Tell us your favorite Barbecue story

Well my first post should be on the role call, so let me start with that....

"Hi, my name is Jim and I'm a smokeaholic."

Now, my favorite bbq story is from my first experiences with the holy smoke. My father was Presbyterian minister in Charlotte NC.
Every year in October we had our homecoming.
Saturday, folks would come and clean up the church and the grounds and we had 6 or 7 acres, mostly wooded) and top it off with a big cookout...everything from brunswick stew and burgers to venison and fried fish from the coast. One of our members was a fire captain, and a real outdoorsman. One year he brought bear meat.

Anyway, after the Sat night dinner, we'd start two fires burning over iron grates and wait for the coals to fall through. The pig was laid out in a crude pit....concrete blocks stacked up in a u shape with plywood over the top and at the mouth. All night, some of the men and the occasional hanger on like me, would stay up and drink coffee (among other things) and keep shoveling coals under the pig and telling tall tales.

Then during the church services Sunday morning the men would chop the q and set it at the end of about ten tables, where upon
were laid the most coveted, scrumptious dishes from the church members and visitors..
deviled eggs, fried chicken, casserolles, etc. It was just about enough to make you forget the pig at the end of the line...just about.

Anyway, we'd pig out and everyone would go home and sleep for a few hours...it was the best eating I've ever remembered, and it was a damn fine way to bring a kid up...I've been a q fanatic ever since.

Sorry it's so long.

Hey Captain,

I don't have a story that is too interesting, but I wanted to welcome you to the boards.

Also, I see you are from Myrtle Beach. My wife and I go there every year in September for at least a week, sometimes two, like this year. We stay at NMB, accross from Barefoot Landing, at her sister's condo.

I have never seen a place for "Q" in Myrtle. Are there any places I should try this September? We'll be bringing our 2 year old twins, maybe we can get 'em started right!

Thanks, and welcome.... Chuck

Well now,Donna being a lady an' all-I'm not sure we can share the best ones.

Myrtle Beach is woefully short of good q joints. The best is Mr. Pitts in Myrtle
Beach, real smoked pig NC style. Everything else I know about is gas roasted.

Email me when you are coming down and I'll try to steer you clear of the tourist traps.
Most folks who come here are after seafood, and there are some great places and some that just served Mrs. Pauls fried shrimp and charge you an arm and a leg.

If you email me, please make the message line clear you're from the Q board...I delete about 30 messages a day from spam sites.

Jim

Back in 1986 (the year I graduated High School) I was sent to the Republic of South Korea..by my uncle (Sam).
I was half way around the world...didn't know a single person...18 years old...and soon to learn what it took to be a Medic in the 2nd Infantry Div.

Well, just about the time "Homesickness" started to kick in (about 2 months after arrival) a couple of guys from the motor-pool got their hands on a pig..not sure how..but they did. Fortunately for all of us, they were very proficient in the art of the Q, and for the first time since arriving I got a taste of what it was like to be back home. I guess you could say that I've never forgotten how much it can mean to someone.
You should have seen the looks on the "house-men's" faces when they tasted Barbecue for the first time..It was priceless.


cookin-n-arkansas

Well this is a good one. I used to have a commercial fridge I converted to a smoker. I had a turkey deep fryer burner for a heat source that heated a cast iron pot full of hickory. Worked great for several years. The rubber gas line that fed into it was shielded with 3" stove pipe. Well one day the neighbor came a knocken on the back door about 8pm. I said "come on in", well he did saying my smoker was on fire. I told him to eff off and grab a beer. he said "no really I'm not shittin ya". I said "right a metal smoker on fire, nice try, grab a beer and lets play some pool". While he kept ranting and me laughing I went to the living room to rack em up. Well I looked out the patio door and holy shit the smokers on fire. We ran out their and the thing was raging so hot it was starting to warp and walk across the patio by itself, then I noticed the propane tank on it. I thought man if that thing goes the side of the house is gone. I grabbed it and tossed it as far as I could into the backyard. Why it didn't blow I'll never know, it was hot enough to burn my hand pretty good. Now how to put this thing out. I filled a 5 gal. bucket of water and not wanting to open the smoker I just tossed it over the top of it. It was so hot it just sucked in the water and steam and suffocated itself. When we new it was out we opened it and found that the rubber hose had gotten bruttle to the point where it broke off and must have turned into a blow torch on the inside and started a creosote fire that eventually started the insulation on fire. 40# of chicken and pork butts up in smoke. The smoker was a total loss, aside from stinking so bad from burnt insulation, it had warped to the point of near falling apart. Now I have a commercial warming oven that's built for heat and has a thermostatically controlled burner unit that is all metal piped so this will never happen again. A lesson to be learned about jury rigging things and not using the propper tools for the job. Spend the money and do it right, and you won't have to do it twice. Long post but that's my best and worst smoking experience.
Jon
xxxlanger0@aol.comxxx

