How'd you get into barbecue? *****


 

Matt H

TVWBB Fan
I'm interested to know how everyone got into the hobby, or addiction for some...

I used to vacation down in SC with my family when I was younger. My grandfather retired down there and I'd go nearly every summer. My favorite thing to do was to visit any new bbq joint I could find.

I can still remember my first bite of bbq ribs at Sticky Fingers in Charleston back when I was 12. Going back now, I realize that it wasn't the greatest BBQ, but what did I know then? But since then, I was hooked. Just glad I'm all grown up and can make it myself (and better) in my own yard.

How about you? I'm especially interested in our international friends. Norway and Canada, I'm looking in your direction...
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Is Calif international? Been grillin all my adult life. Took a trip to Texas and had some of the best brisket on the earth. Wanted to cook it that way. That's how it happened for me.

Mark
 
just love to eat it. What better excuse to have a couple of beers tending the cooker. very relaxing in my opinion.
 
Always loved the smell of outdoor cooking over a campfire as a kid.now cooking outdoors is a great way to relax,enjoy a cold brew,and the meat,veggies,etc cooked in the kettle or wsm just blows anything i cook in the kitchen out of the water.And of course i love to eat.
 
kinda sorta did some grilling once in a great while. after being put in a wheelchair i started to find things to keep me busy. there was this ole 22 sittin by its lonesome and then-------.
 
Started young cooking over campfires. Did lots of extended canoe trips in my teens with my buddies, apparently bears like bbq and grilling also. Nothing like looking over your shoulder and seeing a black bear sniffing the air and wondering whats for dinner.I've been chased away from steak dinners, planked trout and fried walleye and bass.

My dad had one of those charcoal grills that had the grill that you could spin and make it higher or lower. Ribs and things were always done in a dutch oven or slow cooker where I grew up and fell of the bone. I really didn't like them much.
Once I got out on my own I went back to the campfire cooking I loved.
 
When I was just a little guy, my Dad used to take his Mom and I to an old cinder-block building and order "a pound of barbecue, lean please." We would take it to Grandma's house and eat sammies.
It was soooooo good.

I had wanted to re-create that for years after, but could never master the taste of the little container of vinegar sauce that came with it.

Got it down pat now.
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Hadn't grilled in several years. Just burgers,dogs and an occassional cheap (tough!) steak. Nothing fancy. When I met my wife,she had a small cheap gasser that we used. As a matter of fact,she turned me onto beer can chicken!
In '06,we had to start doing online training for work. We got points each quarter,and bonus points for a successful roadside inspection (I drive a truck). When I started accumulating points,I was looking at the catalog of awards. One of them was a very nice Weber smoker! When I told Sweet Pammi Sue that I was getting a smoker for my first award,she thought I was crazy! But three years later,and a few more Webers
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,everybody loves my WSM.
 
In the early 50's my dad bought one of the original Weber grills. I watched until he decided that I was ready to learn to grill when I was 7. I have been grilling and making BBQ ever since.
 
Lousy food at Hard Rock Café got me started!

I’ve always been into food-making. I’ve grilled for as long that I can remember.
After a trip to a Hard Rock Café and a taste of their Spare ribs , I thought “I can do this much, much better myself”.
Then I started to search the net for spare ribs, and found out that there was a huge difference between grilling and barbequing. I ordered a WSM, had to wait almost four months to get it delivered, and the rest is history.
Low and slow is unheard of here in Norway.
The fact that the WSM doubles as a cold smoking chamber, is a large bonus, because I have been able to try that as well, something I have wanted to try for years.
 
First off Great topic!

Ok here we go:

I was a scout when i was a kid. Best thing about this was cooking over fire. I took out the grill even if the rain blazed over me. Nothing fancy at all but i enjoyed it. After me and Emilie bought this house i was set on a nice grill(after 10 years in a appartment).

Best looking quality grill was the Weber. First cooks i took up were i left it,hot dogs/burgers/some steak´s that almost was charcoal when i was done with em.

(here comes the Twist)

I found this site
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Before just as Geir said BBQ and grilling was the same to me. When i first did low&slow ribs on the kettle(thanks tvwbb) i was sold. Ordered a wsm the same week.
 
Along James' lines -

Grew up eating a lot of food grilled outdoors on Weber kettles and other old-school 50's & 60's cookers (gramps had a charcoal unit with glass front door & rotiss - ALWAYS used electric starter).

Grilling has always been accompanied by good times with family, friends, & neighbors. Tailgating at Packer & Brewers games...
But, REAL barbeque was never something that was easy to find in Wisconsin.

In the 90's & early 2000 - there was a lot of "buzz" on cooking shows, etc about Barbeque, and I have always enjoyed smoked foods (lots of small, local places for sausage, ham, salmon, pork chops etc.) So, I started reading and doing research on the Internet - that's when I stumbled onto this site and it has "snowballed" ever since!
 
We had a kid and found ourselves at home a lot more so I started doing more stuff on our beat up old gasser. I bought an expensive new gasser and started cooking on it a lot. For my first Father's Day my wife got me 3 grilling cookbooks, 2 from Raichlen and The Barbecue Bible. They all were kind of geared towards charcoal but the recipes "could be done on a gasser"...I bought my first OTG soon after. Never having cooked over charcoal, my first cooks were awful. Trying to figure things out I found this site. My cooks improved dramatically overnight and I was hooked. Sold the gasser, bought a WSM and then a Performer...4 years later here I am. Best hobby I've ever had!!
 
I guess I really started the hobby when I was around 17. Got into making Ribs on a gasser with my friends. Had no idea what we were really doing. Would sometimes par-boil them. I'm sure they were awful, but we dove into them like it was the best grub on earth. One day a friends older brother was around and he saw what we were doing and gave us lesson on how make real ribs. Next weekend he brought over his kettle and cooked up some of the finest ribs we ever had. We were hooked. Scrounged a really old Weber kettle we found at the dump and made new legs for it. I think we used that thing for years. Wonder what ever happened to that old kettle...
 
I agree, Wolgast -- great topic!

Funny thing is that as a kid, grilling or smoking was NEVER in my life. After I got married, we sort of bought a cheap grill for burgers because a friend had one, but for too many years it was just the occasional cook on some cheap grill. Finally about 8 years ago I decided to get a "good" grill. That Brinkmann POS managed to hang on for 6 years and I never really got any more out of grilling than I had previously.

Then early last year I bought the Weber Genesis and discovered REAL GRILLING. That started me grilling 4 - 6 times a week with all kinds of foods and led to me experimenting with grill mods so I could better utilize wood. In early summer, I found a deal on my WSM and found out what SMOKING is all about! Haven't been able to stop since...

The odd thing is that I've traveled a lot in the US and have been exposed to a LOT of que over the years. Mostly I was kind of disappointed by what everyone said was so great. After starting to cook my own and getting over some newbie experiences, I can honestly say that it's really hard to find restaurants (even the specialists) who can really make better barbeque of any type than you can make in your own WSM.

Rich
 
Necessity. I found myself with the task of preparing the meals for the family. The grill was the first thought for handling meats. When I realized the families satisfaction with what was on the table, the game was on. One thing lead to the other.

gary
 
I started off with a cheap Charbroil when I purchased my first house in 2003 and moved to a Loews Perfectlame. Both sucked, my wife got me a EP320 for my birthday several years ago cause I kept killing the cheap grills. I got into make ribs and got good at it. I remember making my first ribs, they were horrible way to much cinnamon, I didn't know what I was doing. I love Webers, I purchased my 22 last year and I love it. I will bbq for as long as I can, long live Weber.
 

 

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