Soooo, how did you get your start?

I started in the late 80’s with a fake Weber kettle and an ECB water smoker. I bought both for $1 at an auction. Previous to this my dad had only grilled simple things on a gas grill. We learned charcoal together because we had had had some good things grilled and smoked at various cabins and hunting camps. We learned direct and indirect grilling on the kettle and smoked a lot of fish on the ECB. We got pretty proficient and then started teaching friends. Dad and I started rehabbing used Weber kettles and giving them to worthy friends that showed interest. We also had extension sections made at local welding shops that made kettles into Smokey Mountain-type cookers. I still get to cook with my dad 3 or 4 times a year. I have turned over a dozen buddies into kettle cooks over the years. I am now 46 and still do about everything on kettles. I love all the memories that have been created with friends and family.

WeberWho said:

It all started with a Sears gift card. At the time I didn't have my own place. So tools weren't the top priority at that very moment. That really narrows down the options of what to get from Sears. So I was aimlessly walking around Sears and stumbled into an imitation Weber Smokey Mountain. At that time of my life my friends and I would like to go and camp at weekend concerts. I found myself thinking that might be fun to bring and play around with. So I spent my $50 Sears gift card on a completely random grill/smoker. Man if I would have only known what kind of snowball effect that would end up having on me with grills/smokers. All from a Sears gift card!

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Was it a bbq pro deluxe dome smoker grill?

Just wanted to give this thread a bump in case someone missed it who may have been interested. This was a great topic introduced by Robb.

As long as I remember my dad always grilled steaks and other red meat. The first grill I remember was a 55 gallon drum split down the middle longways with chains to hold the top half open. It was definitely a home made job. My uncle had a butcher shop and the beef was always plentiful. The grill was my dads territory so I didn't get much practice until I moved away to college.

My junior year I moved off campus and me and my roommates bought a cheap gasser that we put to good use for dogs, burgers and steaks. It wasn't until I moved to Texas and bought my first house in 2003 that I tried my hand at smoking. I SUCKED, a COS was a bad cooker to start on! Brisket was always under cooked, kept trying brisket instead of something easier. It wasn't until a couple of years later when I got a Master Built Electric that I made something that passed as Q. After dialing that in, getting married and having our first little one I got a vision kamado. It's been rough on the wallet ever since.

Wow, great stories!

I grew up 12 miles from the closest town, on the farm where we still live (part of my Dad's Dad's but there were 14 kids that it got split up into). We seldom ate out and Mom was a great cook. We had cows and hogs along with a garden and 3 chest freezers that were always full.

Mom did most of the cooking but Dad would grill on a cheapo charcoal grill, usually burgers or steaks but 5 or 6 times a year Mom would buy chicken for the grill. Dad would make sauce for it, no recipe, it was never exactly the same but always good.

Fast forward to all us kids grown, married, and kids. We'd often all get together for burgers, steaks, or chicken with homemade sauce. My wife was amazed at how good our grilled foods were. A year or so after we got married we went with her family to the beach for a week. I told them we'd bring steaks to grill one might. I remember my in laws telling me "we don't like steaks". Well they changed their minds after having good grilled ones.

We had some good food ongoing from several charcoal grills over the years with KBB. Went on to doing ribs, pork chops and almost everything else we ate. Started noticing a different taste from the charcoal and started looking for options. Of course we were now in the age of the internet and my search led me here. Never looked back!

Read everything I could on the boards, listened to what people had to say, starting using Stubbs, bought my first Weber kettle, have 3 now, wife bought me a cheap smoker off clearance from Tractor Supply that we wore out. I started hearing about Shirley Fab and their smokers and thought they can't really be that good? Went to the Carolina bash and met some great people, watched stick burners in use, and learned a ton! Next Bash was a Texas one where I got to see a Shirley in action, thanks Paul for giving me Shirley envy" and I was sold! Got lucky and bought my Shirley from a brethern that was looking to downsize and haven't looked back.

I grew up on a farm in Nebraska and my Dad had a new holland gasser that we would cook burgers, steaks, hot dogs, brats, and chicken quarters slathered in kc masterpiece. When I was 14 we moved to Kansas City and that is when my love of barbecue began with Gates, Arthur Bryants and Oklahoma Joes.

I went off to college and all of my buddies loved to grill. Every Saturday during college football season we would start off the day grilling whatever was on sale at the time. After college I moved into my first house and bought a char broil kettle off of amazon and started grilling burgers and brats at home.

