Mine was an offset.

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You know me like that.

It can be tricky to get a steady temp, especially if you're looking for smoking temp (<250 deg). Ignore the directions that come with the WSM.
For a low temp fire don't put more than about 15 lit coals on your loaded fire ring. Otherwise your fire will be too hot. It's a lot easier to boost the
temp than lower it. I spent ~$150 on the bottom of the line automatic temperature control from BBQ Guru called the PartyQ. You set the temp
you want and a little fan blows on the fire until the sensor attached to the grate reads the desired temp. Not a necessity, and purists may turn up
their noses, but it helps at competitions (almost every team uses some kind of auto temp control) especially for me and my teammates who do the
best we can, but don't take it too seriously. We do 2 or 3 a year and rarely practice.

A great resource for WSM info and BBQ info in general is The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board, tvwbb.com. Great message board with techniques, recipes,
advice on ways to modify your WSM and lots of BBQ food pron pictures. It's run by a guy in California and not affiliated with Weber-Stephens.

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

Don, if you're a podcast guy, I highly recommend the BBQ Central Show podcast. It's heavily advertised but still a good listen.

If you ever do a competition around here, I'd enjoy watching you guys do your thing. I've been interested in trying it out but I hate doing anything going in blind.

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You know me like that.

Good website -
What do you think of the 99$ 'Good One ' Open Range SS patio smoker ?


Too cheap to be good?

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I feel obligated to disagree with this.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm not familiar with 'Good One' smokers. I looked at the Firecraft web site. The only thing that was $99 was a stainless steel side shelf to add to
one of their $800 - $1500 cookers. At that price they better be good. Of course big cookers can cost much more. Did you see something I didn't?

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

I don't do podcasts but I might check it out.

The recent PBS series "BBQ with Franklin" with Aaron Franklin from Austin, TX was cool. Lots of good info. It's available on demand.

Will definitely let you know if we're close by. This year we only did 2 comps. We were in Dwight at the beginning of May and in Kenosha at the end
of August. There are a few other ones more local, but we usually have trouble fitting them into our schedules. Some of these teams are going all
over the place every weekend, we just can't make that kind of commitment (jobs, families, lives, etc.). We're always happy to have visitors, and
share what we've made after turn in, as well as a libation or five.

Of course that assumes you're willing to slum with three over 50 Northwestern fraternity brothers.

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

No, you are right.. Its an attachment. That guy Stump is a great cook, I have seen him on Pitmasters a few times..his smokers are really nice but out of my price range. I think I'm just going to make a cheap one for under 150$ .

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As promised, a bump to let you know that we'll be at the competition down in Dwight on the 5th & 6th. It's at a park on old Rt. 66.
Dwight is roughly where I-55 and IL-47 intersect. Not a bad drive. We're always happy to have visitors. The real action is of course
on Saturday. Turn ins start with chicken at noon and end with brisket at 1:30. Friday is a lot of prep and heavy drinking.

A little closer to the palatial north shore manse of the good doctor will be the competition in Kenosha on August 26 & 27. This one
is right on the lake at the park by the museum.

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

Cool. But, the 5th and 6th of May? Thursday and Friday?

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You know me like that.

I looked it up. Looks like the 6th and 7th.

I might be up for checking it all out. Would Saturday morning sometime be a good chance to check things out? I don't want to get in the way.

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You know me like that.

Late morning on Saturday would be fine. You won't be in the way. There's plenty of room. You definitely want to be around for
the turn-ins. Carving the meat and building the turn-in boxes every half hour. Most important is the noshing on leftovers once the box is gone.
You can walk around and check out other teams, too.

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/l ... story.html

I'm thinking of entering the Lake Bluff Ribfest this year...never tried smoking meat before. This thread looks to be a good spot for help.

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We gonna do this!?!?

Kind of bummed. I wanted to do some pork belly but the place didn't have it and I didn't have time to track one down. Got some ribs going on later.

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You know me like that.

I tripped over some large pork belly pieces at Costco yesterday.

I had never seem them there before.

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Just got a smoker couple weeks ago. Doing a turkey breast today. Been in brine overnight. Should have bought smoker long ago but did not think I would use enough to justify purchase. Wrong on that one!!!

It looks so good, even the Virgin Mary is glowing.

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You know me like that.

What's in the spray bottles?

Standard market has pork belly.

Water for flare-ups.

Apple juice to hit the pork.

Standard Market? What am I...made of money??

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You know me like that.

Turkey beast turned out excellent. Never roasting again ever.

Of course she is.

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Vodka.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

I keep those on ice.

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You know me like that.

so i got an idea from watching some tv on a rub and tried it out and it was very good....its very different but my extended family loved it. i usually have my go to true southern pork rub that i use on ribs along with a sweet sauce. i also have a pineapple glazed rib recipe that works well.

if anyone wants to try it, here is my new rub concoction

3 T - Lemon Pepper
3 T - Tumeric
2 T - Sea Salt
2 T - Cardamom
1 T - Ground Cloves
2 T - Granulated Garlic
2 T - cayanne pepper

if you like spicy take the cayanne to 3T.

has anyone ever smoked lamb shoulder or leg of lamb ?

Went to a BBQ competition last weekend up here in Kenosha. My wife and I each purchased a tasting card for $10 and were able to try over a dozen different samples of
pulled pork. Pretty interesting and we had a good time. Would have been fun to wander around there when they were doing the cooking and ask some questions. The
group I voted for ended up winning and her pick took 2nd. ( We voted in the Peoples Choice category )

http://grillgames.org/kcbs/

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

We competed at the Kenosha contest. We didn't participate in the "People's Choice" portion. In fact we were long gone before that part started. Rain from about 1am to 10am Sat. Rain and BBQ are a bad combo. We're not super serious and our results show it. We did have fun though.

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

Yeah it was pretty sloppy walking around the judging area. First time we had been to one of these and it was a pretty good experience.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami