Hey there everyone! My name is Burt and I live in Gurnee, IL.., I joined the forum after lurking on and off for a year, first off I want to say thank you for all the great tips and advise that many of you have provided here, and that I am definitely a better cook for having read everyone's DO'S and more importantly allot of your DON'TS!
So your probably thinking Gurnee? Where's that? Well Gurnee is located smack dab between Milwaukee & Chicago, it's home to 6 Flags Great America, a boatload of hotels and is vast a culinary wasteland full of every lousy national chain restaurant known to man (except Famous Dave's! I guess even Dave thought we needed a water park hotel more than another chain restaurant, but that's another story). In other words, the food here stinks, and we don't have any BBQ joints around for miles, and herein lies my frustration: I'm a fine wine, dinning and BBQ nut, and while Gurnee is a great place to raise kids and own a home, its not the food Mecca I'd like it to be, and most likely it never will be either.
I grew up in Chicago and was spoiled by a life of wonderful culinary options all around me, I firmly believe that per capita Chicago has more great restaurants than anywhere else on the planet! Now that being said, I also recognize that Chicago BBQ is NOT on a par with most of the other major Q' capitols like Texas, Oklahoma & some parts of the south. But we do have a few places can hold their own, and as everyone may know we do make some kick butt babyback ribs up here!
Last year I took the family on a BBQ and amusement park trip, we traveled 2,500 miles from Chicago to Denver, down to New Mexico and across Texas up into OK City and through St. Louis and then back home, we hit no less than 15 BBQ joints and about 10 parks over three weeks. Two big highlights were two of the best places I've ever ate at; Earls in OK City and Super Smokers in St. Louis (Eureka). I also make sure I hit Rudy's whenever I'm in Round Rock, TX on business, man I sure wish I could get that level of Q up this way.
So in order to get great BBQ I've had to either drive for hours or learn to do it myself. Thus enter the home chef; I have a Weber Genesis Gold B (with the chip steam & smoke attachment), a Cookshack SM009 and Masterbuilt Smoker oven. Let me start by saying that if it was even remotely possible to get smoker results on my Weber (or any other grill) I would have never gone down the smoker path to begin with, but alas, it wasn't, so I started out by getting a MB & then later I bought the CS when I was ready to get serious. Don't get me wrong, I still love to grill on the Weber, in fact and there is nothing quite like like it for steak, chicken or just finishing out my smoked foods, I just load those chips, and in 10-15 mins I'm cooking as hot as 300�-700� even now in the 20� weather, but slow and low isn't the Weber way. So now I think I have the best of all worlds. And I eat great Q at home and everyone in the neighborhood thinks I a BBQ king, all thanks to the CS and you guys! Take care-