Jeff Boone
New member
Mountain Home to be exact. Nice little town, close enough to Boise to get to the few "city" things I need, but far enough away to avoid the city nonsense. I just escaped moved here from Portland a few months ago after I retired. Never married, no kids, just a pair of knuckleheaded older dogs.
In Portland I had an older Weber classic 22" kettle for many years. I did mostly (98%) steaks, burgers, brats and chicken parts on it. I tried smoking some salmon once or twice, it came out all right but not great. Subsequent research led me to believe that I left out a couple of steps. Anyway, about 10 years ago my next door neighbor bought himself a new Weber 22" kettle. Then his wife decided that "they" wanted a gas grill instead. So the kettle went into his garage, never even unboxed. When they moved away a couple years later he gifted it to me, and it sat in my garage for another couple years, still unboxed. Then one day I was out in the back yard trying to break up a dog fight (long story), and I lost my balance and fell over right onto the kettle. Folded the legs up beyond repair and even caved in the lid of the thing. "No problem" I figure, since I've got another brand new one just waiting in the garage. So I drug it out and put it together, and shortly discovered that even though it was packaged in what seemed to be a real Weber box, it was in fact a knockoff, probably Chinese. It didn't have the ash sweeper / lower damper, instead it had two vents of the same type as the lid, so 3 in total. It didn't have the heat shield on the lid handle, and there were a couple other little things that just weren't quite the same. Even so, I put it into service and it worked adequately for another year or two. But when I moved over here, it got left behind.
So I found myself in need of a new grill. Being newly retired and having a lot more free time, I wanted to at least have the capability of doing some low and slow cooking in addition to my usual high-temp grilling. I did a lot of research, comparing charcoal vs pellet grills, and came to the conclusion that either one could handle both the high-temp and low & slow tasks. And since the pellet grills cost 3 or 4 times the price, and given my previous enjoyment of the real Weber kettle (and that my income is like half of what it was before I retired), I settled on a 22" Performer Premium. I've only had it for a few weeks now and only cooked on it 3 or 4 times (just steaks and burgers so far), but I think I'm going to like it.
In Portland I had an older Weber classic 22" kettle for many years. I did mostly (98%) steaks, burgers, brats and chicken parts on it. I tried smoking some salmon once or twice, it came out all right but not great. Subsequent research led me to believe that I left out a couple of steps. Anyway, about 10 years ago my next door neighbor bought himself a new Weber 22" kettle. Then his wife decided that "they" wanted a gas grill instead. So the kettle went into his garage, never even unboxed. When they moved away a couple years later he gifted it to me, and it sat in my garage for another couple years, still unboxed. Then one day I was out in the back yard trying to break up a dog fight (long story), and I lost my balance and fell over right onto the kettle. Folded the legs up beyond repair and even caved in the lid of the thing. "No problem" I figure, since I've got another brand new one just waiting in the garage. So I drug it out and put it together, and shortly discovered that even though it was packaged in what seemed to be a real Weber box, it was in fact a knockoff, probably Chinese. It didn't have the ash sweeper / lower damper, instead it had two vents of the same type as the lid, so 3 in total. It didn't have the heat shield on the lid handle, and there were a couple other little things that just weren't quite the same. Even so, I put it into service and it worked adequately for another year or two. But when I moved over here, it got left behind.
So I found myself in need of a new grill. Being newly retired and having a lot more free time, I wanted to at least have the capability of doing some low and slow cooking in addition to my usual high-temp grilling. I did a lot of research, comparing charcoal vs pellet grills, and came to the conclusion that either one could handle both the high-temp and low & slow tasks. And since the pellet grills cost 3 or 4 times the price, and given my previous enjoyment of the real Weber kettle (and that my income is like half of what it was before I retired), I settled on a 22" Performer Premium. I've only had it for a few weeks now and only cooked on it 3 or 4 times (just steaks and burgers so far), but I think I'm going to like it.
![20230421_183547[1].jpg](https://tvwbb.com/data/attachments/70/70897-039ea80764cc575a73df98d1d2689f42.jpg "20230421_183547[1].jpg")