About 3 years ago I bought a used UDS off of craigslist and then started seriously getting into everything barbecue and started trying to absorb all the information I could. That led me to this site and I've been certifiably addicted since. Now I've gotten 4 or 5 more people into smoking meat and passed on the addiction

KClandcruiser said:

That led me to this site and I've been certifiably addicted since. Now I've gotten 4 or 5 more people into smoking meat and passed on the addiction

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Ohhh the horror of it all :mrgreen:
I've done that many times......

My inspiration for outdoor cooking began in the 90s with Chris Schlesinger - a Boston based 'celeb-chef' back before such a term was really in vogue. He wrote several cookbooks, one of which I still turn to for ideas, Let the Flames Begin.

As an apartment dweller / renter for years, I kept to smaller gassers and mostly to 'grilled' food. Upgraded to bigger Weber gassers as I grew older, and used the wrapped dampened wood chips technique to try and produce smoke and cooked at lower temp as an 'offset'.

Finally got the smoking bug a few years ago, started searching the Internet for what I might want, and ended up here, the number 1, undisputed champion of Barbecue Communities in the world.

Andrew - the old caretaker of the amazing PBC thread, was instrumental in me ending up with a PBC as my first smoker, as I ended up in that thread and soaked in the hundreds of pages of info contained therein. All you other brethren who know how you are and are significant contributors to that thread played a huge role as well.

Ended up with the Blackstone Pizza Oven a few years ago, also thanks to the brethren, after being a home pizza aficionado for many years.

I have come this close a couple of times recently in getting a new cooker.. an offset or a pellet, but not yet.

I have been an outdoor cooking lover for many years before finding my way to this community, but there is nothing in my life that pushed my cooking forward more than all the wonderful people that post here.

I was at my grandpa's every Sunday afternoon for dinner when I was a kid. He had a stick burner that he would load up with sticks, light and let go. Hung chicken and pork steaks usually and made bbq. We burped up smoke 4 or 5 hours after lunch. Fast-forward to me trying to make BBQ on my first cooker, a Brinkman Smoke N Grill. Not enough heat and no clue how to grill or smoke. Made some bad burgers, okay pork steaks and smoked some ribs for 6 hours that tasted smokey but were undercooked. He did not teach me much, but I liked BBQ.

Went to a Blues and BBQ festival in 2004 or 2005. Met a bbq guy who was cooking at the festival. He told me how to modify my cooker to make it better. I started getting more interest. A few years later, got a stick burner. Started making good food. Thought I was anyway. One day somebody tasted my chicken and said "where's the smoke". I was mad, and I was determined to figure out BBQ at that point. Then I started researching, trying to talk to more BBQ people. I ended up here, and have been improving a little bit more all the time.

jermoQ said:

I was at my grandpa's every Sunday afternoon for dinner when I was a kid. He had a stick burner that he would load up with sticks, light and let go.

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That is EXACTLY how my grandfather used his stickburner. I distinctly remember on overnight brisket cooks, he would just throw a bunch of sticks in there at night to make sure that they "lasted until morning". :laugh::shock:

In 1984 I was a Boy Scout in Northern Ohio; no matter your opinion of the Scouts now, back then, this is where the real outdoor cooking happens.

11yrs old, with a menu you made; a list of ingredients you got, a recipe to follow; cooking over an open fire/bed of coals in the woods of Brecksville, OH with your buddies and your dad and some of their dads. Making tinfoil stew; hamburger, baby carrots and broccoli with some seasoning.

At every family gathering, my grandma on my moms side would bring out the Original Red Weber kettle for my uncles and dad to “grill the meats,” I would help as much as I was allowed.

My dad bought a Sears & Roebuck gasser in the early 80s, that he still has and uses, where he taught me how to grill steaks.

I joined the USAF in ‘93, got married in ‘98 and got my first propane grill as my first Father’s Day present the following year. I grilled everything I could on that thing. After a couple of base assignments, it gave up the ghost in the early 2000s. That’s when I got a MasterBuilt gas smokehouse for a Father’s Day/birthday present; followed by a Chargriller Competition Pro offset, many years later. Just today I signed the paperwork that will make a Humphrey’s Smokers Battle Box my own in the very near future.

I didn’t just adopt the “Smoke Life,” I was born into it, molded by it.


