot, for Thanksgiving when I was maybe 7, and it was the worst turkey I ever had. It was leather.

One of my best memories was my first official job was stocking the drink coolers and cleaning parking lot at a gas station, when I was 14. A guy had just started a BBQ trailer and kept some perishables in the gas station, walkin cooler. So I got to know Ed pretty well. Probably twice a week, hed have ribs that "had gone too long" and he wasn't going to sell. He'd send me home with 2 racks of ribs. Id eat 1 on the walk home and share the other with the family.

[Huskee]

My dad bought a gas grill in the mid/late 80s, I wanna say '87ish. A Kenmore. It was one of those from that time period that used lava rocks and had a big window on the front. I remember helping him assemble it when I was a kid. He still uses that exact same grill to this day, he's replaced the burners a few times, the lava rocks a couple times, and now there's something else in there in place of the lava rocks and I don't remember what. It's kept under a overhanging roof with a cover so no direct exposure to water.

Anyway, once we got that he grilled everything. He made burgers a lot, chicken legs a lot, etc. He didn't have great info about how to make them perfect though. Example- his BBQ chicken legs were always sauced right away and blackened heavily from flareups, because that was all anyone really knew at the time. The char was deemed acceptable I guess, even expected perhaps. It was how you knew it was done. No such thing as a meat thermometer.

Everything was grilled, on a gas grill, by a guy who wanted to play with fire but didn't have the info we have today. He tried, and he got better. But he never really understood the idea of low power (everything was grilled on HIGH) nor was grilling indirectly a concept.

When I moved out and got my first place as a young bachelor, I got a cheap $25 garage sale gas grill and began grilling, because that's what a guy has to do. I used LOW a lot more than my dad did, and realized not everything needs cooked to a blackened crisp. I rationalized that in an oven you bake at certain temperatures, not on 'max until black' so why do that when grilling. So I experimented more than I think my dad did. I got decent at grilling different things. But still, no meat thermometer- this was circa 1999-2000, when 'a man grills a steak by feel', you don't use a girly thermometer. I felt a rite of passage was learning when meat is done by feel, that it was a skill I needed to acquire.

After getting married and going through a couple gassers over the years I moved on to charcoal. Also bought a cheap dial meat thermometer, the kind you see hanging in the utensil aisle in a grocery store for $1.69. This was probably '08 or '09 by this time. Boy was that a learning curve. Made great tasting ribs that were tough as nails. Had no clue about taking pork beyond 165 up to 200, I thought my tough ribs at 165 were overcooked so my next rack went to 160. It was around this time of utter frustration that I Googled (Google had now existed several years thankfully) how to smoke amazing ribs. This was roughly the first, maybe second, year Meathead had AmazingRibs.com in existence. The rest is history.

TLDR: Ribs undercooked to only 165 that were tough, so I thought they were overcooked and my next rack I took lower, and surprise! They were just as bad.

[surfdog]

Huskee ThermoPop FTW! LOL I wasn’t going to spring for a Thermapen as I didn’t know if they’d actually use it. My father likes them both. My mum still seems sceptical…despite liking the results. LOL Mostly cooked or checked by my father. He’ll say something is done and she’ll still chime in that “it’s only been cooking for x-amount of time.” SMH

[Huskee]

surfdog Old habits die hard... My mom still raves about my pork loin chops being so juicy. It's been 2 or 3 years since we had them for dinner, and she still brings it up. I tell her "I gave you a digital food thermometer, you can do it just grill your pork chops but only take them to 135-140 max", and she just can't do it. She cooks them until they're leather. But she'll eat them here and rave!

[surfdog]

Huskee They could be sisters. LOL

[Duanessmokedmeats]

I am the first generation smoker. Hoping to pass on to my daughter.
Started out with a Masterbuilt propane smoker, given to me by my daughter. Then to to a Traeger, then Yoder YS640, then a Camp Chef, finally ended up with Pit Barrels. Charcoal flavor for my family and friends.

[58limited]

I remember dad grilling burgers and hotdogs on a PK grill in the 1970s. He would do a small brisket flat too, in a pan with liquid but open top for part of the cook. It was good but not as good as the smoked briskets I can do now.

I wish I had paid attention to my uncle: he made what is basically a pot roast with gravy on the grill. I don't remember the smoke being strong but it was better than anything similar that I've made. If I recall correctly, he finished it by putting biscuits on top after making the gravy out of the cooking liquid.

At my other Uncle's ranch in the Hill Country we used to grill Italian dressing marinated chicken down by the swimming hole over a mesquite fire - so good!

[CountrySwagger]

As a kid growing up in the 80s we would go to the family cookouts or reunions and my dad and his brothers were in charge of the grill. They grilled bbq chicken every time.

Anyway, they always set the grill up under a tree for the shade - it get's hot in middle GA. I remember being not much taller than the shelf on the grill watching the flames burn the bottom of the oak tree leaves. The fire they'd build was always a huge pile of coals and probably a whole dinosaur worth of lighter fluid. I remember feeling the heat from the screaming hot grill and the chicken smelling so good with the char and caremelized sugars and then the horrible smell of the leg or wing that inevitably wound up on fire in the coals somehow. Chicken was done in no time and the bbq sauce was just Heinz 57 and honey.

You'd get your chicken leg and your beans or whatever and I vivedly remember biting the chicken leg and tearing the meat away and there was ALWAYS pink, barely cooked chicken down by the bone. Every. Single. Time. As I got older and started doing the cooking I realized what they had been doing and how hot and fast they cooked the chicken. I broke the cycle. Me, my mom and my sisters would joke with Dad about how he made the best damn medium rare chicken we'd ever had.

I'd pay a lot of money for another piece of that chicken.

[Jfrosty27]

I must admit that this is how I cooked chicken on the grill for years. Heck. I was in my 20’s, had zero guidance, and basically just went for it. What did I know? A miracle nobody got sick.

[Clark]

My first outdoor cooking of any kind was a disaster. In the mid 50s, my Boy Scout troop had a special camping trip solely to let us get our cooking merit badges. We were supposed to bake potatoes wrapped and placed in the coals, plus cook a chicken half (or quarter) on a stick over the fire. I was not too patient then and always tried serving the Scoutmaster uncooked potatoes and raw chicken. Never did get that merit badge.

When I was 18 fresh out of basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, I spent a couple of nights with my favorite aunt/uncle in Columbia, MO. He cooked some porterhouse steaks on charcoal and made it so simple! A splash of Worcestershire, S &P, and lots of attention. He got me interested in cooking.

When I got married (1st wife) my folks gave us a new Char Broil charcoal grill w/rotisserie. That was in 1970 when their grills were heavy metal and solid! I cooked on that several times a week and experimented a lot. I started cooking on two zones fires out of curiosity, and really liked the results. That was the beginning of my smoking years.

I dumped the wife after a few years but kept the grill for 20 years. I've been grilling and smoking on different cookers since.

[dpearce]

We spent a lot of time at state parks growing up, walking trails, swimming, picnicking, sometimes camping or renting a cabin. With my family it was 5 kids in the 70's, so that was pretty much our vacations. Didn't have money for "exotic" locations. ;-)

Dad would always grill out on either the open air grills the parks provided, or he'd drag along a small cast iron tabletop grill to cook on. Every once in a blue moon, the Coleman gas stove. Hamburgers and hotdogs, were all I remember him cooking like that.

Since I was the youngest, I couldn't even tell you when my first memory was. I know they were dragging me along before I could walk. But one thing is for sure, everything tasted better outside, at least that's what I remember!