Are you a pitmaster?

I'd have a hard time claiming the title because I'm always still learning, but I do feel that the term Pitmaster means that one not only know their specific pit, but that they understand the CONCEPT of cooking with fire and smoke and can adapt quickly to any circumstances.

In the relatively short time that I've had the BBQ addiction, I've personally cooked on an ECB, several UDS's, multiple Weber kettles, an upright stickburner, a Jambo, a CTO, kamado style cookers, WSMs, an Orion Cooker and a couple of other diffferent styles of stick burners. I've not done it all, but I truly believe that you could throw me a bag of coal or stack of wood, any smoker and a piece of meat and I could make it happen. Not to say I couldn't screw it up, but I just don't get too intimidated. I've cooked in all kinds of weather and have adapted.

So if the skill of adaptation and knowledge of the BBQ process is what it takes to be a pitmaster, then perhaps I am.



What I DO know is that my ribs beat out both Harbormaster and Chambers on a smoker that was NOT mine and both of THEM owned.

:becky::boxing::laugh:

I consider myself a pit-wrangler.

Lets face it, the fire does all the hard work. It has to sit there all day at 250-350* and not complain. It has to smoke for a couple hours straight, while we sit back and sip our Beam and Cokes and occasionally adjust the damper that controls how much the hot fella is allowed to breathe. Then when the Q is ready, we take it in, claim we made it :crazy:, eat it, then turn around and dump the ash that was once the mighty fire into the compost pile or the yard waste can. It takes a lot of wranglin' to get that fire to do all of that!! :thumb:

I don't know who you are. But I do know what the people want. If you are looking for credentials on paper, I can tell you I don't have many awards. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over many years of tending fires. Skills that make me a pitmaster to people like you. If you learn fire management, that'll be the jest of it all. I will not seek out recognition, I will not say I’am. But if you don't believe in your capabilities on a pit, I will say a pitmaster you are not, I will find a location, set up shop and the people will see the pitmaster I am. :heh:

Nope, because i can make pretty good brisket most of the time (but not everytime).

However, i might be a beermaster . . .

Got a cooking merit badge in Troop 188 Cobra Patrol back in '73, learned to stay warm without burning too much wood as a Ski bum, and cooked riverside for rafting groups on open flame and Dutch ovens in the 80's, but learned a lot in college cooking chickens, chickens and more chickens on a WGA my then girlfriend had back then.
It's more of a journey or voyage than a destination isn't it? Cooking low and slow on a UDS you built yourself? Making your own rubs and sauces?

Learning never ends...

So do you consider yourself a pitmaster? Probably to a degree, yes, but I pretty much learn something new most every day. Frankly, the more I know, the more I realize just how little I actually know.


When was it that you became one and how? Becoming one isn't like turning on a light switch; one minute it's off (your not a Pitmaster) and the next minute it's on (you are). Mastery is about bringing to bear knowledge and skill, which are learned over time, trial and with it comes ERROR, success and failure, and paying attention and learning from both those successes and failure. I started failing back in the early 80's...


Was it winning a competition or at some other point? MANY a great BBQ Pitmaster has never competed. Competitions are for guys who enjoy games. Competitors who win know that it's about more than just being a BBQ Pitmaster, it's about understanding "the game" and competing in "the game", in addition to being a fan-damn-tastic BBQ cook and a Pitmaster.

This said above, I do think that the skills learned and brought forth that are needed to compete effectively and win can carry over when making BBQ for other people, whether in restaurants, catering, or in just preparing large meals for friends.

Up until March 2012, I considered myself a grillmaster. I could 'grill' burgers, dogs, steaks, chicken breasts, etc on my gas grill with the best of them.

I made several batches of pulled pork in the crock pot :icon_blush:

Since then (bought my WSM), I've learned a lot about BBQ'ing. Far from a pitmaster, but I learn lots from the pitmasters on here :idea:

If you turn out Q that is at all decent, your new best friends will all call you a pitmaster!

More like a pitmaster wannabe. :wink:

I know my way around a smoker or Weber kettle and I generally get pretty good results. I don't have the courage to compete (I fear that the judges will not like what I like.) I get plenty of compliments from those I serve including some along the lines of 'best ever.' But I have to face the fact that many of these people have never had really good 'Q.

There are few restaurants that I can go to where the 'Q is better than mine, but that is more a reflection on the restaurants than my skills. I also realize that cooking for myself in my yard and cooking to serve the public in a restaurant are two entirely different things.

There are those who prepare better 'Q than mine for the trade or to win competitions and they are the true pitmasters. I have much to learn before I could even think of rubbing shoulders with them.

OK, I guess I'll actually make a serious reply for once, and not jsut joking around like normal.

