Most cooks have been stick burners for the early years of their careers and produced fine Q and loved their stickburners.Often,it could be the manly art of staying up all night splitting logs and feeding the fire every half hour,or so.Of course they prayed there was no rain,cold,or wind to mess up the temps in the pit.
As their achievments grew,along with their age and wisdom,they found they traveled much greater distances to compete and were going 3 and 4 weekends a month.Often the weather didn't suit smoker cooking.
The beating their bodies took and the decrease in the "fun" they remembered in cooking,drove most to seek out cookers that allowed them to enjoy "the good old days".
As they looked around at some of the senior cooks that were winning even more,it seemed to be a preponderance of pelletheads.
We record the bbq shows and watch them when time permits and last night we watched June 30,2013 from the NASCAR races at Martinsville,VA
Rob Bagby had built stickburners for a school class of attention deficit boys and taught them to market and presell turkeys during the semester and then sell the large cooker at year's end.
Naturally, Rub followed Smokin's advice and always brined turkeys before cooking,while the other two teams did not.
Naturally, Rub was the easy winner for the turkey presentation.
Next came loinbacks.Rub had started out MIM cooking only loinbacks,as did the other top team.The team I mention is Tommy Houston/Checkered Pig.Tommy is also one of the larger volume vendors in the SouthEast and competes every weekend,as does Rub.
Both of these teams had switched over to being "pelletheads" in the last couple of years ,which allowed them to maintain the pace and increase in the national rankings.
If you followed the show closely,you noticed both of these cooks excelling on pellets.
I'm not able to promise that being a pellethead will make cooking a pleasure and you are sure winner,but both these cooks will sure lead you that way.
Just a couple of thoughts from an old "pellethead".