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I grew up in Illinois, but every July when Cat would shut down for two weeks we would go "home" to Alabama where we would get pulled pork by the pound and always bring some back (Maysville BBQ if I remember correctly). We only had a gaser for burgers and brats at home but my dad taught me how to cook over campfire coals. When I came home from the Army, my dad bought an offset and set out to make his own. He failed but my interest was piqued.

Got married, needed cheap party food for birthday parties and such, bought a cheap grill, then a kettle. I found the internet and realized I could smoke a pork butt on the kettle and fell in love. Bought an ECB, parted out the ECB for a UDS, and got dad's old offset that was sitting in his barn. I came across this site and really got into it. Cooked as often as I could for whoever would eat it.

I was planning to start competing in the spring of 2019 but a series of family deaths and other issues put all of that on the back burner. I only cooked once in 2019, pulled pork for my father-in-laws last meal. Gave up entirely until being forced into quarintine. My wife was sick of my gripping and sent me out to cook some burgers, I had to clean the grill, which led to remembering I wanted to do some mods to the UDS, and needing to cook if I was gonna check the mods. The only pork butt in the store was acquired and I remembered how great it was to see people enjoying your food, even if its just family that will say it's great regardless. Cooking a chuckie in the morning, after all, I had to clean the offset and need something to test it. Besides, if I am to take in BBQ to work this weekend (I am getting released from quarantine on Friday) I need practice.

All of this led me back to this site. Thanks for being here.

Learned to cook outdoors camping as a kid, Y camps both day camps and extended overnights. Then first outodoor cooking on my own was grilling steaks on a charcoal hibachi at the sports car races I worked just after college. Later added a two burner Coleman propane stove for camping with the family, and the ubiquitous gas grill on the deck at home. Now my serious Q is taking a step up with this recent acquisition...

Several years ago my wife's Uncle bought a BGE. We eat there often as its our families gathering spot. I was very impressed with the food that came off of it.

Always had a gas grill but decided I liked charcoal much better and I wanted a ceramic kamado of my own so I began researching them.
Ended up with a Primo. That lead me down the rabbit hole of youtube BBQ channels as well as discovering this site and my equipment keeps growing.

It truly is a wonderful hobby

I got tired of burning out cheap gassers, and sought out a used kettle on Craigslist. When I went to pick it up, the feller who had it was a BBQ comp team guy, who "gave me a few pointers"...... the rest is history....

Mine were humble beginnings. Growing up we had a menu of about 5 things - 2 of which were some sort of edible (pork chops and spaghetti). We microwaved scrambled eggs. Think about that for a second. All apologies if you actually enjoy those but... all this is to say my parents don't care about cooking. My dad manned the grill every now and again and he'd manage to burn the outside of a burger and leave the inside raw. Rare talent. But there were just enough times he got it right that I grew an affection for grilled food - burgers, steaks, hot dogs.

Me, I loved pulled pork. I was never going to get pulled pork in any form at my parent's house unless it was one of those heat and serve deals. So I got laid off from a computer store in 2004 and in my downtime, I turned on Food Network. Specifically the show "How to Boil Water." They showed how to make pulled pork and I went "that's it?" So I made one. Parents loved it.

I made more stuff. Parents loved it.
I hosted a big cookout at their house with a bunch of my friends and used a Fiesta gas grill and a Weber Silver kettle. It went well. I remember making a bunch of chicken wings with rubs I made myself, a few types of shrimp including "bang bang shrimp" which back then, not everyone had the legit recipe.
I moved out in 2005, bought a Weber Genesis gasser.
Then I got a Smokey Mountain.
Then I got a Humphrey Weeble.
Then I got frustrated. I should have never let the WSM go. I didn't get along with the Weeble. In fact, I didn't want BBQ for over a year. Still not quite sure what that was all about but it got sold.
Got another Weber Kettle, a Platinum or whatever it's called.
Then I took the plunge on a pellet grill (Grilla Silverbac).

All along I was learning, even won our friendly rib cookoff two years in a row.

Now I have a Shirley. And if I could go back in time, and if they were even making cookers back in 2005, I'd probably take all that up there and distill it down to "I bought a Shirley and I have a pellet cooker, the end."

But the journey has been amazing. I was on this site back when I got the Weeble and I left due to that BBQ hiatus I mentioned. It was so weird - eating BBQ actually made me nauseous for that time. Thank GOD that stuff is over with. That said, it pushed me to try harder and to learn more, to overcome all that. And I have. All because of $%#%&@ microwaved scrambled eggs, if I'm being honest.