I don't call myself a pitmaster, but if someone calls me that I don't correct them either. I just call myself a cooking enthusiast, with extreme outdoor cooking tendencies. Actually, I don't even call myself that, but if someone asks about any hobbies or whatever, I usually say something like "outdoor cooking enthusiast" and when they ask what that means I say "BBQ, grilling, campfire cooking, etc".

There are people out there who I looked up to when starting to cook, still look up to this day, and I still consider them to be the real pitmasters. In thatcase it's a respect thing.

There are also people out there whose cooking skills, outdoors or otherwise, that blow me away. I consider those in this vein who BBQ to be pitmasters as well, particularly comp cooks as the term fits them very well.

For me, I'm not particularly fond of the term when thinking how to describe myself. There are many reasons for that. Part of it is a separation between comp bbq, comp cooking, and non competitive cooking. I almost sort of liken the term to describe accomplished competition BBQ cooks. However, those who do not compete who can cook the absolute living bejeesus out of damn near anything at any given moment are equally deserving of the term "pitmaster" when their cooking is BBQ.

Another reason I'm not fond of the term is that since I associate the word "pitmaster" with "bbq", it clashes with the big time grey area of what I define as "bbq". I do not define BBQ as the four KCBS categories, or comp Q for any other organization. I do not consider it to be only smoked pig, beef or chicken either. For me, BBQ can be so much more, and I have strived to broaden my BBQ cooking horizons as far as I can. I do not want any limitations. Not everyone agrees with this though, and if I BBQ up some sort of SPAM Brownies or something (not something I'm proud of by the way), then I like to consider it "bbq", but not something most people would associate with a "pitmaster", nor do I think they should associate it that way.

It's even more complicated than all that, but in a nutshell, I simply don't like the concept of being confined to a definition by some word. Thus I do not call myself "pitmaster" because that automatically creates a boxed in definition in many peoples minds that I liekly do not fit into.

There aer some serious pitmasters out there though. They deserve to be called as such if they wish to be. Or at least called as such by those who wish to give them proper credit.

Fire_Mgmt said:

I'm more of a pyro than anything else. 'cue is just icing on the cake!

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Did someone say Pyro?



5 inch shells, I was working with a summer ago. Fireworks and BBQ, two of my favorite things.

Mastery of either one, is something I will spend a lifetime trying to achieve.

bigabyte said:

I don't call myself a pitmaster, but if someone calls me that I don't correct them either.

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That's what I was trying to say.

Thanks Biggie.

Fark, I've been married for 17 years and I still haven't figured out women. They are so darn complicated. I can't believe so many people on this site claim an understanding. I think in all honesty I'm really more like a sous chef. I would suspect if you gave it a good hard thought, more like 99.9% of us are really sous chefs. Of course if my wife called me a pitmaster, it would certainly make me feel good.

OK, I admit, I'm a soused chef.

Gore said:

Fark, I've been married for 17 years and I still haven't figured out women. They are so darn complicated. I can't believe so many people on this site claim an understanding. I think in all honesty I'm really more like a sous chef. I would suspect if you gave it a good hard thought, more like 99.9% of us are really sous chefs. Of course if my wife called me a pitmaster, it would certainly make me feel good.

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> still haven't figured out women.

For goodness sake, IF you do, then please patent the information, lets sell it! It's worth a freakin' fortune!!!!!

Soused Chef. Ill drink to that

I think pitmaster has become like the term "chef". In a commercial kitchen, the chef is head of something. Everyone else is just cooks. But in general conversation we tend to call anyone who is cooking a chef.

I think John T Edge gave a great talk one time on the term pitmaster which has lots of racial history behind it.

These days, basically anyone with a grill is a pitmaster. Just as people call someone like Rachael Ray a chef.

Incidentally Paula Deen is actually a chef because she's the leader of her kitchen staff.

Lake Dogs said:

> still haven't figured out women.

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That definitely speaks to my pitmaster abilities. :thumb:
I deleted the unnecessary information in your earlier answer.

Lake Dogs said:

So do you consider yourself a pitmaster? Frankly, the more I know, the more I realize just how little I actually know.

:blah::blah::blah:

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I'm not a master of anything except bation. :biggrin1: I'm just a guy who likes to cook. I don't see people spitting out stuff I cook, and they want me to cook more, so that's good enough for me.

I am not a pitmaster by my definition. Now, I make some dammmmmmmm good Q, but on a much smaller scale and much less often than a true pitmaster. A pitmaster cooks massive quantities on a regular basis and word that he is producing that day makes large crowds come from miles around for an orgasmic taste of heaven.

Now, don't get me wrong...I'm pretty orgasmic! I just like to concentrate on my wife instead of big crowds and I don't do it as often as I used too