Way back there in the dark crevices of my mind lurkes a particular memory.
We were raised baptist, no offense to any one, but baptist don't or aren't supposed to drink. Well the preacher always came over on Saturday evening to visit, I was young then, we had acquired the house next door to us and were in the process of remodeling it, a good friend of the family was there for the weekend helping us(takes for ever to set the stage)any way as fate would have it, I fired up the que pit, daddy was going to cook that evening, beer and que went hand in hand. My sister born with a slurred speech problem, was some times difficult to understand, we were all sitting in the back yard around the pit visiting as was customary at the time, when my sis appears (about three or four years old) and asks "is everybody ready for a beer"? Well you can imagine the look on the preachers face, and he said what? my mom quickly chimed in that she (sis) had said she is glad we are all here!! as she wisked sis into the house!

Lol! Gotta love dem Baptists!

Okay, here's a brief story. The BBQ was out at the farm on a Spring weekend. Family and friends. My sister-in-law, a North Carolina girl, by the way, was making ice cream. Peach ice cream. She got the kids to turn the crank on the churn. Wore out everybody's arms. Crank, crank, crank. Finally the thing just froze up; couldn't get any harder. The peach ice cream was done! We opened up the container. The peach ice cream was perfect. Beautiful color; excellent texture.

I got the first bowl of peach ice cream out of that churn and took a big spoonful.

And guess what?

Arrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggg... I spit it out. Oh, lordy.........There was a tiny puncture in the seam of the container. Salt brine* had sneaked its way into that peach ice cream, and it was enough to pickle your insides.

My sister-in-law just about cried, but I talked her into helping me with a trick. We prepared a big, beautiful bowl of that dangerous stuff for my brother, her husband, and then sat back to watch the trap...

( * Everybody knows you add rock salt to the crushed ice to make ice cream, right? You can get to sub-32* temps that way.)

Haaaaa, some good ones there! I have an oven made out of plate steel 2.3 meters high and .800 square i.d. I designed "Matea" myself and had a welder put her together off my cut lists. My little bbq factory is on the third floor of an 5 floor industrial zoned building, the nearest human inhabitants are about a 1/2 klik away. Anyways, my landlord called me one day shortly after having fired up "Matea" for the first time, apparently he had had some complaints from the neighbours, one particular lady hung her wash to dry on the top of her building and was pulling in her undies smelling like bbq brisket. Well, needless to say, I was upset! How could anyone not like THAT? The biggest problem came when I found out that "Matea", although she is on rollers, would not fit through the door! (small oversite there), anyways, to make a long story short we eventually solved the problem by installing a 25 meter chimney to vent that perfume away from the bbq antichrist. The co-renters in my building have never complained, I wonder if it has something to do with the bbq bribes?

How I got started in real BBQ:

Years ago I used to have "BBQs" for my friends at work; I used a gas grill and made crummy grilled stuff. On more than one occasion I started the cheap gas grill and ended up with flames coming out the front, melting the knobs, and causing near panic. Venturi tubes, spiders, webs, gas backing up, blah, blah... the third time this happened was 1 hr. before one of those office BBQs. I went ape-shit, threw the gas grill into the trash, and ran down to the local hardware store.

