Ahhh.... Days Gone By


 
Jak Stepan

Jak Stepan

TVWBB Pro
Stumbling around through some old pictures, thought yall might like to see how it all began for me. My dad and uncles always bbq'd when we were growing up in the 60's and early 70's so Ive always been around it, liked it, very much a family tradition. But here in Texas all the country people made their own pits from 55 gal oil drums. Hell, Houston is 1 hour away... oil drums were everywhere and free and everybody knew somebody with a Lincoln stick welder. So we never had a weber, my dad and uncles all made their own barrel pits, like everyone else. I had a little Old Smokey in college but my first real pit was in 1998 - the black New Braunfels in the pics. Too much work - always fighting the fire, coals, meat, vents. Hence my first weber kettle for my birthday present from dear mother in March 2010. This was back in my previous life (ie previous wife).

Anyway, just for grins. Enjoy. Curious about yalls own journeys.... feel free to stream your own old pics along please.

my original, first love... of course it was already 10 years old in this pic



and a couple of different cooks on it (yep ive always loved baby backs)







my first attempt at a simpler bbq process. it was a $29 job from walmart... but hell it worked for awhile. always loved ribeye steaks too, and grilled catfish dusted generously w Old Bay.





but then it was time to get serious. old buddy told me to get a weber, within 6 months these other pits were craigs-listed. end of story, beginning of another story. happy birthday from my mom.





my sisters husband in the warm sun after a long night. like my grill table? it was free with the pit...



one of my first cooks on the new weber... yah, its why we all like them so much. its been all good since then.



thanks for checking in. post yours. don't lift the lid....
 
Cool pics and story.
I will look for my first love.
Someone on this site called my first weber..."frankenweber"
I have to look for the pics on my photobucket account.
 
That is an awesome post man. Seriously cool. Love the back story. With the oil drums, was it cutting them in half lengthwise and elevated somehow, or the oil drum smoker setup (straight up)?

Love the post. Thanks!
 
I wish i could add some "back in the O´l days pics n storys" But before i joined this site all i did was burning burgers on a 1 seasson grill. Bought my Weber when we moved to this house(after 10 years in an appartment) shortly after joined this site and never looked back! Great post btw
 
Nice pics Jak! I cooked on an old cast iron Hibachi for years when I started grilling, but sadly no pics from those days.
 
Gregory R said:
Nice pics Jak! I cooked on an old cast iron Hibachi for years when I started grilling, but sadly no pics from those days.
Click to expand...

im the same. Had a hibachi when I first got married and used it sporadically for a few seasons. After awhile my FIL gave us a gas grill and that was how I grilled for the next 25 years. But I can't even find a pic of me doing that !
 
Great photo's & stories. My first Weber my wife won for me in a drawing. It says made in the USA.
 
This were my grills when I first started.
I took the pics but I didn't know there was such a thing as BBQ forum. I would just send pics to my friends and show off amongst ourselves what we were doing.

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My first uds.

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The weber my mother has it now.
The uds I sold it and bought the wsm with that money.
 
tony. thanks for digging up the bones man. its crazy when we look back at things weve done, and even took pics not knowing. glad you found and shared. hope the wife has a safe trip.

don't lift the lid...
 
Great post Jak, i'm sure there will be some cool old school BBQing pic's coming soon to this thread.
 
Great story Jak!

I'm probably in the younger crowd here, early 30's so my history isn't very dated.

Grew up around gassers, but loved when we went to state parks as a family when I was younger because they had the pedestal grills and I got hooked on the charcoal taste.

I still have my very first grill, a DH date coded OTS from 04' Grilled on it for many years, then picked up a Char-Broil Silver Smoker offset job. Did the trick for about 4-5 years for butts mostly. Recently gave it away and picked up a 26'er for smoking and larger grilling.

I see a portable in my future this spring as the camping season opens up. Lucky me, wifes already on board for that.

Can't wait to hear everyones history.
 
Great story. Like so many others that have already responded to your thread, I wasn't in to taking pic's of my cooks. This site and it's members got me into that. Like a comment above, I too used to grill on a Hibachi. I think I still have it actually, somewhere down deep in the bowels of my garage. Then, my next real bbq was called a Mecca, I think. It looked a lot like your red model in your post. It was not round, but square shaped, with a hinged lid. Mine was green. I must have done hundreds of cooks on that. Then, after moving up to a Weber, the rest is history. Thanks for the post.
 
Great pics Jak, my first grill, back in the '70s, was like your Walmart special complete with lighting fluid, lots of it, like stand back and throw matches at it until it exploded LOL, back then I thought real BBQ had to be black, if it wasn't black then it wasn't done. Then when I moved here I brought a Home Depot gas grill with me that was good at carbonizing the meats too, until it rusted out. Then one day I stumbled on to this site while looking for recipes to make deep pit BBQ beef, only in the oven, this site blew my mind, BBQ that was cooked and NOT black, I spent hours lurking, back then it was pretty much the WSM only and since I didn't have one......., then one day I walked into Ace Hardware and there was a 18.5" WSM, we fell in love immediately and it followed me home, ...and the rest is history.

My buying the WSM has amusing story, the store manager is a good friend and he refused to sell it to me, said smoked foods aren't good, left a tingling in the mouth and on the lips (I had already learned the cause of that from reading about smoking woods here) I insisted and so did he, finally I told him I was going to take it and put it in my pickup, so call the cops and when they arrived I would pay for it, after that he reluctantly sold it to me, but told me I couldn't bring it back, which I had no intention of doing. On the way home I bought a couple of yard birds to smoke, assembled it, and was waiting for evening to light it, meanwhile the FIL stopped by and informed my dear bride that smoked food wasn't any good because it left a tingling in the mouth and on the lips. That was probably the longest afternoon I've spent here, finally it was time to light my WSM, brought her up to temp and with a light dusting of salt and pepper, into the smoke the yard birds went.I didn't have any thermometers so I just went with the leg joint moving freely and the juices were clear, and, they weren't black, but rather a beautiful golden color, took 'em off, tented them and waited 15 minutes. It was evident they went way beyond safe cooking temps because with just a slight tug the leg and thigh came loose, ...most excellent!!! My dear bride was watching me, waiting to see if I wold fall off of the stool with St. Vitus dance or something, but I just kept munching, it was probably the best chicken I had eaten, it wasn't black, you gotta understand, it was the first time in 35 some odd years that i had BBQed something that wasn't black! Finally, after I had stuffed myself and was still sitting my bride asked me if I was alright, I then explained to here why smoked food tingled and I had cut up some dead mango wood to use to smoke with, I don't think she believed me at first, but she couldn't resist the other chicken sitting there, she cautiously took a bite......., and the rest is history in her life too.

A big thank you to Chris and all of the super cooks here that have turned my BBQ experience around, oh yeah, my wife and her family thank you too.

Karl

(Indirectly TVWBB site is also responsible for bringing smoked food to Tahiti, after I had a few cooks under my belt one Saturday I took a leg of lamb, some chicken quarters, ABTs and moink balls to my friend the director of ACE Hardware at lunch time for him and the employes, the next time I went in he had lots of questions so I taught him what I had learned here which he in turn explained to the customers about how to smoke meats, ...and now it's not uncommon to see people selling smoked chicken along side of the road.)
 
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