"Help me, help me! Do you have a charcoal grill?"
"Yes, we do..." (It was a Weber Kettle)
"You got charcoal???"
"Yes, we do..."

I grabbed the grill, went home, and started a fire. Guests arrived. I put chicken pieces across the whole grill. Then I started doing the "chicken shuffle" -- frantically moving chicken from side to side as the flames scorched the birds. It was mayhem.

My buddy (who happens to be called OJ) walked over and asked if I had ever used the grill before. "No," I said "I just went and got it!"
"Did you read the instructions?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I'm a little busy over here... what are you trying to tell me, OJ???"

He then explained how the kettle works, and that if I left the vents open, and closed the lid, it would smoke without burning the food (not enough air for flaming).

It was a religious experience. And it started me exploring smoking on the kettle, then indirect heat, then an offset.... then a Cookshack!

Thanks, OJ.

great stories! ok here's mine.
this time last year i was a manager of a steak and shake in ft myers florida. i had been managing restaurants for many years, but was growing very tired of the corporate bologna! so i posted my resume on the monster.com.. one day i was trying to access
my account to see of i had any bites on new employment when this pop-up site kept coming up and wouldnt close. so i just opened it. and what do ya know.... it was a restaurant for sale in savannah. the guy was putting it up for sale as i was reading about it. a bbq joint! 2 man operation, home-made smoker(although he claims it was bought from some fictitious company). anyway, the price was great, and that same day, i got a call from a lender who was willing to do he deal. so my girlfriend and i took a weekend trip to savannah and fell in love with the place. i didnt know squat about bbq but wanted to get out of corporate crap so bad....so i found this here forum and learned all i could. we got the place open and started smoking! lots of trial and error for a while. at first i was smoking a butt every couple of days. now, just 7 months later, i am smoking 2-3 cases a week plus 2-3 cases of st louis ribs,200 lbs of taters, and tons of other stuff! thanks to all of you on the forum, for making this possible!!!!!!!coffeebluffbbq.com

I'll give it a go! About 15 years ago a gun club from way upstate NY asked if I could cook a whole hog for their annual lobster/pig roast, they stated that a local pig farmer donates the pig, 140-150lbs. Well I get all my equipment up there and was told the farmer would bring the pig to the club at about 4 am the next morning so we went out and partook in some grog at the local watering hole. The next morning I stagger to the club to find the farmer and the donated pig waiting, I took one look at the donated pig and I thought I was seeing double. The legs on this huge table were buckling from this monster that was on top of it. This pig was so big I had to cut the head off of it to fit in my 8ft rotisserie and my poor 2 inch stainless steel rod was getting a real good workout (had to be 300 to 325 lbs). Well after four of us fought to get it in place I had to scrammble to get it cooked in time for the feast so I had a REAL HOT fire under it and it came out just fine, just a little dark -so- I always look at a donated hog first and watch the grog intake the night before a big roast, I guess you had to be there!!

Several years ago my son applied for a job that would take him all over the world working as a video producer, The agency had one job and 300 applications. He made the first cut, then second, third and so on until the short list was down to 3. The fellow in charge flew out to 3 parts of the country to have one on one interviews with the applicants and we were last on the list. Since he was going to be here for 2 days I suggested that he invite the Washington DC fellow for dinner Utah style. I served him Dutch oven beans and bread with baby back ribs cooked in my Cookshack Smoker. He was a bit slow at eating the ribs and I started worrying that maybe he was Jewesh, but my fears subsided when he ate all I gave him and asked for more. In all he ate a whole rack and took another rack back to the hotel. Only later did I learn that these were the first ribs he had eaten and liked. He said after ordering ribs at resturants his whole life, he finally knows how they are supposed to taste. I'll give you one guess who got the job.

Good one Jake..

Early 90's after my assignement in Desert Storm and the land of the endless beach, I received my next posting. There I was, forced to live in the Land Down Under (OZ) for two years -- Canberra, Australia. My life in the U.S. Air Force took me down there for an exchange assignment where I was on exchange to the Royal Australian Air Force as an Exchange Officer, Commander of a unit there.

So I hit Australia and I absorb as much as I can of the local color, people, food and I have lots of photos to provide how GOOD a time this single man (at the time) had. Too MUCH Adult beverages. I really could write a book on how great the country and the people treated me.

But always, their questions about America would invariable turn to American Food and as you can imagine, they asked me about BBQ. Now you have to remember, they do BBQ in OZ, but it's really cooking on a grill and in fact, most of the grills had just flat plates, not open grills like we used. But the Snags (Sausage) was amazing, wish I had some now.

The concept of low and slow was hard to "explain". So, here's what I did.

First, I needed a Smoker (couldn't ship my down there). I had a small Weber kettle, but it wasn't what I needed.

So, using influence, after all as a "Commander" I had a lot of that, I talked with a few boys from the Aircraft Squadron and we made a vertical barrel smoker. Think Weber Bullet on Steroids. I went with that design because I knew they would be keeping it after I left. The guys did a great job and built a good unit.

Now, the 2nd problem, meat. There was a butcher in the local area, but he didn't know what a spare rib was or a brisket. Both of those were considered waste. Now the folks I work with in the U.S. Embassy tried to explain it to him before, but with no success.

So Smokin' calls his mom. Remember this is PRE-Internet. I asked her to contact the right people and see sent me a butcher's book with full details.

I took this to the butcher and we went in the back and cut our own brisket and ribs. Now my fee for this was free beef/pork and I promised to bring him samples. He still couldn't believe I could do anything with the brisket. He had head about ribs, but didn't know how to do them or had not tried them.

We scheduled a big party on Friday. they were always on Friday...or Thursday, or Wed... The building I worked in had a bull volleyball court and outdoor grill area. We also re-modeled the bar area (yes there was a bar there, but that's another story).

On Friday, the big day came, I did brisket, ribs and beans. Of all the people there, probably 100 or so, maybe 4 or 5 had ever had any of them.

Needless to say, the whole party was spent in silence....everyone was too busy eating.

It was a big success and I'm told the story lives on now, still, 10 years later.

The people and country of Australia treated me well, the least I could do was to leave them the smoker, the instructions and the directions to the butcher.

Oh yeah, the butcher was speechless too.

Smokin'

Well, let's see here, it was back in 1963, I was just starting college and working in a local grocery store meat market in El Paso, Texas when I was befriended by the butcher, Jose Trujillo, who was a very pleasant Mexican man in his mid-50s. He seemed to know more about meats and how to cook them than anyone that I had ever known, so I started to ask him lots of questions, as did most of our regular customers. Jose often would have something cooking in the meat market for customers to sample and one day he set me up to make smoked brisket and guaranteed it would become a signature dish for the rest of my life. Little did I know what he really meant. First we took a full packer cut 15 pound brisket and only trimmed any hardened fat but left the rest of the fat in place over the piece of meat. Next we rinsed the brisket and patted it dry, genorously rubbed the entire brisket with nearly a full bottle of liquid smoke and let that soak in for a few minutes, until the surface was nearly dry again. Then we applied liberal amounts of Jose's "secret" dry rub, which I will post in the recipes section tonight. Next the brisket was wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in the cooler overnight.

The next morning, we applied a full bottle of Woody's cooking Sauce (available in the the grocery store) and wrapped the meat in extra thick aluminum foil, taking care to tightly tripple fold the edges closed to ensure an air tight seal. Into a large pan and into the oven at 275 degrees for 6 hours.

Jose let me remove it from the oven and cut the foil away to find the most tender brisket with such a delightful smoke flavor and aroma that filled the store. We sold out of brisket and Woody's cooking Sauce that day and the owner asked me to make brisket on every Saturday for the next 2 years and the store built a reputation based on this lesson in cooking from my best friend and mentor, Jose Trujillo. The technique has been modified over the years to eliminate the Woody's Sauce and liquid smoke in favor of the real thing, but the dry rub has remained a constant for the last 40 years.

Ya'll come back now, ya, here.

Mr. Bones
We cook the flavor in, NOT paint it on!